Strategic Choice: United States Special Forces' Comparative Advantage in Irregular Warfare
Abstract
Over the last 100 years, strong state actors have struggled to achieve policy goals when involved in conflicts with weaker actors. Irregular Warfare has become the tool of choice for weak opponents to wage war against strong actors such as the United States. Weak actors are achieving more frequent success against powerful opponents by using indirect strategies. This thesis examines the conflict interaction between weak and strong actors. For the strong actor, this thesis identifies that when there is limited political maneuver space, limited resources, and the importance of the objective is less than vital to national security interests, an indirect strategy becomes the most practical approach to combat a weaker opponent using an indirect approach. Using the aforementioned methodology, this thesis concludes that U.S. Army Special Forces have a comparative advantage over conventional forces to provide the National Command Authorities with a means to address indirect threats from weaker actors.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 2017
- Accession Number
- AD1045957
Entities
People
- Steven F. Payne
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School