Crafting Strategy For Irregular Warfare 2nded

Crafting Strategy for
Irregular Warfare
A Framework for Analysis and Action
Second Edition
David H. Ucko and Thomas A. Marks
Crafting Strategy for Irregular
Warfare
Crafting Strategy for Irregular
Warfare: A Framework for
Analysis and Action
National Defense University Press

Washington, D.C.
September 2022
Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within
are solely those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the views of
the Defense Department or any other agency of the Federal Government. Cleared
for public release; distribution unlimited.
Portions of this work may be quoted or reprinted without permission, pro-

vided that a standard source credit line is included. NDU Press would appreciate
a courtesy copy of reprints or reviews.
Cover: ©Brendan Pound. Used with permission.
Second edition, September 2022

Contents
Acknowledgments....................................................................................1
Executive Summary.................................................................................3
Introduction..............................................................................................5
So What Is Irregular Warfare?................................................................8
The U.S. Crisis of Irregular Warfare.....................................................15
The Estimate: An Analytical Framework to Diagnose
Irregular Threats.....................................................................................19
The COA Framework: How to Respond to
Irregular Challenges...............................................................................44
Conclusion..............................................................................................64
Appendix A. Strategic Estimate of the Situation:
A Study Guide.........................................................................................66
Appendix B. The Course of Action: A Study Guide...........................74
Notes........................................................................................................81
About the Authors..................................................................................97

Crafting Strategy for Irregular Warfare
Acknowledgments
The approach discussed in this monograph would not be what it is without
the intense interaction and engagement with our students at the College of Inter-
national Security Affairs (CISA). The singular success of the master of arts and
senior Service school program in irregular warfare pioneered by the college has
resulted from a symbiotic relationship—between academics and practitioners, be-
tween military and civilian voices, and among students from nations around the
world brought together in one classroom. The superb quality of the annual intake,
ranging from officers with their countries’ highest decorations for valor to those
who already held advanced degrees, provides the ideal group to meld theory and
practice. The uniquely international setting has also proved analytically invigorat-
ing and has been a source of invaluable insight regarding different experiences,
methods, and philosophies. We are thankful to CISA students past and present for
the opportunity to learn from them while we teach.
Similarly, little would have been possible without the excellence of the faculty
in the department we both have headed, War and Conflict Studies. In truth, this
work represents contributions of an entire team, the collaboration of which has
refined our thinking and evolved our instruction. Special thanks, then, to Kirklin
Bateman, Bonnie Calabria, John Creamer, Aaron Danis, Matt Dearing, Ted Lars-
en, Denise Marsh, John McNamara, David Oakley, Carlos Ospina-Ovalle, Michael
Sullivan, Magdalena Sunderhaus, Kyle Taylor, David Wigmore, and all those who
have helped shape the pedagogical products that we seek to present in writing.
1
Executive Summary
The 2018 U.S. National Defense Strategy made headlines by officially down-
grading terrorism as a national security priority in favor of “inter-state strategic
competition.” Many interpreted the statement as signifying a return to “conven-
tional combat,” yet a closer reading suggests that even state-based competition is
likely to be “irregular.” Much like insurgent adversaries, revisionist states blend
separate lines of effort to offset military weakness, weaponize narratives to ease
strategic progress, and exploit social and political contradictions to undermine
and divide target societies. This approach is appealing because it allows for gains
that, although incremental, are less likely to face backlash and are therefore more
sustainable. Indeed, it was precisely when Russia abandoned this playbook,
through its conventional invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, that it succeeded
in mobilizing significant local and global resistance, greatly complicating its mili-
tary and political effort. Thus, for several reasons, irregular warfare is likely to be
the strategy of choice for states seeking to contest international order.
The United States, and the West, struggle to understand and respond to ir-
regular warfare, whether by states or nonstate actors. Attempts to master the art
have generated much new jargon, ranging from “hybrid war” to “the gray zone,”
and most recently “integrated deterrence.” The terminology belies a struggle to
overcome entrenched presumptions about war—a confusion that generates cog-
nitive friction with implications for strategy. To inform a better approach, this
monograph presents an analytical framework to assess and respond to irregular
threats. The framework is based on the pedagogical approach of the College of
International Security Affairs (CISA) within the National Defense University
(NDU), the only U.S. irregular warfare college. It is designed to cut through the
analytical ambiguities of irregular warfare and map such strategies to design an ef-
fective counter. Though an analytical framework is no panacea for the malaise fac-
ing Western strategy, it is an indispensable starting point for all that must follow.
3
Introduction
The United States is engaged in a struggle to retain its power and legitimacy.
American leadership has waned since the end of the Cold War, and Russia and
China, detecting a void, are asserting themselves—not only as regional power-
houses but also globally and with the intent to challenge, even surpass, the United
States. Yet unlike the great wars of the 20th century, shifts in power are today more
discreet, incremental, and multifaceted in both method and effect. As demon-
strated amply by the stark Russian attack on Ukraine in February 2022, the un-
disguised use of force is likely to generate a swift backlash and plays to America’s
strengths. In contrast, proper exploitation of influence, narratives, and ambiguity
delays any reaction and makes violence, when used, strategically meaningful.
Irregular warfare has been Russia’s playbook since 1917, and one to which it
will likely return. China also has a long track record with irregular warfare, which
it is now using to subvert the rules-based international order created by the United
States in the aftermath of World War II.1 On a smaller scale, Iran and North Korea
have showcased their acumen with irregular warfare, which they use to empower
viable state and nonstate proxies, build regional power, and amass influence.2 On
aggregate, then, the challenge of irregular warfare is existential to U.S. leader-
ship—to Pax Americana—and to the values that have, at least ostensibly, under-
written this period of international affairs.
None of the above is news to the national security structures of the United
States. In focusing attention on interstate competition, the National Defense Strat-
egy also noted that the main rivals in this competition are blending traditional
security policy with “efforts short of armed conflict . . . expanding coercion to new
fronts, violating principles of sovereignty, exploiting ambiguity, and deliberately
blurring the lines between civil and military goals.”3 Yet despite keen diagnosis,
American policy and security institutions have, in this competition, been found
wanting. Before 9/11, President George W. Bush confidently asserted that “the best
way to keep the peace is to redefine war on our terms,”4 but in today’s irregular
campaigns the United States is finding that it is its adversaries who are setting the
pace.
5
Ucko and Marks
Seeking to remedy this problem, the National Defense Strategy devoted an

annex to developing and institutionalizing capabilities for irregular warfare. Bold-
ly, it stated, “We must not—and will not—repeat the ‘boom and bust’ cycle that
has left the United States underprepared for irregular warfare.”5 A key message
was that irregular warfare belongs not only to the special operations community
that has traditionally been associated with these missions but also with the entire
force, even the entire government, given the multifaceted nature of the attack. To
help prepare for this challenge, in 2021 the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
made irregular warfare an “enduring special area of emphasis,” meaning that the
Armed Forces must study, learn, and prepare for it—indefinitely. These initiatives
are laudable and have prompted an effort at institutionalization. It bears noting,
however, that previous efforts to learn irregular warfare have failed, the current
attempt is under-resourced, and the bureaucratic and cultural obstacles in the way
of change are formidable, both within the Pentagon and beyond.6
The common root to past failure and current malaise is the inability to grasp
the challenge at hand. U.S. security institutions have clung to outdated expecta-
tions concerning interstate warfare and competition and assumed—fatefully—
that their adversaries would do the same.7 Instead, America’s state adversaries have
adapted and sought to offset conventional U.S. military strength, finding within
irregular warfare new lines of attack for which the United States has no effective
counter. The logic is the same as that used by America’s insurgent adversaries—in
Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere—to paralyze the mightiest of military superpow-
ers and, too often, prevail against seemingly impossible odds.
There is irony here, in that the very National Defense Strategy that warned of
interstate competition also sought to dismiss insurgency and terrorism as subsid-
iary concerns.8 As deeper analysis reveals, the two sets of challenges share crucial
traits. Both employ diverse lines of attack to undermine resolve and build leverage,
often by exploiting vulnerabilities within target societies—political, social, or eco-
nomic. Both weaponize narratives to confuse analysis, co-opt contested audiences,
and lower the cost of action. Both also revolve around questions of legitimacy,
or the right to lead, to shape new and long-lasting political realities. Violence,
6
when used, supports this broader strategy, which must therefore be understood
and countered in its entirety, not only by striking targets.
The convergence between state- and nonstate-based strategy should not sur-
prise, in that the approaches of Russia, China, and even Iran and North Korea
are rooted within each country’s foundation through successful insurgency.9 It is
regrettable that the United States, formed through similar circumstances, has so
resolutely decided to forget the lessons of its past. Instead, the United States is
overly reliant on a militarized response to security threats and struggles to cali-
brate this line of effort within a broader strategy and overall convincing message.10
As the United States seeks to learn and react, the first—and, as Carl von
Clausewitz notes, “most far-reaching act of judgment”—is to establish the kind
of war it is embarking on, “neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into,
something that is alien to its nature.”11 When it comes to irregular warfare, this
effort to understand has proved beyond the capacity and culture of the institu-
tion, confounding both analysis and response. Simply put, despite an emerging
lexicon (some might say jargon), security professionals lack a framework that can
untangle the character and logic of the threat, position it meaningfully within its
context, and determine its overall strategy and operational art. Without such anal-
ysis, the prospects for crafting an effective response are low.
The College of International Security Affairs (CISA), a senior Service college
within the National Defense University (NDU) in Washington, DC, has been con-
cerned with irregular warfare since its foundation in 2002.12 To fulfil our mandate
of producing strategists capable of countering irregular challenges, we have de-
vised, and based our curriculum on, an analytical framework of assessment and
action. This framework has evolved over the years, via repeated testing and use in
classroom settings and beyond, to evaluate irregular problems and arrive at a via-
ble response. Throughout, the purpose has been to capture the bewildering aspects
of irregular warfare, its ambiguity, unconventionality, and intangibility. Using the
caseload of relevant precedents and a synthesis of helpful academic perspectives,
the framework aims to identify the essential, to map the problem, and to build a
suitable foundation for the crafting of strategy.
7
Ucko and Marks
To aid educators, students, and practitioners of irregular warfare, this mono-

graph sets out CISA’s framework of analysis and action. It explains the approach to
assessment and strategy-making, thereby providing an analytical tool for today’s
strategic challenges. Yet before proceeding, it is necessary to come to terms with
exactly what we mean by irregular warfare.
So What Is Irregular Warfare?

The Department of Defense (DOD) defines irregular warfare as “a violent
struggle among state and nonstate actors for legitimacy and influence over the
relevant populations.”13 Irregular warfare was traditionally thought to be the pre-
serve of nonstate armed groups, desperate to find a way forward against mighty
states and the resources they can harness. Accordingly, in U.S. military doctrine,
irregular warfare subsumes the missions of fostering and countering insurgencies,
counterterrorism, and stability operations. In these operations, adversaries com-
pete over the shape of society and of politics, centering on such issues as legitima-
cy, credibility, and effective mobilization. As history bears out, if a nonstate actor
can succeed on these fronts, it may offset its comparative weakness in firepower.
As should be evident, state actors also face the dilemma of exerting themselves
against conventionally superior foes. To one senior Indian general, the lessons of
the overwhelming U.S. military victory in the 1991 Gulf War were clear: “Never
fight the Americans without nuclear weapons.”14 As many others have found, there
are more practical ways of going about it, within the irregular techniques practiced
by insurgents and guerrillas. Irregular warfare “favors indirect warfare and asym-
metric warfare approaches” to direct military confrontation and seeks “to erode
the adversary’s power, influence, and will” until the military balance is favorable,
and the use of force becomes both viable and strategically meaningful.15 For states,
irregular warfare might entail sponsoring terrorism and insurgency abroad, en-
gaging in subversion and nonmilitary coercion, infiltrating targeted societies and
governments, and undermining the legitimacy of other states. This is now the
playbook for most U.S. state adversaries and rivals.
Despite growing usage of the term to describe this trend, irregular warfare
raises two sets of difficulties, one relating to “irregularity” and the other to “war-
8
fare.” These weaknesses are significant and betray the pathologies of the system
charged with response. First, irregular warfare and its related terms are defined in
contradistinction to their antonym—in this case, regular warfare (or traditional
warfare as per U.S. military usage), which is upheld as more common. Regular
warfare refers to militarily decisive contests, wherein victory belongs to the better
armed and most operationally capable force. These confrontations are assumed to
be direct and unambiguous, rapid and climactic, and, while lethal, also conclusive.
It is likewise within the history of regular warfare that one finds the greatest U.S.
victories. Thus, despite heavy casualties in these campaigns, regular warfare is also
what the U.S. Government and military have focused on and come to expect, at
least implicitly. In contrast, and perhaps because of this prioritization, U.S. adver-
saries have time and again forced it into irregular confrontations, wherein the em-
phasis is on politics and legitimacy and wars that are difficult to gauge and to end.
All while facing irregular challenges at far greater regularity than conventional
combat operations, the U.S. military establishment persists with a vocabulary that
privileges comfort zones over cold realities. As a result, despite several high-level
directives to prioritize irregular warfare and its subsidiary missions, DOD tends
to treat them, ultimately, as adjuncts to its “core mission”—to “fight and win the
nation’s wars”—and these do not include what once were actually termed “military
operations other than war.”16 Even as the National Defense Strategy spoke loudly of
the need to institutionalize irregular warfare capabilities, this effort was included
only as an annex to the main text, so that while its wording emphasized the im-
portance of mastering this art, its placement suggested a rather different priori-
tization.17 The term irregular warfare was then largely absent from the follow-on
2022 National Defense Strategy, though the document’s overall characterization of
warfare rightly acknowledged its complex and ambiguous nature. Still, the ques-
tion is whether such wording will suffice, given the entrenched norms and budgets
of the institution.
The second difficulty with irregular warfare as a term is that by invoking the
word warfare, it presupposes a military confrontation. As seen, the definition
specifies that—notwithstanding any ambiguity in the art—irregular warfare is in-
herently “a violent struggle.” This qualification justifies the allusion to warfare, but
9
Ucko and Marks
it should be recalled that the violence in irregular warfare is often deliberately am-
biguous or even implicit—until suddenly it is not. Russian Chief of General Staff
General Valery Vasilyevich Gerasimov notes perceptively that in contemporary
conflict, “The open use of forces—often under the guise of peacekeeping and crisis
regulation—is resorted to only at a certain stage, primarily for the achievement of
final success in the conflict.”18 This philosophy is congruent with Sun Tzu’s apho-
rism that “supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without
fighting” or to attack only when one is in a superior position.19 Often, therefore,
irregular warfare will not look like warfare at all.
This ambiguity makes it difficult to delineate where strategic competition ends
and irregular warfare begins. It is perhaps also for this reason that the Pentagon,
in the irregular warfare annex, elided the mention of violence as a definitional
marker of irregular warfare, a subtle but meaningful shift that looks likely to shape
future doctrine. Going further, it might be better to do away with the language of
warfare altogether, to obviate the typical U.S. militarization of security challenges
that are not primarily military in nature.20 Certainly, such a move might enable
the inclusion of civilian and international partners who see no role for themselves
within any type of “warfare.” On the other hand, demilitarizing irregular warfare
in this manner risks losing sight of its essential grounding in coercion, which can
range from low-level violence or even threats thereof to outright conventional
combat formations contributing to an irregular warfare strategy, as seen in Co-
lombia’s fight against FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), during the Vietnam War, or—argu-
ably—during the latest conventional phase of Russia’s war on Ukraine (given its
continued struggle over the legitimacy of that nation-state, the blending, along-
side conventional force, of many other, far more ambiguous and subversive lines
of attack, and the strategic clash therein between contending narratives and of
worldviews).21
Irregular warfare blends war and peace. It features an admixture of nonvio-
lence and violence. The definitional criterion, therefore, is not whether violence
is used at any given time or place, or even the type of violence, but the strategic
intent: to erode or build legitimacy and influence via a combination of hidden and
10
visible methods, to include—at some point—the use or threat of coercion. The

project must be seen at this strategic level, as it is this intent and focus that inform
the purpose and logic of subsidiary actions taken, be they seemingly unwarlike or
obviously belligerent. When an insurgent group is providing medical services, or
distributing aid, it is for the same strategic reason as it engages in terrorism and
violent attack—to build or erode legitimacy and forge a path to victory.22 When
it quietly and nonviolently mobilizes societal support, it is to assist the eventual
seizure of power. The broader project, and intent, is irregular warfare.
At an interstate level, China’s strategy for world domination provides a crucial
parallel. So far, its global quest for power has been mercifully bereft of outright vi-
olence, featuring instead growing economic ties, investment and loans, along with
generous servings of subversion and information operations.23 Still, this global ef-
fort can rightly be seen as a massive shaping operation for a future military con-
frontation with the United States (a showdown that might not even be necessary if
U.S. resolve can be so eroded during peacetime that it opts not to fight even when
core interests are threatened). Of course, China has no stark dichotomy between
war and peace. In Beijing’s approach, these two are not opposites, as commonly
held in the West, but two facets of one struggle. It is just this embrace of war and
peace as one that allows America’s foes to focus on the business at hand while the
United States remains enmeshed in debates on terminology. Still, this debate is
more than semantic, as responding to a strategy that is deliberately deceptive and
polymorphous will require keen analysis, flexible authorities, and broad capabili-
ties to deter and respond appropriately across the spectrum of engagement.
Highly imperfect, irregular warfare seems here to stay, as both a term and a
phenomenon. Rather than be paralyzed by semantic jousting, the wiser approach
is to capture the essence of the challenge not through definitions but descriptions:
to temper our concern with terminological precision in favor of a common under-
standing of key features. If these features describe how war is, we best get used to
it, regardless of what we call it. On this basis, three main characteristics warrant
our attention, as they explain the inherent ambiguity of the irregular approach and
its appeal to a wide range of actors, both nonstate and state.
11
Ucko and Marks
First, irregular warfare blends disparate lines of effort (LOE) to engage in

the contest for legitimacy. It compensates for weakness in one area, typically raw
military might, by bringing other efforts into play. In Iraq, Afghanistan, and else-
where, insurgency has blended terrorism and other forms of violence with a range
of nonmilitary efforts: governance, service delivery, mobilization, and legitima-
tion. Among insurgents, the approach was perhaps best conceptualized, and also
executed, by the Vietnamese and their “war of interlocking.”24 What occurs in the
realm of violence is critical, but it gains meaning through its symbiotic relation
with other efforts: what the actor is doing politically, through alliances and non-
violence (also known as political warfare), and by internationalizing the struggle.25
These LOE must therefore be interrogated and countered as doggedly as the more
high-profile use of violence.
The blended approach is also a distinguishing feature of state-based irregular
strategy. The 2018 National Defense Strategy speaks of state powers “using corrup-
tion, predatory economic practices, propaganda, political subversion, proxies, and
the threat or use of military force to change facts on the ground.”26 When Russia
was most effective in Ukraine—that is to say, prior to its February 2022 escala-
tion—it combined its use of violence with political, economic, and informational
efforts: disinformation, extortion, international “negotiations,” and governance in
the occupied territories. Similarly, Iran’s sponsorship of militia across the Middle
East involves not only the provision of weaponry but also political and social men-
torship so as to create the popular base needed for longer term control.27 Histori-
cally, North Korea has done the same.28 China’s occupation of the South China Sea
has been predominantly nonviolent, using instead civilian and economic efforts,
although it is anchored in a shared awareness of underlying military realities.29
While this nonviolent effort secures territory along with trade and communica-
tions routes, it is also setting the conditions for an eventual assault on Taiwan,
either threatened or carried out when necessary.30 In the Chinese theorization, vic-
tory stems from the blending of “all means, including armed force or non-armed
force”; in the Russian vernacular, it stems from “the broad use of political, eco-
nomic, informational, humanitarian, and other nonmilitary measures.”31
12
The second facet of irregular warfare is its exploitation of social and political
contradictions to delegitimize the adversary and gain leverage. Targeting the pres-
sure points of society can help sap morale, create rifts, and motivate violent politi-
cal change. It is in this manner that terrorist groups become successful insurgents.
Much as the so-called Islamic State exploited Sunni-Shia rivalries in Iraq to rally a
popular base and pry society apart, so did Russia in Ukraine, using issues of iden-
tity, language, and religion. In Georgia and Moldova, Russia has exploited active
legacies concerning minority rights to establish a firm foothold, which can then
be used to generate power and influence. It should not be missed that the United
States continues to be targeted in this manner, as it was also during the Cold War.32
Similarly, China has proved adept at using the economic vulnerability of tar-
get societies to create a strategic foothold, much as it did in Sri Lanka and Cam-
bodia, where it effectively has acquired maritime bases. Across the world, the de-
pendence on Chinese economic support allows Chinese actors to set the terms of
engagement, resulting in a lack of transparency in trade negotiations, unchecked
Chinese involvement in illegal activities (ranging from illegal fishing to organized
crime to leveraging corruption), and the careful management of what can be said
and done in international fora.33 Also in the United States, the Chinese Commu-
nity Party is using the country’s reliance on Chinese funds, markets, and invest-
ment to create pockets of support, or of acquiescence, that delay and stymie a
united American societal response to growing Chinese political warfare on U.S.
soil. This exploitation of vulnerabilities is what makes fostering societal resilience
a key defense against irregular warfare.34 Irregular warfare is armed politics—it is
primarily about politics—and mobilization is key.
Third, because of its emphasis on mobilization, narratives are central to irreg-
ular warfare. They not only describe and explain reality but also achieve buy-in for
political projects or shroud the nature of actions taken. Writing in 2006, Lawrence
Freedman recognized the growing strategic salience of narratives, describing them
as “designed or nurtured with the intention of structuring the responses of others
to developing events.”35 Indeed, storylines can disguise unfavorable realities, align
the political project with its supposed stakeholders, and close off legitimate entry
points for intervention. In this light, scholars like Joseph Nye and John Arquilla
13
Ucko and Marks
state starkly that, in contemporary conflict, “Victory may sometimes depend not
on whose army wins, but on whose story wins.”36 Put differently, the point is to win
the narrative before one wins the war. Framing the contest as other than it is serves
as a central element of the approach.
Perhaps the prime nonstate example of this principle was the so-called Is-
lamic State, which, by the time it launched its offensive in 2014, had already won
a psychological battle through the mass production and precise targeting of social
media messaging. Spewing out, at times, 40,000 tweets per day, the group created
the virtual equivalent of a mass movement, hijacking the slogans of rival Sunni
insurgent groups and intimidating ordinary Iraqis, including its military, into
submission.37 Through the dissemination of propaganda, memes, and guidance, it
has managed to survive its loss of a physical counterstate and is focusing instead
on creating a deterritorialized surrogate and a transnational movement that can
sponsor and frame violent attack.38
State actors, too, use strategic narratives as a force multiplier for armed ac-
tion. Through framing, they create an alternative reality.39 If actions taken can be
presented as going “with the grain” of local want, any gains made become more
sustainable and difficult to undo. Thus, Chinese policy is now driven by the so-
called Tacitus trap, emphasizing the need for government to retain credibility with
the citizenry: “Neither good nor bad policies would please the governed if the gov-
ernment is unwelcome.”40 In 2003, China revised the “Political Work Guidelines
of the People’s Liberation Army” and advanced the concepts of “public opinion
warfare,” “psychological warfare,” and “legal warfare.”41 For similar reasons, in his
commentary on the nature of contemporary conflict, General Gerasimov spoke of
“the protest potential of the population” as a driving force in political campaigns—
if “people power” can be harnessed, by hook or by crook, the strategy becomes
more irresistible.42 To counter such action requires both credibility and resonance,
but these are also the main targets of adversarial information campaigns and are
difficult to regain once lost.
Legitimacy quickly emerges as a leitmotif in irregular warfare, but this is a
central definitional point often lost in analysis. It must be emphasized that irregu-
lar warfare does not primarily denote an asymmetry in military approaches (con-
14
ventional versus guerrilla) or in legal status (state versus nonstate), but rather a
struggle defined by its objective: “to undermine and erode an adversary’s power,
influence, and will to exercise political authority over a civilian population.”43 As
implied, the minimum requirement is not to build but rather to erode legitimacy,
a far easier task but one with potentially debilitating consequences. This reality
drives home that legitimacy is not quantitative. As with all relationships in irregu-
lar warfare, it is the correlation of tangible and intangible forces which drives the
outcome.
For all this, irregular warfare is not new. For most of our history, warfare has
been irregular. War is a violent form of organized collective contestation. It is a
bloody escalation of political and social strife, and its results, if they are to stick,
must be consolidated through the continued application of politics. Certainly, the
military intensity of warfare can increase or fall, but this concerns only the compo-
sition and capabilities of fielded forces; it does not displace the nature of warfare as
an intensely political contest. As such, it is really the notion of conventional wars
that is aberrational. At best, it is a flawed heuristic that ignores the purpose of war
by artificially separating it from its sociopolitical antecedents and outcomes. At
worst, it sets up expectations about the utility of force that seldom survive scrutiny,
resulting in one strategic blunder after the other. These points are not new but bear
repeating, in the hope of eroding a “conventional war mindset” deeply entrenched
in Western strategic thinking but severely lacking in utility.
The U.S. Crisis of Irregular Warfare

Irregular warfare should not be mystifying. If war is “nothing but the continu-
ation of policy with other means”—that foundational dictum of Clausewitz—it
follows that the exchange of military hostilities must be understood within and
reflect the political context of which it forms a part.44 Nevertheless, despite exten-
sive experience with irregular warfare, it has proved exceptionally challenging for
the United States to internalize and prepare for warfare in its true political sense.
Perhaps it is, as Christopher Coker suggests, that the United States, the world’s
greatest military power, is Clausewitzian mainly “in its own imagination.”45 Either
15
Ucko and Marks
way, irregular warfare tests the standard U.S. military repertoire and highlights its
failure to expend effort on a broader, more flexible, and more relevant response.
The frustration is in part a function of strategic culture, which in the case
of the United States seems largely incompatible with the fundamental precepts
of irregular warfare. The military effort is but one part of a much more complex
political endeavor, the struggle is protracted, its gains ambiguous, and engage-
ment requires patience, a deep understanding of society and the world, and the
resilience to stomach setbacks and compromise.46 Indeed, returning to the three
facets of irregular warfare detailed above, it is as if this phenomenon was designed
to bedevil American strategic culture.
As irregular adversaries seek out societal vulnerabilities to exploit, they find
an increasingly divided America. The Russian hack of 2016 U.S. Presidential elec-
tion was effective in manipulating America’s many rifts, and others will have taken
note.47 Even in its response to a deadly pandemic, as with the COVID-19 crisis,
U.S. society gave proof of exceptionally deep fractures and polarization, compli-
cating a national, never mind societal, response and providing entry points for
adversaries to use.48 In case the domestic disunity be mistaken as an aberration
spurred by today’s unprecedented circumstances, analysts such as Charles Kup-
chan and Peter Trubowitz noted, as early as 2007, the growth—since the 1970s—of
growing polarization, both of U.S. politics and society, stemming from the “Red-
Blue divide, the income inequalities driven by globalization, and the ideological
homogenization of the parties”—all factors that they “expected to intensify” with
time.49
Compounding the issue of domestic fracture, the United States most com-
monly engages in irregular warfare abroad, and so the vulnerabilities being ex-
ploited are those not just of American society but also of partner governments.
Not surprisingly, the United States struggles with the admittedly delicate task of
prodding these governments toward necessary reforms it cannot itself execute. In
Iraq and Afghanistan, great expenditure and sacrifice amounted, in central mo-
ments, to stunningly limited influence over key issues with conflict-generating
potential: in Iraq, the treatment of the Sunni minority, and in Afghanistan, the
political and economic malpractice of the regime.
16
Similarly, we see minimal sway over those nations targeted by state use of
irregular warfare. Witness the Philippines’ continued confusion as to how to ap-
proach China (leading to its vacillation on whether to maintain the Philippine-
U.S. Visiting Forces Agreement), or the great difficulty locally to discredit fully
Russia’s disinformation within Georgia, Bulgaria, and other states in the region.
U.S. efforts, from 2014 to 2022, to help Ukraine counter corruption can be cited
as a relative success story, intended to close off entry points for Russian subver-
sion and propaganda. Even here, however, some assert insufficient progress was
made.50 Generally, the West’s leverage relies on sticks that seem only to alienate
and carrots that others provide more cheaply and with fewer conditions.
Furthermore, the focus on narratives within irregular warfare has befuddled
the U.S. Government, almost by design, as it is legally and morally restricted from
engaging in informational operations domestically or from controlling the me-
dia.51 Queasy about its role in the battle of ideas, the U.S. Government lacks the
instruments to explain its actions, promote its values, or challenge disinformation.
Frequent calls to resuscitate the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) make the point
but also misremember the agency as more than what it was. As Matt Armstrong
concludes, the “United States never properly armed itself, and especially not with
USIA, for the cold reality of the political warfare it was embroiled in.”52 It might
also be argued that, in an era where information is instantly everywhere, it is insuf-
ficient to have just one organization devoted to strategic communications.
Today, that organization is the Global Engagement Center (GEC) within the
Department of State. The center was created to combat disinformation and online
radicalization, initially by the Islamic State, but is now focusing predominantly on
state-based information campaigns. It has learned valuable lessons from America’s
initial forays into the information domain and plays a key role in overall U.S. Gov-
ernment efforts at communication. Regardless, as a sign of the State Department’s
overall limited capacity, this organization is underfunded and staffed mainly with
contractors and detailees from DOD.53 In 2021, the U.S. Congress agreed to autho-
rize an additional $150 million for the GEC, effectively doubling its funding, yet
the U.S. investment in information still lags behind its major state rivals. Not only
is the initiative insufficient in telling America’s version of events; the U.S. Govern-
17
Ucko and Marks
ment appears to lack a clear script or sense of narrative that could help it gain cred-
ibility and legitimacy outside of American borders and beyond its strongest allies.
Finally, whereas America’s adversaries successfully blend military with non-
military LOE, the U.S. response is driven by its lopsided budget, wherein DOD
claims nearly half the country’s discretionary spending.54 This resource allocation
reflects entrenched views on what constitutes strategic capability and predisposes
the government toward a militarized foreign policy. When relevant institutions
are starved of resources or not included in the crafting of a response, the United
States struggles to achieve the blended statecraft required for irregular warfare.55 It
has many terms for the type of action needed—a whole-of-government response, a
comprehensive approach, smart power, or integrated deterrence—but none of these
monikers has affected budget realities or cultural proclivities.
Left standing is the military with its significant resources. But is it relevant?
Though the U.S. military must retain its conventional deterrent, it finds itself sty-
mied when confrontations deliberately eschew that level of intensity. In recogni-
tion of this trend, in May 2018, the Joint Chiefs of Staff released a report on the
challenge of applying the “American military when adversarial behavior falls be-
low the threshold that would trigger a direct response.”56 Four years on, the work
has had a clear impact on concepts and doctrine, which both focus increasingly
on the so-called competition continuum, ranging from cooperation to competi-
tion and finally to armed conflict. Still, beyond some exciting anecdotal evidence,
changes in organization, capability, or—as important—culture have been more
difficult to discern. In contrast, China has historically included “political warfare”
as a branch of its armed forces—an orientation that follows Mao Zedong’s exhor-
tation that “the Chinese Red Army is an armed body for carrying out the political
tasks of the revolution. . . . Without these objectives, fighting loses its meaning.”57
A different approach to statecraft is needed, yet this calls for a new way of
thinking about, analyzing, and responding to irregular warfare. This is the chal-
lenge that we seek to meet at CISA—not only or primarily for the United States
but for all of partner nations targeted by subversion and attack. The analytical
tools and frameworks that we provide in our curriculum are designed specifically
to address the deliberate ambiguity of irregular warfare and to ensure we cap-
18
ture its essence and address its main components. Our analytical framework has
two parts, one of analysis and one of response. Much like the Military Decision-
Making Process, the analysis generates a strategic estimate of the situation, which is
then used to formulate a course of action (COA) to guide response. The remainder
of this monograph walks through these two parts of this framework and, thereby,
provides a guide for students and practitioners engaged with the most pressing
irregular challenges of the day.58 An appendix provides a synopsis of both parts of
the framework—the estimate and the course of action—and can be used as a study
guide or aide memoire to facilitate application.
In presenting a guide in this manner, a clarification on usage. This framework
has been designed as a series of prompts, or questions, presented in a sequence
found to enable optimal analysis and response to irregular warfare challenges, but
it is not a checklist. The framework enables interrogation of irregular warfare prob-
lem sets. It does not predetermine what content or arguments should be included
within its elements or in the final analysis. It forces attention to the broader aspects
of irregular warfare, but it is still the analyst who must weave together the relevant
data, make the case, and draw appropriate conclusions. As Hew Strachan warns,
“Strategy uses theoretical insights to question real events in a bid to shape them
according to the needs of policy, but as soon as strategy allows the expectations of
theory to lessen its grasp of what is really happening it has allowed theory to be
its master rather than its tool.”59 This is neither the function nor the intent of this
framework.
The Estimate: An Analytical Framework to Diagnose Irregular

Threats
As seen, Clausewitz considered it the “most far-reaching act of judgment” of
the statesman and commander to identify the type of war being embarked on.60
To French Marshal Ferdinand Foch, strategy was fundamentally about applying
knowledge to real life; hence his key question, de quoi s’agit-il? (“What is it all
about?”).61 In practice, however, the strategic process all too often begins with so-
lutions, resulting in interventions that are “blind to context, and politics in par-
ticular” and that rely “on ‘best practice’ tactics” rather than a response tailored to
19
Ucko and Marks
the situation at hand.62 This approach is both counterproductive and disturbingly

common.63
To encourage a better starting point for strategic planning, the CISA frame-
work devotes almost half of its energies to developing a Strategic Estimate of the
Situation. This estimate queries the nature of the problem to be addressed. It un-
packs a complex situation, places it in political context, and maps the strategies
and interests of its various players, thereby examining and critiquing our own
approach. The point of this exercise is to identify relevant opportunities and ob-
stacles to help design a better way forward—one closely informed by the nature of
the problem to be addressed.
As illustrated in figure 1, the strategic estimate comprises five main compo-
nents: the problem statement, the roots of the problem, the frame and narrative,
the threat strategy, and the critique of the present government response. In com-
bination, these analytical components cover the main facets of irregular warfare:
◆ the drivers of mobilization
◆ the adversary’s framing, or way of seeing the world
◆ the multifaceted approach applied by the challenger
◆ the strengths and weaknesses of the current government response.
All these components, fleshed out below, are distilled and integrated to fill the first
“box,” namely the problem statement.
Figure 1. Graphical Representation of the Strategic Estimate

Framework
FRAME & THREAT PRESENT
PROBLEM ROOTS NARRATIVE STRATEGY RESPONSE
What is the What grievances How does the What is its theory State perception
political issue? and factors sustain threat frame and of success and
the threat? justify its cause? strategy (E-W-M)? State response
Why conflict and (E-W-M)
what form? Does it resonate? What is threat COG
and critical Evaluation and
vulnerabilities? critique
20
Methodologically, the strategic estimate framework draws on a range of influ-

ences. To map the threat behavior and repertoire, it uses the military assessment
of operational art, but this type of analysis has been elevated to the strategic level
by incorporating intangible factors along with nonmilitary concerns. To explain
the role of grievance mediation, mobilization, and strategic communications, it
uses the insights of social movement theory and sociology in general. In blending
these lenses and approaches, the Estimate can be used to assess contestation both
within society and between state actors, or wherever the concern is a struggle over
legitimacy marked by politics, narratives, and power. On this basis, the Estimate is
applicable to a broad range of actors, to include armed groups and criminal syn-
dicates, online movements and virtual networks, states and their proxies, or even
nonviolent social movements, with each estimate used to generate unique analyti-
cal findings and recommendations for response. The point throughout is to grasp
the full breadth of the strategy at play and to situate it within its crucial political,
social, and economic context.
With that said, nothing in the framework is particularly controversial or even
complicated. Its utility lies in its simplicity and structure. It unpacks and sequences
analysis in a way that allows the systematic identification and study of what mat-
ters. The lack of such a structure has given rise to not only incomplete analysis but
also unnecessary polemics as to which part of the problem to privilege: its causes
or its symptoms, the adversary or our strategy, the ideology or its resonance. This
framework considers all these questions in turn to allow for a comprehensive map-
ping of the problem, necessary for the crafting of a response. Indeed, the estimate
is not intended as an endstate; it does not admire the problem but provides prac-
titioners in charge of response with a foundation to plan from. With this telos in
mind, the following section explains the five components of the strategic estimate
framework.
The Problem Statement

Even though the problem statement is placed first in the order of things, as the
synopsis of the entire estimate it cannot be completed until the other components
have been fully interrogated. Its intent is to capture, concisely and precisely, the
21
Ucko and Marks
essence and particular logic of the problem at hand: the political issue underlying
the confrontation, the nature of the actor and strategy faced, and the main reasons
why they have proved so difficult to address. Key is to identify the direction of the
conflict based on current trends: who is benefiting, who is hurting, and why does
it matter?
When engaging with these questions, the problem statement must be as pro-
found as it is concise. In a rushed world of “bottom lines upfront” and “elevator
pitches,” there is inherent merit to analytical brevity. Yet going further, this crys-
tallization of analysis into a precise problem statement is also a strategic exercise
in that it forces careful reflection on what is truly important. As such, it hones the
mind to prioritize, to unlock the puzzle, and to justify convincingly the need for a
new approach. Since such analytical clarity presupposes a rich foundation to draw
from, the remainder of the strategic estimate must be executed and completed
before attempting this final synthesis.
Roots of the Conflict

This takes us to roots. This analytical component identifies the political, social,
and economic contradictions that the threat benefits from or exploits to erode or
build legitimacy. Questions of identity, inequality, corruption, or state predation
might be generating support for a challenger promising reform or might deprive
the state of legitimacy, and any of these require some form of redress as part of a
comprehensive response. To inform such action, the roots section asks the analyst
to identify the drivers that fuel the threat and whose mitigation would help repair
past harm and build resilience against future rupture.
How to identify drivers? In some cases, the process can seem deceptively sim-
ple. Any witness to the Philippines’ EDSA (People Power) Revolution of February
1986 would have had no difficulty in identifying what drove two million people to
act: Ferdinand Marcos’s corrupt dictatorship and a yearning to restore democracy.
Similarly, it was indubitably the politico-economic and ideological domination of
the Soviet Union that, in 1989, compelled a similar number of Estonians, Latvians,
and Lithuanians to form an almost 700-kilometer-long human chain across these
22
three Baltic States. In these instances, cause and effect are closely tied, though
questions still obtain about who participates, how, and who does not, and why.
In other instances, however, and particularly where violence is involved,
grievances tend to present far more varied effects, forcing the analyst to query
more specifically the relationship between context and conduct.64 Not only is
there, then, a need to interrogate which root causes truly matter, but also what
their effect is, on whom, and why.
The line of thinking sets up a distinction between structure and agency that
can engender interminable debate as to the causative factors behind alienation and
violence. Consider Islamist radicalization among Muslims in the United King-
dom: is it the systemic problem of failed integration (a root cause) that fuels the
problem, or is it the individual psychology among the exceedingly few Muslims
who radicalize—a tiny proportion of the whole?65 Are white nationalist groups
in the United States a product of economic and social desperation, producing a
susceptibility to extremist ideology, or are their members simply racist deplorables
regardless of circumstance? The former explanation fails to account for the many
“dogs that do not bark” (that is, those subjected to similar structural factors but
who choose another path), whereas the latter raises the question of why, for some,
this noxious ideology resonated in the first place.
The framework presented here eschews an either/or resolution to this ques-
tion in favor of analytical integration. Such integration draws on the insights of
social movement theory and its three lenses of analysis to assess collective con-
tention: the macro level (the structure or context), the micro level (the agent or
individual), and the meso level (the group or collective actor as an intermediary
between the self and the system). Analysis must interrogate the ways in which
context (macro) drives certain individuals (micro) to embrace or join movements
(meso) as a mechanism for change. Where that movement is actively using vio-
lence to achieve its agenda, it must be asked why it has adopted this strategy and
how this choice has affected its continued ability to speak for a base. Answers
cannot be found through any one lens, but rather by identifying their unique in-
teraction in each case. This is how drivers may be determined and, ultimately,
addressed.
23
Ucko and Marks
By means of illustration, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, U.S. involvement in
the Vietnam War and its domestic racial tensions created significant macro-level
grievances, resulting in the mobilization of large numbers of micro-level individu-
als. Yet importantly, not all individuals were driven to action. As sociologist Doug
McAdam points out, one key intervening variable was simply the “biographic
availability” of the individual, or his or her opportunity to engage in political ac-
tivism at that point in life, given other commitments and obligations.66 Other fac-
tors obtained, diversifying further the relationship between macro and micro: the
grievances resonated with many, but not all, and only certain individuals among
those affected were willing and able to act.
Among those galvanized, many meso options presented themselves: legal ver-
sus illegal, direct versus indirect, violent versus nonviolent. In this instance, most
chose legal avenues of contestation—protest movements, demonstrations, and
other forms of dissent—though a minority joined violent groups such as the Black
Panthers and the Weather Underground. This pattern of participation needed to
be understood to formulate a measured and appropriate response for each form of
protest. In a worst-case scenario, a state will repress nonviolent members, perhaps
because they are far easier to reach and thereby inadvertently boost the move-
ment’s violent splinters.
If violence is the concern, analysts must query why it is being used. Two key
variables obtain. First, sociology suggests a central variable relates to the perceived
political opportunity structure. Where there exist no realistic opportunities for
reform through peaceful engagement in politics, violent solutions will typically
garner more support.67 This is particularly the case when the system responds to
demands for mediation with violence.
In the United States of the late 1960s, despite flaws in its democracy and an
occasionally violent response to protest, most citizens who felt compelled to act
had sufficient faith in the political opportunity structure to work through it rather
than seek its overthrow. Because of this overarching faith in the system, violent
groups such as the Weather Underground found it difficult to establish broad-
based support and to survive in the open, forcing them to hide away from the
very society they sought to change.68 The grievances voiced by this group were
24
broad based, but the perceived opportunities for peaceful redress were such that
the Weather Underground remained an unrepresentative violent fringe, acting on
its own rather than as a vanguard of a broader movement. Conversely, given the
racism of 1960s America, the Black Panthers enjoyed an entirely and far more
successful relationship with its social base, which faced a different opportunity
structure and therefore made different choices about how to protest. Such distinc-
tions are key and should be a major consideration in deciding how to respond to
different violent actors and the structural factors that drive their membership.69
Ideology emerges as the second, yet related, variable in explaining an actor’s
resort to violence. Even an open democratic system will be insufficient to an en-
tity driven by millenarian intent or revolutionary zeal. An actor such as Osama
bin Laden would never be interested in democratic grievance mediation, and it
is furthermore difficult to imagine what such a process would resemble. Where
violently overthrowing the system is the aim, no blockage or broadening of the
political opportunity structure will suffice and so the state must instead ensure
that the threat’s worldview does not come to resonate among would-be followers.
Therein lies the continued need for some form of political mobilization to retain
legitimacy for the state and ensure those who insist on violence remain ideologi-
cally isolated and politically alone.
These variables complicate the assessment of drivers. It is insufficient to
consider the mere incidence of violence as proof of its representativeness, even
where grievances are broad based. On the other hand, it is also hazardous to dis-
miss reflexively violent attacks or agendas as “violent extremism,” for they may
be powered by genuine societal and political cleavages that should in some way
be acknowledged and addressed. In short, each scenario must be assessed on its
own merits, considering its unique interaction between macro-level context, mi-
cro-level participation, and meso-level standing and behavior. In some instanc-
es, structural factors will produce a veritable conveyer belt of recruits; this is the
“people power” that has changed the fate of empires and that underpins Mao’s
conception of People’s War. In other contexts, participation is minimal, as with the
Weather Underground. In yet other cases, participation is coerced and a matter
of desperation, simply because the state is not providing options or protection.
25
Ucko and Marks
FARC’s ability to commandeer local populations within Colombia’s hinterland is

a case in point. The distinction is significant, as each situation requires a different
understanding of the role of grievances in perpetuating violence and, therefore, a
different type of response.
This same search for the causative drivers of conflict, blending structure with
agency, is relevant also to state-based irregular warfare challenges. As much as
insurgents exploit grievances among specific communities to win support and as-
sert themselves, states weaponize these same types of issues to divide targeted so-
cieties and establish power. Russia is actively using ethnic tensions in Georgia, or
minority rights in Moldova, as levers; Iran uses deep anti-Israeli and anti-Western
sentiment to mobilize proxies and support; China capitalizes on financial weak-
ness, corruption, and the double-dealing by elites in the societies it targets for
its economic imperialism; and so on. Much as affected societies should defend
against the exogenous threat, they must also consider the endogenous causes that
the threat is exploiting. What macro-level grievances, if any, are driving micro-
level citizens to succumb to the narrative or ploy pushed by outsiders? Are those
who turn against the state a misinformed minority—Vladimir Lenin’s “useful idi-
ots”—or are they part of a more significant grouping that feels wronged by their
own government? Why does the threat strategy work in some cases and in some
places but not in others? And what can the state do, by way of addressing such
vulnerability, to defend itself and build resilience?
There is a second purpose to analyzing the Roots for state-based irregular
challenges. Given the strong presence of an external actor in fanning the flames
of domestic strife, it is worth identifying the factors that drive not only its hostile
intent but also its choice of strategy. Why is Russia undermining the sovereignty of
its near-abroad via active measures and political warfare? Why is Iran infiltrating
the governments of its neighbors and interfering in other countries much further
afield? Why did elements of the Pakistani government sponsor the Taliban? What
factors are driving these states to act? Could addressing these factors in some way
change either their motivation or their approach? Identifying the motives and
strategic choices made can help inform a constructive strategy, though deciding
what to do with this information remains a difficult matter of policy and politics.
26
Frame and Narrative

In Jean Lartéguy’s Centurions, Amar, a leader of Algeria’s Front de Libération
Nationale, illustrates the value of ideas in irregular warfare. Conversing with a
French colonial officer, he explains:
There’s only one word for me: Istiqlal, independence. It’s a deep,
fine-sounding word and rings in the ears of the poor fellahin more
loudly than poverty, social security or free medical assistance.
We Algerians, steeped as we are in Islam, are in greater need of
dreams and dignity than practical care. And you? What word
have you got to offer? If it’s better than mine, then you’ve won.70
The exchange demonstrates the decisive role of meaning, or the importance of

framing struggles in a way that resonates with relevant populations. Indeed, fram-
ing and narratives are central to irregular warfare—contests, it should be recalled,
in which perceptions of legitimacy aggregate into political power.
Two facets of the issue are at hand. First, the way those alienated from the
existing order assess it and present their way forward must be discerned. The fatal
flaw of “mirror imaging” is to see our assessment or thought as theirs. Second, as
in all politics, the armed political challenge must present its understanding in such
manner that it convinces and hence serves as the basis for mobilization.
This insight is not lost on the world’s leading practitioners of irregular war-
fare, past or present. In preparing for the 1917 revolution, Lenin saw “systematic,
all-round propaganda and agitation” as “the chief and permanent task [and] the
pressing task of the moment.”71 Looking back at the Vietminh revolutionary war,
General Vo Nguyen Giap noted that “to make good preparations for armed insur-
rection, the most essential and important task was to make propaganda among
the masses and organise them.”72 More recently, Osama bin Laden argued that the
“media war” was “one of the strongest methods. . . . In fact, its ratio may reach 90
percent of the total preparation for the battles,” much as Ayman al-Zawahiri saw
“more than half of this battle” as “taking place in the battlefield of the media.”73
27
Ucko and Marks
Storylines and narratives are equally important for nation-states. When Rus-
sia first launched its offensive in Ukraine, in 2014, military action was accompa-
nied by the “most amazing information warfare blitzkrieg we have ever seen in the
history of information warfare.”74 Ukraine and others have since been bombarded
by disinformation and propaganda: an online barrage of fake news and inflam-
matory content meant to undermine resolve, weaken partnerships, and facilitate
the Russian project. China, in its efforts to establish regional, even global power
also aggressively pursues an information strategy—one that differs in key respects
from the Russian approach. China focuses on limiting information to its own
population, of course, but also combines carrots and sticks to shape what is said
internationally and, therefore, what is seen and believed.75 One of the first Chinese
efforts of this type, a “Voice of the Straits” radio station targeting Taiwan, was
launched already in 1957, just years after Mao’s insurgent victory.76
When Voice of the Straits began online broadcasting in April 2000, it rapidly
furthered its reach. Indeed, while the war for hearts and minds is clearly not new,
in a world where information in virtually any medium can be captured and broad-
cast instantaneously and globally, it assumes a more central role and even greater
weight. In recent years, information technology has progressed massively, allow-
ing for more evocative material to be shared faster, farther, and by more sources
simultaneously than before.77 As technology advances to include artificial intelli-
gence–produced simulations, in both photo and video form, it will become easier
to manufacture outrage, to mobilize popular movements, and to inject uncertainty
as to what is really going on.
The importance of messaging is generally recognized; it can build and erode
legitimacy, constrain government options, and change fundamentally the balance
of strategic power. Still, few methodologies exist for the analysis of these activities,
and this deficiency hinders the construction of a response. How exactly to respond
is of course a question of strategy, requiring analysis of specifics, but an important
starting point is having a method of assessment that can generate options. As mes-
sages stem from understandings, how does evaluation of Roots as engaged in by
the challenger differ from the same analysis carried out by the analyst?
28
Social movement theory provides a helpful approach to this question via its
work on framing, defined broadly as the process of attributing meaning to events.78
The metaphor of a frame is apposite: like an artist with a painted picture, fram-
ing concentrates our minds on one aspect of reality, all while it excludes the rest,
communicating thereby an impression that has been carefully curated to engender
a particular effect.79 Framing also focuses our attention on our different ways of
viewing the world: it is not just a matter of smart messaging, but more meaning-
fully about interpretation, or our Weltanschauung. The importance of perspective,
and of intersubjectivity, is what brings forth concepts such as “strategic empathy”
and (channeling Sun Tzu) “knowing your enemy” (as well as yourself).80 The frame
of the opponent, in other words, will not be our own.
Social movement theory proposes three frames: the diagnostic, the prognos-
tic, and the motivational. Each plays a key role in building a worldview and in
changing perception and, ultimately, behavior. By analyzing adversarial narratives
across these three frames, we can see the world from their viewpoints, how they
link cause and effect, and how they justify the worst of transgressions. We can then
assess which component, or components, appear to resonate most, or “sell,” among
contested audiences.
Each frame requires elaboration. The diagnostic frame interprets the current
situation. It explains, from the other’s perspective, what is wrong and (most criti-
cally) who is to blame. In the lingo of sales pitches and marketing, the diagnostic
frame is the “hook,” providing an accessible and alluring explanation for it all. A
typical function of the diagnostic frame in fueling conflict is to distinguish an in-
group from an out-group, with the former being portrayed as persecuted due to
the boundless cruelty of the latter.
The diagnostic frame has a second function: to prime the audience for the
proposed solution. The prognostic frame holds the answer, the way out of the mis-
ery, through actions presented not merely as just and correct but as necessary and
urgent right now. The trick lies in linking the litany of grievances of the diagnostic
frame to the salvation promised in the prognostic one—to explain the dark past
and present the project to glory as the one and only.
29
Ucko and Marks
In the face of a collective struggle in which participation denotes risk, it is

easy to give moral support, to nod in agreement, but to remain disengaged. As
such “free riding” cripples movements, a narrative is necessary to justify personal
sacrifice for the cause and despite the hazards involved. This is the purpose of the
motivational frame. A common approach is to emphasize solidarity with some-
thing bigger than oneself. This framing can be achieved by subsuming the indi-
vidual into the more meaningful longue durée of history, emphasizing the heroism
of ancestors and the tyranny facing future generations lest action is taken now and
without hesitation. Past injury, the hope of redemption, and treachery of passivity
are all mobilized to emphasize collective imperatives rather than personal interest
and thus to “offer no moral or political refuge” from active engagement.81 The key
is to give the struggle depth, through myths and constructed legacies, and to make
victory seem within reach, almost inevitable, but only so long as we all help.82
An example from history can help reveal how these three frames combine. In
the Marxist tradition, for example, the diagnostic frame presents the proletariat
(the workers) as suffering under a ruthless dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Capital-
ism, it is argued, exploits the masses and feeds them religion to keep them compli-
ant. The prognostic frame asserts that because there are no avenues for peaceful
change, the only resort, one anyway predetermined by the great forces of history,
is violent revolution so that the old society can give way to something new and
humane. Violence is justified because the system was maintained through force, or
the structures of oppression, and so revolution is if anything a defensive impera-
tive. The motivational frame holds that the working classes must unite behind this
project, that they have nothing to lose (besides their chains), and that those who
fail to do so have been fooled and suffer from false consciousness.
The narrative had promise because it “posited a simple causal relationship
between understanding, action, and outcome.”83 “Converts” to communism (the
religious allusion is not inappropriate) speak of being “shook . . . like a mental ex-
plosion.” Arthur Koestler provides a most eloquent rendering of the effect:
The new light seems to pour from all directions across the skull; the
whole universe falls into pattern like the stray pieces of a jigsaw
30
puzzle assembled by magic at one stroke. There is now an answer

to every question, doubts and conflicts are a matter of the tortured
past—a past already remote, when one had lived in dismal igno-
rance in the tasteless, colorless world of those who don’t know.84
The epiphanic nature of the experience is hardly unique to Marxism. It speaks to

the zeal of the convert and the power of ideologies in channeling comfort, anger,
and purpose all at once.
Framing is a concern not only for bottom-up efforts at contestation but also for
states seeking support for their geopolitical struggles. As Hermann Goering infa-
mously noted, “Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war
when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece.”85
In response, states have devised stratagems to push the population “over the top.”
Some appeal to national values, identity, and ideology—though the more common
and effective method is to “scare the hell out of the country.”86 Goering explains:
“It is always a simple matter to drag the people along. . . . All you have to do is tell
them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
exposing the country to danger.”87 The themes used are clearly evident in the Chi-
nese Communist Party’s framing, which combines a narrative of victimization with
one of pride: the country is both a target of foreign intrigue and a superpower, both
at risk yet with endless potential, so long as it has the people’s unswerving support.
This combination unites government and people against supposedly common foes,
particularly where these are presented as stemming from abroad.88
Just because framing and narratives are important, they are not automatically
effective. Thus, having identified the other’s worldview and its logic, a final ques-
tion within this component of the framework concerns its resonance. Is it suc-
cessful in shaping perceptions—even behavior—and how can this be known or
measured? Addressing these questions requires two steps.
First, given the dispersed nature of communication in today’s conflicts, it is
necessary to identify the relevant audiences, that is, those being targeted. These
may include domestic or foreign populations, as well as entities, agencies, govern-
ments, and opinion leaders (or “influencers” in today’s vernacular). It matters, for
31
Ucko and Marks
example, whether the Islamic State is communicating to the Sunnis of Iraq or to a

deterritorialized network of would-be followers spread around the world. Similar-
ly, it matters whether China’s information operations relate primarily to changing
attitudes abroad or maintaining its perception of legitimacy at home. One front
may be far more successful than the other, but whose perception is truly at stake?89
Second, once the relevant audiences have been identified, what is the effect of
framing on each? Gauging success on this front is difficult yet important, given the
nature of irregular warfare as a competition over the perception of legitimacy. In
a world where believing is seeing, it is crucial to know whether contested popula-
tions are receptive or resistant to the narratives being pushed. It is, for example,
noteworthy that despite the “information warfare blitzkrieg” witnessed in Ukraine,
sources suggest attitudes there, even within Russian-occupied areas, remained
predominantly hostile to Russian actions.90 It is likewise important to know that
even during FARC’s struggle, most Colombians supported the government. This
is the type of data that can help inform strategic communications—even strategy
writ large. It can be obtained via a variety of methods, from ethnographic research
and polling to big-data analysis of social media habits and behavior. The key is to
understand just how the world is perceived to know better what behavior to expect
and how to respond.
Threat Strategy
Having elaborated the roots of the conflict and the narratives used to fuel sup-
port, it is time to consider what the threat does. More than a list of activities, what
is sought is an understanding of the strategy at play: what it seeks to achieve and
how it aims to get there. The traditional approach to understanding strategy within
Western war colleges (there simply is no civilian equivalent) is that of ends, ways,
and means, a formula most prominently articulated by Arthur Lykke. It posits that
“strategy equals ends (objectives toward which one strives) plus ways (courses of
action) plus means (instruments by which some end can be achieved).”91 It is a
helpful model, yet for irregular warfare it must be adapted to accommodate the
blending of violence with other, potentially more meaningful nonviolent efforts
32
and the unfolding of campaigns both tangibly and intangibly to affect matters of
legitimacy.
The ends-ways-means formula, then, forces consideration of three funda-
mental questions: What is the threat seeking to achieve? How is it reaching that
objective? What resources are used? The question of ends is deceptively difficult.
Declarative slogans may not be the same as unspoken objectives. Short-term goals
may relate indirectly, if at all, to longer term aspirations. The actor may be vague, or
wholly idealistic, about what it seeks to achieve, making it unclear how its actions
relate to an unattainable endstate and raising questions about its actual purpose.
Thus, the question “What do they want?” is of cardinal importance, not least for
the political implications that immediately surface. How do the stated objectives
seek to address the political essence of the problem? How do they relate to what
the actor can do and wants to achieve? As is the case throughout the framework,
the first and easy answer is seldom the most analytically useful.
Careful consideration of ends allows progression to a discussion of ways. As a
component of what Colin Gray termed the strategy bridge, this is perhaps the sec-
tion that has received the least attention. As Jeffrey Meiser argued, “The ways part
of the equation tends to be relegated to a supporting role as the undefined thing
linking ends and means.”92 Indeed, in this triptych, it is precisely within the ways
that the major changes and challenges are seen. It is here that irregular strategies
surprise and achieve their full effect.93
Ways are concerned first and foremost with the overall strategic approach.
At the broadest level, what is the method employed to reach identified ends? Is
it a full-blown insurgency, and if so, is it a People’s War that puts counterstate
mobilization at its heart, or a focoist approach that leads with violence and makes
political indoctrination a lesser concern?94 Perhaps the strategic approach is one
of nonviolence, or of political infiltration, or of criminal subversion. If facing a
state actor, is the strategic approach one of political warfare (what George Ken-
nan called “the logical application of Clausewitz’s doctrine in time of peace”95), of
hybrid warfare (akin to Russia’s violent assault on eastern Ukraine from 2014 to
2022), or something in between?96 The terms to describe strategic approach are
numerous, varied, and contested. Most important is to communicate the nature
33
Ucko and Marks
and logic of the strategy being used. Indeed, it is really the theory of success that
matters: how is this strategy meant to bring about success or achieve the political
outcomes that are being sought?97
Once the strategic approach has been identified and explained, it is time to
map the strategy to help design an appropriate response. The mapping of an in-
tangible and complex strategy adds order to the chaos but requires an acumen for
abstract thinking and a range of conceptual tools. Within Western military think-
ing, one such tool has been the line of operation, which defines the force in relation
to the enemy.98 Lines of operation represent the physical projection of force across
geographical space and are typically visualized using military unit symbols mov-
ing via arrows on a map. This heuristic has proved helpful because it allows for the
conceptual nesting of tactical and operational actions within their strategic con-
text, thereby clarifying their larger purpose on the battlefield. Nesting, in turn, aids
in the translation of strategic intent into tactical action and vice versa, ensuring a
common understanding and coherence across all levels of activity.
Though lines of operation are fundamental analytical tools for the design of
military campaigns, they fail to capture the intangible spaces traversed by irregular
warfare. It was for this reason that the U.S. Army, in 2001, fielded the term logical
line of operation and then, in 2011, line of effort to define expressions of power or
influence where “positional references to an enemy or adversary have little rel-
evance, such as in counterinsurgency or stability operations.”99 In other words,
whereas the military has traditionally traded mostly in its own currency—the use
of force—doctrine now created space for “operations involving many nonmilitary
factors” (political, psychological, informational, or economic) for which “lines of
effort are often essential to helping commanders visualize how military capabili-
ties can support the other instruments of national power.”100
With this doctrinal development, the U.S. military entered a “back to the fu-
ture” moment in which it unknowingly resurrected the insights of past practitio-
ners of irregular conflict as diverse as the patriots in the Revolutionary War and
the communist theorists of People’s War, such as Mao Zedong and the Vietnamese
figures Ho Chi Minh, Vo Nguyen Giap, and Truong Chinh. What unites these fig-
ures, and their respective approaches to violence, is the adaptation of traditional
34
military concepts and terminology to encompass political and psychological di-

mensions. Strategy, as theorized and practiced, was an integrated political effort
of which the military is but one supporting aspect—or an enabler of political and
psychological actions.
In recognition of this key feature of irregular warfare, our mapping of threat
strategies borrows from traditional military operational art but elevates it to the
strategic level to encompass the nonmiliary, and often more salient, aspects of the
overall approach. A useful starting point in this mapping exercise is to capture
the full breadth of the strategy. As detailed by Thomas A. Marks, interrogation
of past irregular conflicts reveals five typical components that should be kept in
mind: their political mobilization; use of domestic allies (through the united front
mechanism); use of violence to enable politics; use of nonviolence (also known as
political warfare); and internationalization of the struggle, making it difficult to
contain or terminate within national borders. These five facets provide the inspi-
ration for five questions that must be asked of any challenge of irregular warfare:
◆ How is the threat mobilizing politically?
◆ How is violence used to enable its political project?
◆ How is nonviolence used?
◆ How is it exploiting tactical alliances to better reach its objective?
◆ What is the role of internationalization in the strategy?101
When interrogated, these questions provide an accounting for the how of strategy,
the totality and integration of ways, or the bridge between means and ends. As
displayed in figure 2, answers to these questions can then be represented as LOEs,
each with its own strategic interim objective that defines its purpose and direction.
In this manner, one arrives at a blueprint of strategy.
For this blueprint to be useful, what fills each line of effort (the content
generated by answering the five questions above) must somehow be ordered. A
useful approach is to organize the tactical expressions of each LOE into concep-
tual campaigns, each a bundle of activity grouped together and labeled due to a
common nature or purpose.102 This grouping exercise reveals each line’s most
35
Ucko and Marks
Figure 2. A Standard People’s War Insurgency, Mapped as Lines of

Effort and Campaigns
Mobilization of
Build the Govern the
POLITICAL counterstate counterstate
people and
resources
Facilitate
Guerrilla Mobile War of
VIOLENCE Terrorism
warfare warfare position
imposition of
politics
NON- Information Erode/gain

Lawfare Protest Subversion legitimacy
VIOLENCE warfare
Front Influenced
“Useful Broaden struggle/
ALLIES organiza- organiza-
idiots” united fronts
tions tions
International
INTER- organiza-
Visibility and
States Individuals
NATIONAL tions
support
prominent categories and, thus, also its priorities. For example, the nonviolent
LOE may comprise campaigns of “information warfare” and “protests,” much as
the violent LOE may include those of “terrorism” or “guerrilla warfare.” Identi-
fication of these campaigns, within their respective LOE, produces a bird’s eye
view of operational art as it plays itself out in violent politics.
By means of illustration, figure 2 provides a relevant sample, derived from
extensive and repeated application of the framework to real-world cases involv-
ing nonstate armed groups. Using instead the Russian intervention in Ukraine,
ca. 2017, as an example, figure 3 illustrates that the same five questions can yield
a mapping also of state-based irregular strategies. In both cases, the mapping has
revealed dimensions of the overall strategy that are often missed by an overrid-
ing concern with the violent, or the “kinetic,” aspects of the problem. Similarly,
mapping the strategy of a gang such as Comando Vermelho (figure 4), in Brazil,
36
Figure 3. Russia’s Operational Art in Ukraine, ca. 2017, Mapped as

Lines of Effort and Campaigns
Mobilization Maintain influence
Govern the
POLITICAL of counter-
counterstate over Ukraine
state
Naval block- Maintain control/

Guerrilla War of
VIOLENCE Terrorism age and
position
increase costs to
warfare Ukraine
coercion
NON- Information Energy Discredit Kyiv

Negotiations Subversion
VIOLENCE warfare leverage government
Societal Material “Useful Legitimize proxies

ALLIES mobilization support idiots” and divide Ukraine
Diplomacy
INTER- and obstruc-
Societal Cyber “Useful Weaken Western
NATIONAL interference attacks idiots” resolve
tion
reveals the range of its activities beyond mere drug-trafficking and the purpose of
this broader strategy.103
As part of the ordering exercise, this nesting of operational activity within
its proper strategic category, it follows that each campaign will itself contain sub-
campaigns, or opportunities to order further the expressions of the overall ap-
proach. For example, the campaign of terrorism, within the violent LOE, may be
further subdivided, plausibly across the categories of targets struck—for instance,
infrastructure, security forces, dignitaries, international actors, or simply groups
of people. This coding allows for more informed analysis as to how the state should
structure its own campaign of counterterrorism, perhaps within its security LOE.
Similarly, a campaign of information warfare may feature subcampaigns of hashtag
activism (for example, #КиевСбилБоинг, or #KyivShotDownBoeing), indoctrina-
tion, pamphleteering, or the distribution of “fake news” through licit networks.104
37
Ucko and Marks
Figure 4. Operational Art of the Rio-Based Criminal Gang Comando

Vermelho, ca. 2017, Mapped as Lines of Effort and Campaigns
Mediate Basic service Provide Illicit Obtain local

POLITICAL delivery legitimacy
conflicts leisure employment
Drug Obtain Gain

SUSTENANCE Recruitment
weapons resources
trafficking
INTER- Drug Money- African Facilitate

NATIONAL connections laundering connection trade
Violence vs. Violence vs. Freedom of

COERCION Corruption
state rival gangs movement
Governance, a campaign with the political LOE, could include subcampaigns of

taxation, schooling, or the provision of basic services.
Clearly, not all threat actors will use all five LOEs. Similarly, the specifics of
the case will determine how to label each LOE and its constituent campaigns. The
point is not to force cases within templates but to capture and codify the full range
of the strategy along with its operational manifestations. The framework assists on
this front by displacing violence from the central analytical place that it so often
enjoys within strategic studies and creating space for other efforts, their interplay,
and their essential relation to the overall objective. Careful mapping of this sort
becomes particularly important as state and nonstate actors deliberately constrain
stark exercises of military power in favor of still potent, yet more ambiguous and
varied types of coercion.105 The method presented here is designed for this brack-
ish interplay of war and peace. By mapping the content of strategy, it reveals exact-
ly what is being done, both militarily and otherwise, and to what strategic purpose.
In turn, such an assessment will drive what the state must ensure is addressed, and
therefore also be included in its own response.
38
The multifaceted nature of irregular strategies has strong implications for our
discussion of means, the third component of Lykke’s triptych. Rather than treat
means as a separate inquiry from ways, the identification of LOEs and campaigns
should compel an interrogation of what capacities and structures are deployed to
undertake the identified activities. To what degree have our adversaries developed
specialized tools to prosecute economic, social, and political campaigns? Beyond
guerrillas and fighters, we should account for the insurgent’s structures of gover-
nance; beyond fighter jets and tanks, we should understand the rival state’s means
of subversion and influence. These means, after all, behoove specialization on our
end too so that we may counter the whole spectrum of irregular strategies thrown
our way. In violent politics, victory belongs not to the strongest army or the best
argument but to the best practitioner of the art, and this calls for the right tools.
Based on this interrogation of ends-ways-means, the final task within this
“box” of the analytical framework is to identify the threat’s center of gravity (COG)
and critical vulnerabilities. The COG is an absurdly contentious term in strategic
studies. As Clausewitz described it, the center of gravity is the “focal point of force
and movement, upon which the larger whole depends.”106 Such a target may pres-
ent itself in a conventional confrontation between two fielded sides, yet within the
political and social realms of irregular warfare, hope for a decisive blow is often
misguided. This limitation does not invalidate the concept entirely, but—where
it applies—the COG will typically describe intangible forces: those that bind the
threat and allow its strategy to work. Is there, in other words, a source of cohesion
for the irregular actor, which, if removed, would result in its disappearance (or
existential weakening)?107
One must be careful in answering this question. For example, the common
identification of the “population” as the center of gravity in counterinsurgency
campaigns tends only to beg the question. Which population are we referring to,
and precisely what is so important about it? Its perceptions (and if so, of what),
its loyalty, or perhaps its very existence (which would motivate a highly illiberal,
yet far from unprecedented, approach to operations)? Analytical granularity is
needed, as determination of the center of gravity will fundamentally set the direc-
tion of our response. For this reason, it is also important to resist the temptation
39
Ucko and Marks
to identify any number of COGs, as this outcome in most cases denotes a failure
to prioritize. The test is not whether the target is important, but whether it is indis-
pensable to the threat—whether it would collapse without it.108
There is no preconceived answer as to what constitutes a COG in any given
case, regular or otherwise, or whether the concept even applies. However, given the
focus in irregular warfare on politics and the ability to control or co-opt contested
populations, the center of gravity often relates to perceptions of legitimacy. Be it
phrased in terms of common interests, united fronts, ideological appeal, support, or
credibility, the term legitimacy applies, as it speaks to the “beliefs and attitudes of
the affected actors regarding the normative status of a rule, government, politi-
cal system or governance regime.”109 With legitimacy, there is strong potential for
mobilization—of people, allies, support, and momentum. Without legitimacy, the
cost of doing business is dramatically increased, as are the efforts required to con-
solidate new political realities.
Legitimacy, in this context, is not a popularity contest. As Stathis Kalyvas ex-
plains in terms of “geographic loyalty,” military power can trump political and so-
cial preferences; those who control territory and populations—those who decide
who lives or dies—can usually muster the cooperation they need.110 Yet because
coerced forms of control are difficult to sustain over the longer term, our most
potent adversaries strive to combine coercion with strategies of co-option. On this
front, it has been a cardinal error of the Islamic State and its ilk to impose such a
brutal rule on its newly gained subjects. This error has enabled its state adversaries
to co-opt key populations, as these governments come to be seen, whatever their
flaws, as preferable to the Islamists. In this context, it is worrisome that the Islamic
State in the West Africa Province, in Nigeria, appears to be learning this lesson and
now targets mostly security forces rather than the population, thereby generating
new levels of legitimacy vis-à-vis the state.111
The struggle for legitimacy operates also at the international level, or among
states. Following the Kosovo intervention of 1999, Russia derived the troubling
lesson that international law could be broken with impunity so long as the trans-
gression is wrapped in a plausibly legitimizing narrative, in this case the “respon-
sibility to protect.”112 For this reason, in later engagements in Ukraine, Georgia,
40
and elsewhere, Russia pointed to supposedly threatened pockets of the population

that purportedly relied on Russian intervention for protection. The ruse works
best where there is a kernel of truth to the performance, where the argument is
at least debatable—hence the exploitation of existing social schisms and political
fault lines in targeted countries. Developing a plausible position in this manner
helps split international society and shrouds deeply dubious acts in a legitimizing
fog. Where there is no plausible position to exploit, as seen in Russia’s attempted
subversion of Finland, or even Estonia, its efforts at disinformation and influence
mostly fall flat—thus the attempts by many to replicate in any way possible the
factors that make these countries so resistant.113
Regardless of how the COG is identified, its determination gives strategic
direction to state response. As an example, when the newly elected Colombian
government sought in 2002 to execute a new strategy to combat FARC, then con-
trolling large swathes of the country’s territory and threatening attack on Bogotá,
one key question concerned the COG of this formidable opponent. Though not
couched in these terms, the discussion centered on whether it was FARC’s nar-
cotrafficking revenue that mattered, or its legitimacy with marginalized Colombi-
ans relative to the state. The former hypothesis would motivate a counternarcotics
response aimed at checking the group’s illicit stream of funds, whereas the latter
would motivate a whole-of-government counterinsurgency effort designed to win
back the population, mobilize society in support, and stem FARC’s steady flow of
recruits.
In the end, the determination made was that whereas the drug money was
fungible (using other means of revenue), the key to the puzzle was FARC’s ability
to coerce a labor force, given the government’s mismanagement of the same popu-
lation. As Carlos Ospina, then the head of the Colombian army, put it, the “center
of gravity was the relationship between the state and its population, or legitimacy,”
and the “new approach, labeled Democratic Security, was built upon the recovery
of democracy for all Colombians by giving them security.”114 It was this correct as-
sessment that guided all Colombian planning from 2002 to 2010.
Where a center of gravity can be deduced in this manner (and it does not ap-
ply to all conflicts), what remains is the vexing question of how it can be struck,
41
Ucko and Marks
addressed, or otherwise affected. Much like the king on a chessboard, striking the
COG requires patient maneuvering and repeated efforts. Inroads must be devel-
oped gradually to finally gain access. The location of critical vulnerabilities can
therefore be invaluable, revealing chinks in the armor through which the beating
heart of the problem can be reached, even struck. To extend the chess metaphor,
the critical vulnerabilities of an opponent are exposed pieces that, when elimi-
nated, improve our strategic position to come at the king.
As we seek critical vulnerabilities, what are we looking for? The doctrinal
definition is surprisingly helpful. It defines critical vulnerabilities as components
“deficient or vulnerable to direct or indirect attack, creating a significant effect.”115
Specifically, this definition reveals the two criteria at hand: the component’s vul-
nerability and its strategic value. Many targets are important but not vulnerable,
while some are vulnerable but not important. The task lies in finding the overlap
to help guide our initial attack.
The strategic estimate can help in this effort. Looking at the roots of the prob-
lem (the drivers of mobilization), the frame and narrative (the threat’s worldview),
and the threat strategy (its operationalization of ends, ways, and means), we can
discern the weak points and poor connections in the overall approach. These may
be mismatches between frames and strategy (what is believed versus what is done),
between roots and strategy (what fuels legitimacy versus the threat’s mediation of
grievances), or between components of the threat strategy itself (misalignments of
objectives, approach, and resources). These, then, are the vulnerabilities that initial
efforts can strike to build a better strategic position for follow-on action.
Some actual examples of critical vulnerabilities come to mind. The Islamic
State claims to represent Islam but kills more Muslims than members of any other
religions. As Russia extends its meddling, greater global awareness of its methods
is adding a reputational cost to what is already a growing financial commitment.
Its war of aggression in Ukraine provides an invaluable vulnerability that could
be used to help change facts on the ground elsewhere—in Moldova, the Cauca-
sus, and beyond. China seeks regional, maybe global hegemony yet must contain
its own domestic contradictions and overcome its own hypersensitivity to social
and political criticism. Growing recognition of China’s manner of operating in
42
the countries where it invests is also driving a backlash against its Belt and Road
Initiative that could be used to win support and gain allies. Through exploitation
of critical vulnerabilities such as these, one can over time address issues relating to
the center of gravity—almost always a question of legitimacy.
Present Government Response

Having dissected the nature of the problem—its roots, frames, and strategy,
along with the center of gravity and its critical vulnerabilities—we now turn our
attention to the present response, or what is being done to address the challenge.
This line of inquiry is an essential prerequisite for proposing policy recommen-
dations and strategies and, therefore, the focus of the last analytical “box” of the
estimate framework. What is the current strategy of response, what actions are
currently under way, are they working, and why is change needed?
Systematic analysis of state response involves three steps. First, we must ascer-
tain how the state views the problem and its own duty or purpose in responding
to it. Second, given this perception of the threat, what is the present government
strategy? A key concern here is identifying, even if it is unstated, the current “theo-
ry of success” or the hypothesis undergirding our efforts. How is success expected
to be reached, and, going deeper, how has it been defined?116 This context helps us
explain the strategy, not as a list of programs and efforts but as an approach and
logic intended to respond to the threat, however perceived, and serve policy objec-
tives, however defined.
The third and analytically most challenging step involves a critique of the
present government response. The estimate is conducted because of a desire to
improve the response, and so an important segue from analysis to prescription
involves reviewing that which is currently being attempted. This assessment can
begin with a basic issue of framing: Is the state perception correct? Is it cognizant
of the problem? Is it underestimating (or overestimating) the strategic peril? Is it
taking for granted its own legitimacy among contested populations or otherwise
misdiagnosing the nature of the threat and strategy at hand?
An uncompromising assessment of state perception is typically a first step in
interrogating the strategy itself. In this endeavor, we must ask whether the state is
43
Ucko and Marks
making progress in countering the threat. Does it, through its response, address
the symptoms of the problem or the problem itself (answering this question does
presuppose an accurate and incisive problem statement)? Is the response affect-
ing any center of gravity that has been identified, plausibly via deft exploitation of
critical vulnerabilities? And if progress is not forthcoming, can we explain why?
Is it the wrong approach or the right approach applied on too small a scale, or
something else entirely?
A fundamental and necessary question in explaining a failing strategy is
whether it stems from a dearth of capability or of will. Is it that the state lacks
what it needs for a more enlightened response, or is it that it does not view such a
response as politically necessary? Clearly, the two possibilities are far from mutu-
ally exclusive, but before proposing something entirely more ambitious, by way
of response, the analyst must anticipate the prioritization and limitations at hand.
Neither a lack of competence nor of interest is immutable but addressing shortfalls
in either will likely require specific measures, so that proposed strategies do not
fall on deaf ears. In other words, the strategy will have to address its own audience
as well as the threat it seeks to address, hence the question: What are the political
reasons why the state is pursuing a strategy that is not working and can these be
altered?
The critique of the present government response must be engaged dispas-
sionately and thoroughly because it acts as the pivot from the estimate part of
the framework to the proposed course of action. The approach to analysis draws
inspiration from the almost certainly apocryphal Albert Einstein quip that, faced
with a problem to be solved in an hour, he would spend 55 minutes defining the
problem and the remaining five solving it. In short, the estimate, and in particular
the critique of the present response, both inspire and justify the solution that must
now be proposed.
The COA Framework: How to Respond to Irregular Challenges

The course of action framework is designed to build on the estimate to con-
struct a strategy that counters the threat and achieves set objectives. Like the esti-
mate, its utility lies in asking the necessary questions and sequencing analysis. Any
44
expectation that it will itself generate the content is misguided and sure to produce
failure. Still, even with this modest function, the framework provides guidance
and a skeleton to build content around, ensuring that the key components of strat-
egy-making are addressed and appropriately broached.
The COA framework builds on the U.S. military’s relatively well-developed
decisionmaking process, which, codified in doctrine, sets the Armed Forces apart
from other institutions in terms of planning capacity. The framework presented
here is adapted from this process in two ways. First, it elevates the focus from
mostly operational and tactical matters to consider the strategic level, or where
matters of national policy are set and then implemented through the state’s main
instruments of power. Second, it incorporates more than just military concerns,
reflecting the contingent nature of violence within irregular contests.117 The result
is a comprehensive plan that encompasses several instruments of power and their
interaction across time and space to meet policy objectives.
A point of order on the value of plans is immediately necessary. As Dwight
Eisenhower famously noted, “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.”118
Another strategist commonly cited in this context is Field Marshal Helmuth von
Moltke, chief of staff of the Prussian general staff, who noted that “only a layman
could suppose that the development of a campaign represents the strict application
of a prior concept that has been worked out in every detail and followed through
to the very end.”119 The reason, he states, is that “no operation plan will ever extend
with any sort of certainty behind the first encounter with the hostile main force.”120
The caution sounded by these “practitioners of practitioners” is important
and should be retained. However, it does not condemn to futility planning con-
structs such as the one presented here. Planning is still everything, and planning
cannot be conducted without some professional understanding of what this pro-
cess entails. It is true that whatever plan is arrived at will most likely require modi-
fication at implementation to reflect shifting circumstances and the inevitable fog
of war, yet this limitation only underlines the need for familiarity and expertise
with a planning process that allows for quick adaptation and change. As the late Sir
Michael Howard put it, “When everybody starts wrong, the advantage goes to the
side which can most quickly adjust itself to the new and unfamiliar environment
45
Ucko and Marks
and learn from our mistakes.”121 With this in mind, what are the main steps and the
main components when crafting a strategy?
Much like that for the estimate, the course of action framework comprises five
boxes to help guide and sequence analysis (see figure 5). The first box, concept of
response, lays out the broad outlines of the proposed strategy, demonstrating the
break with the present government response with which the estimate framework
concluded. The second concerns the legal authority underpinning or required for
the response. The third box clarifies any assumptions that were necessary to allow
planning into an uncertain future. The fourth demonstrates the detailed imple-
mentation of the strategy within an ends-ways-means construct, also accounting
for phasing and metrics (how do we know that we are succeeding). The fifth box
considers the risks inherent to the strategy and their possible mitigation. The re-
mainder of this section unpacks each box in turn, emphasizing the key require-
ments and considerations.
Figure 5. The Estimate and COA Frameworks and Their Relation

1. STRATEGIC ESTIMATE

CONCEPT OF LEGAL
RESPONSE AUTHORITY ASSUMPTIONS IMPLEMENTATION
Assessment of What authorities What assumptions Strategy (E-W-M)
estimate: What is bind you and what were necessary to RISK
to be done and do you need? continue with ASSESSMENT &
Phasing
why? planning? MITIGATION
How to get at
Metrics
threat COG via
CVs?
2. STRATEGIC RESPONSE
46
Concept of Response
Much like the problem statement of the estimate, the concept of response
provides a brief synopsis, in this case of the overall recommended course of ac-
tion. This distilling function means that, once again, the section is placed first and
yet reflects the entirety of the product. The concept of response is where the big
ideas are communicated: the nature of the recommended response to the problem
analyzed in the estimate and, in broad terms, its implications for ends-ways-means
and overall phasing.
An important component in communicating and justifying the new strategy
is its theory of success, or why the recommended approach will generate a desired
outcome.122 The estimate can help make this case, for example, by demonstrating
why the proposed response addresses more effectively (than the present govern-
ment response) the roots, the frames and narrative, and/or the threat strategy. Jus-
tification for this theory of success can also relate to any strategic center of gravity
identified in the estimate or the critical vulnerabilities whose proper exploitation
may yield promising returns. Even if a COG analysis is not deemed appropriate,
what remains essential is to communicate how and why the proposed change to
the present government response will alter the environment and attain the desired
position.123 Why is the proposed strategy not only better but also the best way
forward given the context as is?
Importantly, in making this case, the strategy’s quality should be assessed not
on the loftiness of what it promises to achieve, but on its ability to attain set goals.
Therein lies a delicate and deeply political balancing act between the best and the
possible, between idealism and despondence. A guiding principle is to situate the
response within the state’s national interest as communicated in its official docu-
ments, as implicit in its policies or as determined (and argued) by the analyst.
However vexing, the problem assessed in the estimate must be approached in rela-
tion to other competing national priorities. The ensuring constraints and tradeoffs
are what make a recommended strategy at all strategic.
Second, questions of feasibility should be carefully considered. It is easy to
come up with broad ideas that sound good, yet if they offer no roadmap of imple-
mentation or way of gradual realization, they are a list of aspirations rather than
47
Ucko and Marks
a strategy. To be useful, a course of action should lay out an incremental set of

achievable objectives that, over time and on aggregate, produces a viable and de-
sired endstate. In this effort, phasing is a helpful ally, allowing for more modest,
piecemeal, yet meaningful progress toward an objective that, in the short term,
may seem farfetched. Of course, this journey is seldom linear, and it is up to the
analyst to balance convincingly the pragmatic imperatives of the short term with
longer term ideals. As Eliot Cohen notes, “Strategy . . . is the art of choice that
binds means with objectives. It is the highest level of thinking about war, and it
involves priorities (we will devote resources here, even if that means starving op-
erations there), sequencing (we will do this first, then that), and a theory of victory
(we will succeed for the following reasons).”124
Legal Authority
Another key consideration in developing the course of action is the legal au-
thority for the recommended strategy. Acting within the rule of law is critical be-
cause of the legitimacy it bestows for both international and domestic audiences.
The need for legal clarity is all the more important given the tendency of irregular
actors to blur legal lines, employ ambiguity as a weapon, and engage in lawfare,
that is, “the use of law as a weapon of war.”125 It may be tempting to mirror image
such disrespect for the rule of law, but such actions will often come at the ex-
pense of legitimacy and deprive both actor and strategy of the moral high ground.
Instead, establishing and communicating a clear legal case can be a force multi-
plier in the competition for legitimacy, even when (or especially when) engaging
against a threat that deliberately rejects this same set of constraints.
The search for legal authority begins with an interrogation of any red flags
raised by the proposed strategy or its subsidiary recommendations. These may
relate to activity in the sovereign territory of another state, tensions between state
and municipal authorities, treaty obligations, or concerns relating to civil liberties
and human rights or to the collection of intelligence. By way of example, in the
U.S. context, responses must contend with the civil liberties enshrined in the Con-
stitution, the constraints of the Posse Comitatus Act, or with the Smith-Mundt
48
Act, which long prohibited the domestic airing of U.S. Government–funded and
–generated broadcasting but was recently significantly watered down.
The case of Smith-Mundt raises a salient point: states are not simply subject to
their own laws but can amend them, too. In this case, in 2013, Congress repealed
the domestic-dissemination provision of the bill, given the pragmatic difficulty
of isolating foreign from domestic audiences and the perceived strategic need to
counter anti-American sentiments at home.126 Frank Kitson, counterinsurgency
practitioner and theorist, gets the point across: “Everything done by a government
and its agents in combating insurgency must be legal. But this does not mean
that the government must work within the same set of laws during an insurgency
which existed beforehand.”127
For the strategist, the implication is clear: where every attempt should be
made to fit the recommended course of action within the legal authorities at hand,
certain situations call for temporary, or even permanent, changes to legislation to
better equip states to handle new challenges. The USA PATRIOT Act, passed in
the wake of the 9/11 attacks, is a good example, though debates continue as to the
need for it both then and now.128 The question, therefore, is not just whether the
existing authorities are in place but also whether the state’s legislative body must
enact specific laws for the optimal strategy to proceed.
This consideration requires care. Writing one’s own laws is like printing one’s
own money—another government prerogative—in that both can rapidly backfire.
Legal authority matters because it bestows legitimacy, yet legality and legitimacy
do not always overlap. The worst excesses of the so-called war on terror—en-
hanced interrogation techniques, rendition, detention without trial, and extraju-
dicial killings—were all cleared by lawyers. Each was arguable in a court of law.129
However, the arguability did not protect the government responsible from the
court of public opinion, undermining the very legitimacy that was being sought.
It may well be true, as Robert Barnidge suggests, that if the issue “can ‘fit’ and be
‘argued within’ the formal constraints of law, there will be no violation of law,” but
if the aim is to garner legitimacy, a second, more demanding threshold must also
be met.130 To lawyers and those of a legalistic bent, the warning in Hamlet is apt:
49
Ucko and Marks
“There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your
philosophy.”
A recurring legal dilemma in irregular warfare concerns the status of one’s
adversaries, particularly as related to the use of force. Faced with nonstate armed
groups or shadowy state proxies, governments often struggle to determine whether
to treat their adversary as combatants or as criminals. The former status is deemed
inappropriately ennobling and turns society into a war zone, with all that that
entails, whereas the latter denies the state its mightiest weapons against an enemy
that, if well-armed, may present an existential threat. Awkward compromises such
as “unlawful combatants”—the legal construct of the George W. Bush administra-
tion—seldom fare well yet point to the need for flexible authorities against hybrid
challenges.
Colombia’s struggles against the FARC again provide a helpful precedent. As
part of the Democratic Security Policy, Bogotá found a nimble way of scaling its
legal authorities up or down depending on the operation and its context. Con-
stantin von der Groeben explains how the state was able to toggle between in-
ternational humanitarian law (or the Law of Armed Conflict) and human rights
law, and thereby combine the best of both worlds. Through judicial review of the
threat, the state would distinguish between “operations during hostile scenarios”
and “operations to maintain security.” During the latter, peacetime law enforcement
would prevail, making the use of force a last resort. Throughout the former, the
state could respond forcefully to a well-armed and dangerous adversary (yet even
then, the rules of engagement would privilege demobilization and capture and be
mindful of collateral damage).131
State-based irregular strategies present their own legal quandaries, particular-
ly when they involve constituted armed forces deliberately flouting the rule of law.
Several governments (Israel, but also Canada and the United States) have desig-
nated Iran’s Quds Force as a terrorist organization given its involvement in uncon-
ventional warfare (or sponsorship of terrorism). The designation not only brings
in legal authorities but also raises analytical and practical difficulties given that
terrorism is typically a nonstate endeavor and not a status bestowed upon govern-
ment forces, however horrendous their conduct. For similar reasons, it is difficult
50
to see how the U.S. designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a
terrorist entity will produce the legal and moral quarantine anticipated by such a
determination (not to mention Lithuania’s groundbreaking designation of Russia’s
war in Ukraine as terrorism).132
Ukraine has itself faced legal difficulties in responding to Russian aggression
since 2014. For many years, the legal authority for response was complicated by
the undisclosed but universally known presence of Russian troops out of uniform,
or the Little Green Men, among the separatists in Donbas. In this instance, the de-
cision—legal as well as political—was whether to treat the Donbas as a counterter-
rorism operation, under the authority of the Security Service, or (as it eventually
came to be) as operations against Russian aggression, with authority transferred
to the joint operational headquarters of the armed forces under the strategic guid-
ance of the general staff.133 The eventual shift brought about greater immediacy in
response, as well as flexibility, but required clear explication of the new powers and
of the state’s continued commitment to legal authority and accountability vis-à-vis
its own citizens. In other words, although changing the rules, the state ensured
that its usage of the law remained legitimate, a balancing act not atypical for those
proposing fresh approaches to new challenges.
Even nonviolent state strategies can present legal complications for response.
Chinese political warfare is designed to subvert and manipulate all while avoid-
ing punitive reaction. In the face of Chinese disinformation, economic coercion,
and other nonviolent yet harmful activities, both Australia and the United States
have found themselves without legal recourse to respond appropriately, even
within their own national borders. Seeking to do better, Australia passed a flurry
of legislation. It is now compulsory for entities to register any political activities
undertaken on behalf of a foreign principal. Covert and deceptive activities of for-
eign actors are now criminal if and when they intend to interfere with Australia’s
institutions of democracy.134 For similar reasons, the U.S. Congress has passed,
or is passing, legislation intended to defeat economic coercion, criminalize the
activities of the Chinese United Front Work Department, and counter intellectual
property violators.135 These types of efforts echo the Foreign Agents Registration
Act, passed in the 1930s and still in use (yet with little to no impact in online com-
51
Ucko and Marks
munications). In seeking to equip the state to defend itself legally against unan-
ticipated threats such as these, the key lies in not over-legislating and harming the
very society that one seeks to protect.
In terms of balancing acts, the final requirement here is to acknowledge the
overlapping coexistence of several legal regimes, not only at the international and
national level but also relating to cultural, social, and religious factors. These dif-
ferent regimes do not always agree, forcing difficult questions of how to proceed.
Much depends on the relevant audience, or whose perceptions of legitimacy are
most crucially related to the solution. Still, in a globally compressed mediatized
environment, there is often a need for some level of congruence across all levels,
requiring tough decisions as to how to mesh disparate legal codes and how to
speak to several publics all at once.
Assumptions
The crafting of strategy is inevitably an exercise in forecasting, as the analyst
is asked to predict, with sufficient certainty, the effects of actions taken on current
conditions. Because the future is unknown, because we cannot predict the type of
environment in which recommended actions unfold, “planning” can sometimes
feel like a fool’s errand. Yet it is necessary. Assumptions can be used to bridge
the inevitable gaps in knowledge, allowing us to proceed with planning yet be
cognizant and clear about the specific futures wherein our plans make sense. The
process of identifying our assumptions, and communicating them to those who
implement our plans, is therefore of utmost importance—but it is also an effort
that is deceptively challenging.136
There are two main challenges in making assumptions to help planning. First,
assumptions provide the analyst with the dangerous power of deciding how the
future will unfold, at least on paper. This liberty can be exploited, even unwittingly,
to predict scenarios simply because they enable the proposed strategy. It is there-
fore critical that assumptions do not wish away inconvenient realities or guarantee
the outcomes anticipated by the plan. It is still up to the plan to create the condi-
tions necessary for success. Assumptions, in contrast, relate to uncertainties that
are beyond the scope of the plan but that would have a bearing on its execution.
52
Even then, assumptions should not be used to predict desirable conditions that do
not already obtain or to eliminate problematic circumstances unless evidence sug-
gests they are likely to disappear.
The second danger lies in the sheer number of assumptions that go into plan-
ning. Assumptions are implicit in everything we do and plan to do, and any at-
tempt to account for them all will quickly amass an unhelpful number of possibili-
ties. Every act is based on presumed continuity or change within the environment,
about likely responses to the act, its utility in meeting the desired outcome, the
ability of the actor to complete the act, the perception of others witnessing it—and
each of these is built on further assumptions ad nauseam. It is, to borrow a phrase,
turtles all the way down. Any assumption is itself based on further assumptions,
which in turn require additional assumptions. This endless regression is unhelpful
to strategists, yet assumptions do have a necessary utility as part of the planning
process.
Three conditions are helpful in defining a useful remit for assumptions in
strategic planning. First, assumptions must be valid. In other words, an assump-
tion, to be useful, must fix a variable in a way that fits with the available evidence.
Even in the face of some fluctuation, it would be valid for a government to assume
that oil prices will remain stable, thereby enabling the revenue necessary to finance
the response. Although laden with some risk, this assumption is based on present
trends. For a government to assume that oil prices will sharply increase, thereby
allowing a vastly different type of response, is clearly more suspect, barring rec-
ognized factors that may reasonably produce such a development. The example is
almost farcical, yet, for most cases, determining the validity of planning assump-
tion requires serious debate and analysis of context.
The second condition concerns importance. A RAND study of assumptions-
based planning provides a helpful definition: “An assumption is important if its
negation would lead to significant changes in the current operations or plans of an
organization.”137 This criterion restricts assumptions to those crucial uncertainties
relating to the strategy—those that delineate helpfully the limits of its applicability.
Returning to the issue of oil, the valid assumption of stable prices only becomes
53
Ucko and Marks
important if the strategy relies on this revenue; it is an eventuality that the strategy
has no bearing over, but which would affect it should it fail to obtain.
The third criterion is necessity, which helps to avoid the problem of endless
regression. In effect, assumptions should only be made if they are needed, if they
paper over an acknowledged gap in knowledge. To extend the above example, if
the valid assumption of relatively stable oil prices is important to the plan, it only
becomes necessary if a fluctuation in the oil price is possible, perhaps as deter-
mined by past precedent. There would be no need to state assumptions, even those
concerning important matters, if there is no real likelihood of them ever being
proved wrong (assuming continued planetary gravitational pull is both valid and
important, but hardly necessary). Necessity therefore exists in tension with valid-
ity, as an entirely valid assumption is not needed and all necessary assumption,
however urgent, must nonetheless be grounded in sufficient evidence to allow for
productive planning. The analyst finds the sweet spot between these two, neither
wasting energies on truisms nor predicting a desired future that will never come
to pass.
Finally, in interrogating which assumptions are built into the plan, a distinc-
tion must be made between explicit assumptions, those stated outright to allow
planning to proceed, and implicit assumptions, those subconsciously integrated
into planning without express intent or acknowledgment.138 Donald Rumsfeld
may have termed these “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns,” respec-
tively.139 The former are typically handed to or decided on by the planning team
as a basis of continued analysis. The latter are those assumptions that sneak in
without anyone necessarily noticing; they are typically more difficult to spot but
can prove devastating when they are suddenly proved wrong. Interrogating the
strategy, critiquing it, and challenging its conception of the future—what in the
trade might be termed red teaming—is therefore an essential process.140
Given the abundant ambiguity and many pitfalls involved, the need for as-
sumptions may be regrettable, but as a step in the strategic process it is also un-
avoidable; it is inherent to the projection of human behaviors into an unknown
future. Some gaps in certainty can and should be narrowed or eliminated through
a more rigorous estimate of the situation. Beyond that point, the goal is gener-
54
ally to end up with as few assumptions as possible but as many as needed. Given
the flux and the high likelihood of surprise, these assumptions—both explicit and
implicit—must then be demonstrated clearly in such a way as to set out the strat-
egy’s conditions for implementation—or the parameters that, if breached, would
require a revised course of action.
Implementation
If the concept of response is the summary of the strategy, and the legal au-
thorities and assumptions explain the environment in which it unfolds, the imple-
mentation box provides the detailed breakdown of its components. These com-
ponents include the objectives to be reached, the strategic approach to be used,
the operational art and campaign architecture employed, the means required, the
main phases of the plan, and the metrics necessary to determine progress and ap-
propriate transition points. Enveloping and informing all these components is the
theory of success, or the big idea as to why the proposed strategy will work.
Using the Estimate to Design the Response. The estimate of the situation is
the obvious starting point for determining the nature and content of the state’s
response. A main purpose in mapping the threat strategy, for example, is to inform
the priorities and content of the counterstrategy. If an adversary is engaging in a
campaign of terrorism, a campaign of counterterrorism is required—this much is
clear. Yet by identifying the specific subcampaigns of this conceptual campaign of
terrorism, the state is provided with more precise priorities for its own counter-
terrorism effort, be it population security, protecting critical infrastructure, safe-
guarding dignitaries or cultural icons, and so on. By the same token, the response
should use the other LOEs and campaigns of the threat strategy to design its own
response, thereby negating the intended effects of these actions. If economic co-
ercion and disinformation are being pushed as meaningful campaigns within a
nonviolent line of effort, how may the state respond to these challenges via its own
operational art and with its own means?
Put this way, it all seems painfully obvious, yet too often governments miss
critical components of their adversary’s strategy, typically because of a near-exclu-
sive focus on its use of violence and the related insistence on using the military to
55
Ucko and Marks
find a solution. In contrast, the holistic mapping of the threat strategy encourages
a more multifaceted response and the concomitant identification of the means
necessary for its execution. At the same time, it is insufficient merely to mirror
image the opponent’s approach, or to let its strategic decisions dictate the terms of
engagement. Instead, the response must at some point impose its own logic and
purpose to achieve the necessary change. This is the theory of success that should
guide its unfolding.
An important aspect in this endeavor may lie in addressing the roots of the
problem. This is arguably the most complex and politically sensitive component
of the response, as the grievances causing mobilization to violence are typically
deeply embedded within the structure of the state and society. Thus, alleviating
these factors will at the very least require great time and effort and will likely also
be destabilizing in that each reform generates new winners and losers. Moreover,
there is the broader question as to whether achieving meaningful change is even
possible or commensurate to the strategic advantage gained against a specific op-
ponent.
As an example, transforming Afghanistan into a stable democracy, as in-
tended with Operation Enduring Freedom, might very well have denied al Qaeda
sanctuary there, but the ambition and demands of this undertaking seemed out
of proportion to this gain, particularly when the network could quite viably find a
new sanctuary in another failing state. Similarly, while there is every reason for a
country such as Georgia to address the ethnic tensions that facilitate Russia’s inter-
ference and annexation of its territory, it is less clear how this might be done, on
what timeline, and with what impact on the threat facing the country. Even if the
issue could be optimally addressed (no mean feat), would Russia’s strategy then
collapse, or would it find new lines of attack?
None of these difficulties should sideline the importance of countering roots
as a strategic priority, when and where necessary, but they do force some humility
and creativity in what is at all possible, and to what effect. One principle may be
to focus less on resolving the social and political contradictions being exploited
and to work instead toward greater resilience.141 Though serious grievances will
likely remain, resilience implies an ability to address them via peaceful means,
56
through the political opportunity structure, and not to be seduced into subversion
and violence. This may require, on the one hand, removing blockages within said
political opportunity structure (opening the system to peaceful contestation) and,
on the other, inoculating populations against those extremist ideologies that seek
violent overthrow of the system regardless of its democratic merits (countering the
frame and narrative among the most relevant audiences). Even with this lower bar
of ambition, however, achieving progress on these fronts is likely to remain chal-
lenging yet also, in many cases, highly important.
In terms of the frames and narratives, it is remarkable just how desperately de-
mocracies struggle with the war of ideas, even when facing millenarian groups us-
ing terrorism and corrupt autocrats and other dictators. One might have thought
the virtues and values of democracy, of human rights, and of civil liberties would
in and of themselves be sufficient in dismantling rival ideologies and worldviews
(and, indeed, this appears to have been the assumption underpinning the West’s
approach largely since its victory in the Cold War). As it turns out, competing for
credibility is a challenge, not least because of the difficulty of convincing those
already alienated. Psychological studies confirm that directly contesting people’s
“core worldviews” often evokes “a defensive emotional reaction” and can therefore
“counterproductively lead people to fortify their belief systems.” How can we reach
those who explicitly reject the outside world?142
The estimate’s analysis of framing can provide some guidance. It may be, for
example, that seams emerge between the three different frames—the diagnostic,
prognostic, and motivational—that can be exploited. Writing in the 1930s, French
journalist Emmanuel Berl grasped a major limit in communism’s prognostic and
motivational frames at that time: “The intellectual,” he wrote, “leans toward com-
munism because he smells the scent of death hanging over the bourgeoisie and
because capitalist tyranny exasperates him. . . . But Communism then requires of
him that he subscribe to a program and methods that seem to him respectively
stupid and ineffective.”143 Similar limitations can be seen today in Russia’s lack of
vision or of proposed solutions for all the problems for which it blames the West or
in the repeated failures of violent radical Islamism to deliver something concrete
once its denunciations and attacks are done.144
57
Ucko and Marks
The final component in the Estimate is the present government response,

and it, too, provides an important target for our present government response to
strike. A detailed and informed analysis of where the current strategy is work-
ing and where it is not will help tremendously in the design of a new, improved
response. Beyond that which must be fixed or retained, a key concern will be the
determination of political will, as it is typically the ball and chain of any discussion
of strategy. How good are concepts, theory, and best practices if the government
that is to act prefers to go in a different direction? The search for better practice
and more enlightened approaches appears, then, simply to chase the shadow of a
larger problem.
Political will eats strategy for breakfast. Still, allowing political will to para-
lyze discussion makes of it a self-fulfilling alibi for not trying. Instead, all while
acknowledging political will, it would seem necessary to focus analysis on the
admittedly daunting task of altering conception of interest, by fostering greater
awareness of what inaction will yield and of what can be achieved through a more
effective approach.145 Therein lies the purpose of strategy.
Mapping and Presenting the Strategy. Along with elaborating the strategy’s
content, a key requirement is the ability to convey it clearly. A strategy intended to
deal with a complex threat will itself be complex, with multiple actors undertaking
various efforts according to a particular sequence. The difficulty lies in communi-
cating said complexity in the linear format insisted on by prose (visual representa-
tions notwithstanding). This search for clarity requires structure to arrange ideas
in a manner that can be easily grasped. To this end, we return to the terminology
of operational art and design yet adapted for the strategic level.
The key pillars of the strategy are the ends, ways, and means—or the objec-
tives sought, the approaches used, and the resources deployed. Once the ends and
strategic approach have been explained, operational art provides a promising way
of communicating the “how,” or the content of the strategy. Specifically, the nesting
of tactical and operational actions within their strategic context, or of campaigns
and subcampaigns within their conceptual lines of effort, produces a map of the
strategy that can be grasped both at the macro level, to discern its logic in broad
terms, and at the micro level, to reveal the necessary detail and relation to the
58
whole. The structure and hierarchy not only order operational matters within their
proper category but also help, via LOEs, to communicate their common strategic
direction and intent.
In assembling a strategy in this manner, an immediate requirement is proper
integration of the proposed course of action, not just between ends, ways, and
means (hence the image of a “strategy bridge”), or even in terms of nesting, as cov-
ered above, but also as concerns phasing and metrics. The strategy should, across
all these concepts, be one unified product. Respective components must be in-
formed by one another and the strategy’s overall logic. Figure 6 provides a graphi-
cal representation of how the different components fit together.
Phasing allows for a combination of short-term priorities with longer term
visions and is key to the laying out of the strategy. By staggering the response
across time, ambitious endstates can be approached incrementally, via preliminary
phases that may, for pragmatic reasons, take on different priorities or approaches.
Separate phases will, for example, be appropriate and capable in addressing dif-
ferent elements of the estimate: roots, frame and narrative, and threat strategy.
The sequence will relate to how the plan unfolds across time and space (and to
the requirements of the case). The response may have phases that are sequential
or concurrent or a combination thereof. The phases may be defined by key ac-
tivities, key conditions to be met, or key time periods or milestones. Answers to
these questions are impossible to predict in general terms and relate instead to the
requirements of the case. What is most important is that the phasing construct
convincingly charts a viable path from present conditions to the desired endstate,
acknowledging the likely effects of each step along the way and the reactions of
other actors.
Phasing brings in the question of metrics, which are used to derive appropri-
ate transition points between phases and criteria for overall success. The question
of metrics is bedeviling, as evidenced by the infamously misleading “body count”
measure used in Vietnam. When a U.S. colonel insisted, after the war, that his
country had never lost a single battle, his Vietnamese counterpart quipped, “That
may be so, but it is also irrelevant.”146 On the political plane, the Americans had
lost—technology and firepower notwithstanding.
59
Ucko and Marks
Figure 6. Sample Strategic Plan, Showing Integration of Operational

Art, Campaigns, Phasing, Transition Points, and Measures of
Effectiveness
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3
LOE Campaign Campaign Campaign Campaign

Means Means Means Means
Current Conditions
Interim Objectives
LOE Campaign Campaign Campaign

Means Means Means
LOE Campaign Campaign

Means Means
Transition point Transition point

(Metrics) (Metrics)
The conundrum then and now is that irregular warfare is concerned with in-
tangible and immeasurable factors, which clash with the objectivity and precision
striven for in official accounts of effectiveness.147 The challenge is compounded by
what many practitioners believe is a fetishization of metrics, leading to the count-
ing of whatever can be counted. During his time in southern Iraq from 2003 to
2004, Sir Hilary Synnott noted something of a “fixation” with such quantitative
metrics as the number of schools built, roads paved, or pipelines fixed, writing,
“These were figures which our governments liked to publicise,” but adding, “they
conveyed nothing of the reality.”148
A helpful starting point is agreement on terminology. The military tends to
distinguish between measures of performance and measures of effectiveness, though
the two can be put more simply as inputs and outcomes. Measures of performance
are used to assess whether what was planned is being done: if more patrols are
60
intended to bring about security, measures of performance gauge whether the pa-
trols were carried out in accordance with the strategy. No doubt an important part
of institutional self-assessment, it often proves too tempting to use these types of
indicators—relatively measurable and often within our grasp—to evaluate their
effectiveness. The result is the so-called self-licking ice cream cone, to use another
type of political jargon.149
Measures of effectiveness concern the degree to which our input is generating
its desired effect. Here, it is helpful to distinguish between output and outcome.
To return to Sir Hilary’s observation, the number of projects completed is an out-
put that is intended to bring about an outcome, typically a political effect. David
Kilcullen made this distinction in his work on counterinsurgency. Referring to
roadbuilding in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, he noted that “what has made this
program successful is not the road per se. . . . [It is that] people have used the
process of the road’s construction, especially the close engagement with district and
tribal leaders this entails, as a framework around which to organize a full-spec-
trum strategy.”150 The greater the level of abstraction, however, the more difficult
the task of desired effect.151
Indeed, while it is important to differentiate among inputs, outputs, and out-
comes, it does not significantly simplify the task of choosing the right measures
for a particular case. A major review of recent campaigns describes the task as
“quite hard if not impossible,” due to disagreement over what matters, what por-
tends strategic progress, and the search for broadly applicable measures that can
compare effectiveness across time and space. The most relevant metrics are typi-
cally those that measure intangible factors (legitimacy, resilience, trust, credibility,
and attitudes), yet finding a somewhat objective way of measuring these can be
difficult, not least in a climate leery of anecdotal data and always on the lookout
for a “return on investment.” Unsurprisingly, many resort to the “illusion of sci-
ence”: color-coded graphs, sometimes stoplights, arrows pointing up or down (or
sideways), or numerical values ascribed without any published standards or ex-
planation.152
The litany of obstacles described here may frustrate those looking for clear
answers, yet the search for generic solutions is likely to fail, as each case requires
61
Ucko and Marks
its own assessment. In the end, for all its business management jargon and undis-
puted status as an important part of strategy-making, the question of metrics is
more art than science. To cite sociologist Stanislav Andreski:
The ideal of objectivity is much more complex and elusive than

the pedlars of methodological gimmicks would have us believe;
and . . . it requires much more than an adherence to the technical
rules of verification, or recourse to recondite unemotive termi-
nology: namely, a moral commitment to justice—the will to be
fair to people and institutions, to avoid the temptations of wish-
ful and venomous thinking, and the courage to resist threats and
enticements.153
Regrettably, these are not typically the ideals promoted by bureaucracies or those
shaping progress reports to the powers that be.
On this note, a concluding word on the implementation box is warranted.
Despite the complexity of the strategy and the difficulty of communicating it ac-
curately, the biggest and most important condition remains the profound idea of
what will generate success. No amount of terminology or mechanical cramming
will substitute for it. The need to retain a clear focus on what matters is precisely
the reason for nesting, so that the details provided relate clearly to the bigger pic-
ture. Everything must flow from this central idea, lest style suffocate substance.
Risk Assessment and Mitigation

A change in strategy implies not only new opportunities but also new risks.
These must be identified and communicated to those deciding on strategic matters
to account for what to expect both positively and negatively from the proposed
change in direction. Yet presenting the nature and gravity of risk is another com-
plicated element within the planning process. By and large, despite great institu-
tional attention to the task, risk assessments fail to predict the weak points of the
strategy and (accordingly) to find suitable redress. One analyst studying the use
of risk assessment in national security concludes that despite the growth of “risk
62
frameworks,” the process is too often “ill-defined and misleading.”154 Even within
the field of financial services, which arguably does more risk analysis than any
other sector, the practice has been called into question given the failure to account
for contingencies that caused massive loss or even the collapse of entire firms.155
To some degree, it is perhaps unrealistic to expect human beings to predict
the future, to expect the unexpected, and to rise above the cognitive vagaries that
bound our collective reason. Hard work and focus certainly help, but as with met-
rics, precisely because the task is seen as so important the methods of analysis
often become overly convoluted. In the search to appease masters who will accept,
at best, only minimal risk, planners get into the habit of dressing up courses of
action to meet this expectation rather than engaging in a sincere and untainted
discussion of what may go awry. Underlying such political pressures, there is also
disagreement on how best to understand risk, how to define it, and therefore also
how the concept should be used.
At the possibility of oversimplification, risk can helpfully be understood as that
which can go wrong due to the change in strategy. This field of risk can be further
divided into two categories. The first group of risks concerns the plan’s likely points
of failure, due to a lack of either capacity or capability, or the absence of other re-
quirements. The second concerns the risks that flow specifically from the strategy’s
successful execution. This type of risk speaks to the strategy’s implications for other
national interests and the unintended consequences of getting it right.
If risks are identified, what are the consequences for strategy? Clearly, it would
be foolhardy to propose a strategy that even planners identify as laden with risk.
Indeed, in some cases, risk identification may force the analyst back to previous
components in the framework to ensure that the product is revised and avoids the
uncovered hazard. The process of crafting a course of action is never linear. Each
component speaks to the others until the final product is one integrated whole.
No matter how much tinkering, however, every course of action will imply
some risk, and, at some undefinable point, it becomes necessary to communicate
these as part of the final product. Doctrine calls these residual risks—those that
remain when the unnecessary or unacceptable risks have been eliminated.156 Risk
itself cannot be eliminated; even staying the course, or not acting at all, denotes
63
Ucko and Marks
some risk. The test is therefore whether those of the proposed strategy are less
significant, particularly in relation to the positional advantage being gained. As
Michael Mazarr notes, “The goal would not be to prevent bad outcomes. Instead
the purpose . . . would be to ensure that leaders make strategic judgments with eyes
wide open to possible consequences.”157
When the residual risks have been identified, the next logical step is to devise
possible steps that may somehow mitigate their expected harm. Plans for mitiga-
tion could be full-fledged branch plans with their own logic, sequencing, and pri-
oritization, or they could be far simpler, pointing to possible measures that might
reduce the likelihood of risks materializing or of their consequences when they
do. In this context, it is important to understand that if risks of failure do material-
ize, it means that a vulnerable part of the strategy has indeed broken, and so fresh
thinking will be required to find new ways forward to absorb the damage being
done. Given the need for new solutions, risk-mitigating measures would typically
not be found in the strategy as is. Indeed, they may not even be desired. Instead,
they often involve a “Plan B,” or an emergency measure that will only become
necessary and be used should the original plan misfire or, even, succeed yet harm
other interests.
Conclusion
It is never easy to propose a framework for analyzing and responding more
effectively to today’s most vexing strategic problems. For starters, many observers
insist that if the framework is not entirely original, it has nothing new to con-
tribute. Second, and conversely, there is concept fatigue and the unwillingness to
consider any new (or old) terminology as anything other than distracting jargon.
Third, the use of frameworks is thought to encourage template thinking and to
narrow the intellectual margins of the analyst. Fourth, it is suggested that policy
errors committed by states are unrelated to the conceptual tools at their dispos-
al, which are anyway advanced, and that further refinement on this front merely
chases the shadow of bigger problems. Fifth (but far from finally), everything that
is proposed is believed to be “already obvious” and therefore not worth reprinting
or exploring.
64
These criticisms have some validity, and it is important to emphasize that

what is suggested here is not seen as particularly contentious or as a panacea for
strategic malaise. Nothing within the CISA Framework for Analysis and Action
removes from the analyst the cardinal responsibility for strategic artistry, and little
within it will compensate for deficiencies on this front. Indeed, it would be unwise
to confuse an analytical tool with the very product it is intended to craft. Similarly,
this framework is unlikely to “fix” the strategic pathologies that prevent a better
response to irregular challenges. Nonetheless, it can—through proper investment
in education—encourage greater awareness of the nature of contemporary conflict
and the tradecraft involved in drawing up an appropriate response. Finally, this
approach is but one possibility for how to engage. There are many diagnostic tools
that can be used to confront ambiguous threats.
With that, the Framework for Analysis and Action is being shared because
CISA faculty, their students, and their alumni—spread across the world—have
found it particularly effective and relevant to irregular warfare and its associated
challenges. Indeed, in our experience, both in the classroom and beyond, this ap-
proach has often provided comprehensive guidance and a structure for planning
where none existed before. By fusing insights drawn from academic treatment
of mobilization, legitimacy, and framing with the military methods of assessing
strategy, it offers one way of capturing and rendering usable analysis relating to
irregular threats. By going one step further, in providing a roadmap and method-
ology for how to design a response, it moves beyond simply admiring the problem
and encourages the creation of strategy.
That is not to say that the framework is complete or cannot be improved.
As the very fact of publishing a second edition of this monograph should dem-
onstrate, the product is always evolving. Indeed, a final purpose in sharing this
approach is precisely to provoke a conversation, to push for further refinements
in our thinking and approaches to the strategic problems of today and tomorrow.
65
Ucko and Marks
Appendix A. Strategic Estimate of the Situation: A Study Guide

This guide assists your production of a Strategic Estimate of the Situation. In
your use of this guidance, please recall:
◆ This is not a checklist to be approached simply by responding in turn to

each question. You, not the framework, are responsible for weaving together the
relevant data, providing the analysis, and drawing appropriate conclusions.
◆ Never include anything just because the guidance tells you to do so. Use the Es-
timate framework and the associated terminology to interrogate your case; know
(and demonstrate in your argumentation) why what you include is relevant and
necessary to the point being made.
◆ The framework lexicon is used in conjunction with the terminology of op-
erational design and art as derived from joint doctrine.
Problem
In two to three paragraphs, distill the nature of the problem, providing both a
synthesis of the Estimate and an introduction. Reflect on the following questions,
but save details for later:
◆ What is the political nature of the problem that the state is facing?
◆ What is the name and nature of the threat? Is it a terrorist group, insurgency,
transnational criminal organization, militia, state government, or combination

thereof?
◆ Provide the information necessary (and only that information) to explain
what the threat is doing now (and why).
◆ Demonstrate the direction of the conflict based on current trends: who is
benefiting, who is hurting, and why does it matter?
◆ Why is this problem proving so difficult to counter? Why is a change in
policy needed?
◆ A map of areas discussed should be situated here.
66
Note: The problem statement is the distillation of the analysis encompassed by the
entire Estimate. As such, it cannot be finalized before the other boxes of the Esti-
mate framework have been completed.
Roots
Roots is concerned with the factors that produce the threat—or how struc-
tural factors are undermining the state and allowing the threat to thrive. The griev-
ances or “drivers” may be actual or perceived (that is, objective or subjective, tan-
gible or intangible). The issue is their resonance in society and the legitimacy of
those championing violent ways of achieving change.
The Roots section will differ according to the nature of the conflict:
Figure A1. Graphical Representation of the Strategic Estimate

Framework
◆ In insurgency and other bottom-up efforts at change (including those spon-
sored by outside states), analysis should interrogate how macro factors (context,
structure) lead certain individuals in society (micro) to embrace collective at-
tempts at change via organizations (meso). Each facet must be interrogated, not
linearly but in an integrated manner, as part of your overall analysis. Specifically:
❏ Macro: What are the contextual factors that enable the threat, allowing it
to amass support or strength? Typical examples of such drivers include entrenched
inequity, poor governance, corruption, geographical isolation, lack of opportunity,
abusive state behavior, or unresolved historical legacies, but the list is far from
exhaustive.
❏ Micro: assuming these drivers are relevant, why do they compel some but
not others to support violent or subversive strategies of change? Can we determine
67
Ucko and Marks
what groupings or individuals are more likely to be driven to extreme solutions?

Why them? Why not others?
❏ Meso: why does the collective actor (be it a group or a government) fa-
vor violent, subversive, or destabilizing strategies? Why is such a strategy seen as
necessary to resolve the political problem at hand? Was mediation of contextual
issues through “normal politics” not possible (if so, who/what blocked it?) or not
desired (if so, why)? Put differently, has violence emerged from a deficiency within
the Political Opportunity Structure (POS) or due to a violent extremist ideology
uninterested in peaceful change?
◆ In interstate conflicts, where one state is attacking another using irregular

methods, Roots will consider:
❏ The vulnerabilities and contradictions that are enabling the attack and
limiting the victim state’s resilience and resistance potential. This may refer to any
number of weaknesses, dependencies, schisms, and other limitations. What pres-
sure points are being exploited?
❏ The complexes and reasons for an outside state to launch such aggressive
and subversive action. This may refer to its own insecurities, sense of impunity, or
of desperation. What are the push factors for its behavior?
❏ Regardless of type of conflict, the hard-nosed purpose of the Roots analy-
sis is to identify dispassionately what factors and flows are nourishing the threat,
so that they may be addressed as part of a comprehensive response. As such, re-
member this intent and do not get lost in the details.
Frame and Narrative

Identify and analyze the threat’s:
◆ Diagnostic frame (framing of problem and apportioning of blame)
◆ Prognostic frame (framing of a necessary solution, and the justification for

violence or extreme measures)
◆ Motivational frame (framing of why participation and support of others are
necessary, despite risks).
68
◆ For each, explain the narrative used, be it to explain the world, advocate for
a solution, or compel participation.

◆ To the degree warranted by the case, explain the threat’s use of frame align-
ment (achieving resonance with broader frames and causes in society to gain
legitimacy and allies).
◆ Evaluate the resonance of the framing structure among the relevant or con-
tested audiences. Which are these? Use relevant data to support this evaluation.
Threat Strategy (Ends, Ways, Means)

Note: The nature of the threat you are addressing may be potential or fully
evolved, an individual or a group, a nonstate entity or a state. Discussion below is
relevant to all these categories. It is the analyst’s responsibility to map the appro-
priate lines of effort (LOEs) and campaigns of the strategy at hand. The strategy is
the totality of Ends, Ways, and Means, united via a theory of success that brings
the desired change. Ways are a key component (the “strategic approach”) but are
not “the strategy.” Furthermore, it is important to note that the ends-ways-means
construct is best conceptualized in symbiotic fashion—its components do not com-
prise a sequential list.
◆ Ends: What are the goals of the threat and how do these relate to the con-
flict’s political essence?
❏ Critical interrogation of stated objectives may be necessary, particularly
when circumstances have made the realization of the declared endstate a distant
prospect. What, in the interim, can be said to constitute the threat’s objective?
◆ Ways
❏ What is the threat’s strategic approach? What, in essence, is the approach

to getting what it wants (for example, hybrid warfare, People’s War, nonviolence,
focismo, and so forth)?
❏ How does this approach bear the promise of resolving the threat actor’s
grievances? In other words, what is the theory of success underpinning the ap-
proach?
69
Ucko and Marks
Figure A2. The Logical Relationship Among Ends, Ways,

Campaigns, and Means
END: Desired endstate
WAYS: Strategic approach; theory of success
Interim
LOE 1 Campaign 1 Campaign 2 Campaign 3
Objectives
Means Means Means
Line of Effort 2:
Interim
LOE 2 Campaign 1 Campaign 2 Campaign 3
Objectives
Means Means Means
❏ Now the strategy should be mapped to facilitate construction of an ap-

propriate counter. We do this by identifying lines of effort, campaigns (bundles of
activity), and—as appropriate—subcampaigns. In your analysis, always render ex-
plicit the relation of operational activity and strategic objectives (often via interim
objectives).
❏ To map the strategy, five leading questions should be fully interrogated:
✧ What, if anything, is the threat doing politically to bring about
its desired objectives?
✧ How, if at all, is the threat using violence (that is, in what forms,
by and against whom)?
✧ How, if at all, is the threat using nonviolence—also known as
political warfare (that is, in what forms and by whom)?
✧ How, if at all, is the threat using external allies to reach its objec-
tives (what role do they play)?
✧ How, if at all, is the threat internationalizing the conflict? To
what effect?
70
Figure A3. A Standard People’s War Insurgency, Mapped as Lines of

Effort and Campaigns
Mobilization of
Build the Govern the
POLITICAL counterstate counterstate
people and
resources
Facilitate
Guerrilla Mobile War of
VIOLENCE Terrorism
warfare warfare position
imposition of
politics
NON- Information Erode/gain

Lawfare Protest Subversion legitimacy
VIOLENCE warfare
Front Influenced
“Useful Broaden struggle/
ALLIES organiza- organiza-
idiots” united fronts
tions tions
International
INTER- organiza-
Visibility and
States Individuals
NATIONAL tions
support
❏ Interrogation of these questions yields evidence of action, which can be

grouped into campaigns. Two or more campaigns united in strategic direction and
intent form a line of effort.
❏ Responding directly to the analytical prompts above, these LOEs could
simply be labelled the political LOE, violent LOE, nonviolent LOE, ally LOE, and/
or international LOE. They could also be labeled differently—whatever captures
the strategy best. However labelled, each line of effort must have an interim strate-
gic objective—a purpose—that contributes to the threat’s goal.
◆ Means: What are the threat’s resources, structures, and materiel?
❏ Means are not a separate concern from the “how” of strategy. As the
strategy is mapped, include to the degree possible consideration of how the threat
71
Ucko and Marks
is engaging in this strategy. What resources and specialized means are being de-
ployed?
❏ A separate discussion of means may also be appropriate to indicate hold-
ings, structures, bases, ministries, command and control structures, and so forth.
Diagrams and maps can be important here.
◆ Phasing: Is there a distinct “schedule” or sequence that the threat associates

with its plan? How does the current phase of the conflict relate to its realization of
political goals?
◆ Based on this mapping exercise, is it possible to determine the center of grav-
ity (COG)? The COG is the focal point of power and coherence, without which the
threat strategy could not function or be irrelevant. In irregular warfare, the COG
often relates to perceptions of legitimacy of either the government or the threat,
which in turn relates to the desire and interest of key actors in either supporting or
opposing a political movement.
◆ To identify ways of addressing the COG, determine the threat’s critical vul-
nerabilities (CVs). A CV is a component of the threat strategy that is deficient
or vulnerable to direct or indirect attack, creating a significant effect. It may re-
late to mismatches between Frames and Strategy (what is believed versus what
is done), to gaps between Roots and Threat Strategy (what drives participation
versus threat’s mediation of grievances), or to tensions within any component of
the Estimate.
Present Response
Note: This is a discussion and critique of the current state response to the
threat you are analyzing.
◆ State perception: How does the state frame the threat and/or the problem?
How does it assess the threat COG? How does it view its own progress in address-
ing this threat? How does it describe its own reason for fighting the threat?
72
◆ State response: How is the state responding to the threat strategy? Is it cor-
rectly addressing legitimacy? What is the strategic approach and theory of success?
◆ Critique: Is the state’s perception accurate—of its progress, the conflict, or
the threat? Is the state making progress in defeating or countering the threat? Does
the state’s response address the symptoms of the problem or the problem itself
(the underlying causes)? Is it appropriately addressing the Roots of the Conflict,
the Frame and Narratives, and/or the Threat Strategy? As applicable, is the state
affecting the COG via deft exploitation of the CVs?
◆ Offer a thorough critique of the state response that identifies and explains its
strengths and weaknesses.
Note: The two most common errors in this section are:
◆ Merely listing state programs. It is the interaction of the two contenders that
is at issue. How is the struggle of capability and strategic approaches stacking up?
Has a struggle for legitimacy resulted or has violence (in the form of raw power)
changed the dynamic you are examining?
◆ Confusing the government response in past years for the present phase that
currently matters. What the present phase is will depend on the specifics of the
case but is always distinguished by meaningful continuity with the dynamics of the
conflict as they express themselves today.
73
Ucko and Marks
Appendix B. The Course of Action: A Study Guide
Guidance
Your strategic response builds on your strategic estimate, producing an Ir-
regular Warfare Plan. Both come together in one document, as it is impossible to
do the Response without the Estimate.
Figure B1. The Estimate and COA Frameworks and Their Relation
1. STRATEGIC ESTIMATE

CONCEPT OF LEGAL
RESPONSE AUTHORITY ASSUMPTIONS IMPLEMENTATION
Assessment of What authorities What assumptions Strategy (E-W-M)
estimate: What is bind you and what were necessary to RISK
to be done and do you need? continue with ASSESSMENT &
Phasing
why? planning? MITIGATION
How to get at
Metrics
threat COG via
CVs?
2. STRATEGIC RESPONSE
Concept of Response
Summarize your recommended response to the problem analyzed in your Es-
timate. Illustrate how and why your plan differs from the present government re-
sponse analyzed in the Estimate. The point is to be succinct. Capture your strategy
in two to four paragraphs.
One way of crafting your response is by revisiting and seeking to address the
strategic center of gravity, often via the threat’s critical vulnerabilities. To the degree
that the COG speaks to questions of legitimacy (often the case in irregular warfare),
your response must be designed to address issues with the political opportunity
74
structure and/or the nonmediation of grievances, real or imagined, that sustain the
threat. Your response should also be driven by a theory of success and/or the posi-
tion that you want to attain and how. These theories must be grounded in evidence
concerning the case, drawn from your Estimate.
In describing the type of response you are proposing, demonstrate:
◆ The strategic approach of your response (counterterrorism, counterinsur-

gency, counternarcotic, counter state, counter-some-other-threat, or some hybrid
of these?). Do not feel confined by labels. Use your own words to express your
intent—but be specific.
◆ In broad terms, the ends-ways-means construct of your response, its main
phases, along with the theory of success, however worded—that is, how/why the
response will succeed?
◆ The national interests that guide you:
❏ It should be clear which government the response is intended for

❏ On this basis, why your proposed response is superior to the govern-
ment’s present strategy, not only for addressing the threat but also strategically, in
relation to the broader national interest.
Legal
While you may have the ways and means to accomplish a variety of responses,
your plan must adhere to proper legal authorities. Ensuring that you have a legal
basis requires interrogation of your planned action and consideration of legal am-
biguities and challenges (these could arise from questions of sovereignty, use of
force, constitutional constraints, or treaty law).
◆ As concerns the use of force, is your response based on international hu-

manitarian law (the Law of Armed Conflict) or the rule of law (a law enforcement
approach)? Or is it some hybrid of these?
◆ Are the necessary international and domestic legal authorities in place for
those actions that require legal clarification? If legal authorities are vague or
75
Ucko and Marks
lacking, can you implement temporary or new measures? You may find a need
for your state’s legislative body to enact specific laws to address the threat.
◆ Be aware that legal considerations can be formal—the rule of law—or in-
formal, relating to cultural, social, and religious factors that will constrain your
response.
Do not use this section to list all laws that relate to your conflict or case. Re-
strict the analysis to the specific red flags that might prompt legal review and need
clarification as to the existing authorities. Where authorities and legal backing are
lacking, elaborate on the necessary changes in legislation.
Assumptions
What assumptions did you have to make to allow for planning into the future?
State and explain these assumptions.
Assumptions are used to make necessary predictions and to fill in gaps in
required information or facts that are needed to continue planning. Your assump-
tions may relate to areas of continuity or change and delineate an environment in
which your proposed course of action is relevant.
Bear in mind:
◆ Planning assumptions should be valid (supported by evidence), important

(relevant to your plan), and necessary (address an area where uncertainty is crip-
pling).
◆ As assumptions relate to key areas of uncertainty, aim to include as few
assumptions as appropriate to enable planning. As far as possible, the Estimate
should be used to provide the evidentiary basis for the strategy.
◆ Planning assumptions should relate to uncertainties beyond the scope of your
own response. As such, planning assumptions are different from anticipated out-
comes. Do not assume that desired conditions will apply if they do not already do
so; do not assume problematic circumstances will change unless evidence suggests
this is likely. Do not let the assumptions do the hard work for you.
76
What are the implications of your assumptions being proved wrong? Is there
sufficient flexibility in your strategic response or must it be rewritten?
Implementation
This is the actual setting forth of the detailed elements of the plan to address
the problem. As appropriate to your case, you must detail how your proposed re-
sponse counters: the roots of the problem, the threat frame(s) and narrative(s),
and the threat strategy.
Begin with a synopsis of how you operationalize the Concept of Response dis-
cussed earlier.
◆ Identify your strategic objectives (ends).
◆ Identify your strategic approach (a broad overview of overall nature of re-

sponse, its key phases of implementation and/or LOE, along with main means
involved)—that is, ways, operationalized by means.
◆ Explain within this section on the strategic approach how it responds to
your theory of success.
This introduction to your strategy will allow you to get into further detail. In
presenting the strategy, do not think of its constituent elements as separate but
rather integrate them as part of one product, leading from the present to your de-
sired objective and encompassing the necessary LOEs, metrics, phases, and means
(see figure B2).
The LOEs will likely differ across the different phases of the plan so that each
one builds on progress made until strategic and sustainable objectives can be
reached. Different phases will be appropriate in addressing different elements of
the Estimate—Roots, Frame and Narrative, and Threat Strategy. This will relate to
how the plan unfolds across time and space (and to the requirements of your case).
Your response may have phases that are sequential or concurrent or a combination
of these. How will you decide to transition from one phase to the next? Are your
phases based on time or are there specific conditions determined through metrics
(see next section) that determine when to transition from one phase to the next?
77
Ucko and Marks
Figure B2. Sample Strategic Plan, Showing Integration of Operational

Art, Campaigns, Phasing, Transition Points, and Measures of
Effectiveness
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3

Current Conditions
Interim Objectives
LOE Campaign Campaign Campaign

Means Means Means
LOE Campaign Campaign

Means Means
Transition point Transition point

(Metrics) (Metrics)
What are the metrics by which you will assess the success of your plan and/or
the shift between its critical phases (what are the conditions that allow you to tran-
sition)? Metrics can be both tangible (concrete) and intangible (abstract, such as
perceptions, emotions, trust). Consider how best to capture the data necessary for
these metrics (for example, how do you intend to capture “influence”)? Attempt
to capture the outcomes desired by the plan rather than the inputs or their direct
output—emphasize the political effects and elaborate ways of measuring them.
In resourcing your plan, you must provide the details of what government de-
partments, agencies, or ministries are tasked to accomplish your LOEs and their
associated campaigns. If the required means are not in place, they must be de-
veloped (and this must be acknowledged in your phasing structure). Note that
instruments of national power (for example, diplomatic, information, military,
economic, finance, intelligence, and law enforcement) are not Ways but rather
(and merely) an indication of Means—for instance, military instrument of power
78
means little if you do not specify just who and what is to execute a task and what
that task will be.
In explaining your implementation, provide visual aids as necessary to illus-
trate how the response will unfold. These should include maps or charts denoting
geographic and human terrain—population density, demographic data, religious
affiliations, political alliances, natural resources, criminal activity, or whatever
variable is most relevant to your case.
Ensure that your response, as presented, appears feasible (it is a response that
the state could execute); reasonable (it is rational and logical); acceptable (within
the bounds of relevant law and to the court of public opinion—both domestically
and internationally); and sustainable (the results achieved will be consolidated
rather than reversed). These conditions are not a list of conditions to be checked
off one by one, but crucial considerations to guide you throughout your planning
and design.
Risk Assessment and Mitigation

One of the most overlooked and difficult elements in strategic planning is
understanding the risks associated with executing your strategic response and
devising ways to mitigate such risk. Risk is the probability of failure in achieving
an objective at an acceptable cost.
Some of the questions to consider include:
◆ Where are the greatest risks of failure?
❏ Where do you see the greatest risk for a mismatch or disconnection be-
tween your ends, ways, and means?
❏ Similarly, where do you see the greatest risk for an invalid assumption?
◆ What is the risk associated with your response, even if it succeeds?
❏ What is the risk of executing the strategy to your other national interests?
❏ What might be the unintended consequences of your plan, even if it suc-
ceeds?
79
Ucko and Marks
For each risk identified, consider first whether changes to your response would
resolve this vulnerability. Edit the response as necessary to arrive at unavoidable,
acceptable residual risks. For these, develop plans for mitigation. If these risks are
realized, what alternative measures could be taken to reduce the magnitude of the
damage incurred? Can ends, ways, or means be rethought?
80
Notes
1
Thomas A. Marks and David H. Ucko, “Gray Zone in Red: China Revisits the Past,”
Small Wars & Insurgencies 32, no. 2 (February 17, 2021), 181–204, available at <https://
doi.org/10.1080/09592318.2021.1870422>.
2
Ashley Lane, “Iran’s Islamist Proxies in the Middle East,” The Islamists (Washington,
DC: Wilson Center, December 17, 2020), available at <https://www.wilsoncenter.org/
article/irans-islamist-proxies>; Michael Knights, “Soleimani Is Dead: The Road Ahead for
Iranian-Backed Militias in Iraq,” CTC Sentinel, January 2020.
3
Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America:
Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive Edge (Washington, DC: Department of
Defense, 2018), 2, available at <https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-
National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf>.
4
George W. Bush, “Remarks to the Troops at Norfolk Naval Air Station in Norfolk,
Virginia,” The American Presidency Project, February 13, 2001, available at <www.
presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=45992>.
5
Summary of the Irregular Warfare Annex to the National Defense Strategy
(Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 2020), 1.
6
Douglas S. Blaufarb, The Counterinsurgency Era: U.S. Doctrine and
Performance—1950 to Present (New York: The Free Press, 1977); Richard Duncan
Downie, Learning from Conflict: The U.S. Military in Vietnam, El Salvador, and the Drug
War (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998); David H. Ucko, The New Counterinsurgency Era:
Transforming the U.S. Military for Modern Wars (Washington, DC: Georgetown University
Press, 2009).
7
Draws on David H. Ucko and Thomas A. Marks, “Violence in Context: Mapping the
Strategies and Operational Art of Irregular Warfare,” Contemporary Security Policy 39, no.
2 (April 2018), 206–233, available at <https://doi.org/10.1080/13523260.2018.1432922>.
8
The 2018 National Defense Strategy stated categorically that “Inter-state strategic
competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern.” Summary of the 2018 National
Defense Strategy of the United States of America, 1.
9
Overlooked universally in Western discussion is the reality that key facets of the
approach under discussion have been codified doctrine for roughly a century in both
Russia (originally, the Soviet Union) and China, as well as the loser in the Chinese civil
war, Taiwan. For discussion and assessment of the China and Taiwan cases, as influenced
by the Soviet example and direct involvement, see Thomas A. Marks, Counterrevolution
in China: Wang Sheng and the Kuomintang (London: Frank Cass, 1996). For North Korea,
see Benjamin R. Young, Guns, Guerillas [sic], and the Great Leader: North Korea and the
Third World, Cold War International History Project (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
2021).
81
Ucko and Marks
10
For the useful backstory to this phenomenon, see Richard Middleton, The War of
American Independence, 1775–1783, 1st ed. (New York: Pearson, 2012).
11
Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 75.
12
The framework was originally created by Thomas A. Marks and draws on his
life work and scholarship on an aggregation of the People’s War approach, used by the
American Patriots and the Asian theorists, notably Mao Zedong, and others.
13
Joint Operating Concept, Irregular Warfare: Countering Irregular Threats
(Washington, DC: Department of Defense, May 17, 2010), 9, available at <https://
www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/concepts/joc_iw_v2.pdf?v
er=2017-12-28-162021-510>.
14
As cited in Michael Ignatieff, Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond (New York: Picador,
2001), 211.
15
Ibid.
16
Operations other than war included “strikes, raids, peace enforcement,
counterterrorism, enforcement of sanctions, support to insurgency and
counterinsurgency, and evacuation of noncombatants.” See Joint Publication (JP) 3-07,
Joint Doctrine for Military Operations Other Than War (Washington, DC: The Joint Staff,
1995), vii. Emphasis added.
17
David H. Ucko, “Nobody Puts IW in an Annex: It’s Time to Embrace Irregular
Warfare as a Strategic Priority,” Modern War Institute, October 14, 2020, available at
<https://mwi.usma.edu/nobody-puts-iw-in-an-annex-its-time-to-embrace-irregular-
warfare-as-a-strategic-priority/>.
18
Valery Gerasimov, “The Value of Science in Prediction,” Military-Industrial Kurier,
no. 8 (476), March 27, 2013, available at <http://vpk-news.ru/sites/default/files/pdf/
VPK_08_476.pdf>. Emphasis added.
19
Sun Tzu, The Art of War (Minneapolis: Filiquarian Publishing, 2006), 13.
20
Rosa Brooks, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything:
Tales from the Pentagon (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2016).
21
See, for example, Kyrylo Sakhniuk, “Russian Information Warfare Against
Ukraine,” The Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security International 27, no. 3
(Summer 2022), 38–45. For discussion of Russian simultaneous focus on the nonviolent
side of the equation, see Nikolay Y. Naydenov, “Russia’s Gray Zone Threat to Bulgaria,”
The Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security International 27, no. 3 (Summer
2022), 46–55.
22
Alexus G. Grynkewich, “Welfare as Warfare: How Violent Non-State Groups Use
Social Services to Attack the State,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 31, no. 4 (April 4,
2008), 350–370; Shawn Teresa Flanigan, “Charity as Resistance: Connections Between
Charity, Contentious Politics, and Terror,” Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 29, no. 7
82
(October 2006), 641–655. On the use of political fronts by insurgent groups, see David
H Ucko, The Insurgent’s Dilemma: A Struggle to Prevail (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2022), chap. 4; Benedetta Berti, Armed Political Organizations: From Conflict to
Integration (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013); Leonard Weinberg,
Ami Pedahzur, and Arie Perlinger, Political Parties and Terrorist Groups, 2nd ed., Routledge
Studies in Extremism and Democracy, ed. Roger Eatwell (London: Routledge, 2009).
23
Useful in this context are two articles, adapted from work conducted at the
College of International Security Affairs, by two U.S. students, using the framework
presented here. See Jesse S. Curtis, “Springing the ‘Tacitus Trap’: Countering Chinese
State-Sponsored Disinformation,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 32, no. 2 (February 17,
2021), 229–265, available at <https://doi.org/10.1080/09592318.2021.1870429>; Cary
Mittelmark, “Playing Chess with the Dragon: Chinese-U.S. Competition in the Era of
Irregular Warfare,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 32, no. 2 (February 17, 2021), 205–228,
available at <https://doi.org/10.1080/09592318.2021.1870423>.
24
Thomas A. Marks, Maoist People’s War in Post-Vietnam Asia (Bangkok: White
Lotus, 2007), 41–45.
25
Thomas A. Marks, “Counterinsurgency in the Age of Globalism,” Journal of Conflict
Studies 27, no. 1 (2007), 24–25.
26
Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America, 5.
27
As Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, put it during an interview shortly after the
killing of Qasem Soleimani, “‘Beautiful military equipment’ don’t [sic] rule the world.
People rule the world. People. The United States must wake up to the reality that the people
of this region are enraged, that the people of this region want the United States out, and
the United States cannot stay in this region with the people of the region not wanting it
anymore.” CNN, January 7, 2020, available at <www.cnn.com/videos/world/2020/01/07/
iran-soleimani-javad-zarif-donald-trump-pleitgen-intv-intl-ldn-vpx.cnn>.
28
See, for example, Young, Guns, Guerillas [sic], and the Great Leader.
29
As Niels Woudstra explains, China has occupied vital islands in the South China
Sea not by launching “large-scale offensives against its neighbours” but by “patiently
broadening its influence in the area, often by using civilian or paramilitary means.”
See Niels Woudstra, “Winning Without Killing in the South China Sea,” in NL Arms
Netherlands Annual Review of Military Studies 2017: Winning Without Killing; The Strategic
and Operational Utility of Non-Kinetic Capabilities in Crises, ed. Paul A.L. Ducheine and
Frans P.B. Osinga (Amsterdam: Asser Press/Springer, 2017), 280.
30
See, for example, Bill Hayton, The South China Sea: The Struggle for Power in Asia
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014); Humphrey Hawksley, Asian Waters (New York:
Abrams Books, 2020).
83
Ucko and Marks
31
See, respectively, Gerasimov, “The Value of Science in Prediction”; Liang Qiao, Al
Santoli, and Xiangsui Wang, Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America
(Panama City, Panama: Pan American Publishing, 2002).
32
Evidence that has emerged concerning Russian attempts to shape U.S. elections
results has been overwhelming. See, for example, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Cyberwar: How
Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President (New York: Oxford University Press,
2018). For useful contextualization, see Robert S. Hinck, Skye C. Cooley, and Randolph
Kluver, Global Media and Strategic Narratives of Contested Democracy: Chinese, Russian,
and Arabic Media Narratives of the U.S. Presidential Election (London: Routledge, 2020).
33
Alessandro Ford, “Chinese Fishing Fleet Leaves Ecuador, Chile, Peru Scrambling
to Respond,” InSight Crime, November 5, 2020, available at <https://insightcrime.org/
news/analysis/china-fishing-fleet-response/>; “Gangsterism with Chinese Characteristics,”
Indo-Pacific Defense Forum, February 4, 2022, available at <https://ipdefenseforum.
com/2022/02/gangsterism-with-chinese-characteristics/>; Kathy Gilsinan, “China’s
Bargain on Global Influence Is Paying Off,” The Atlantic, May 6, 2020, available at <https://
www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/05/china-global-influence-who-united-
states/611227/>.
34
See, for example, Stephen J. Flanagan et al., Deterring Russian Aggression in
the Baltic States Through Resilience and Resistance, Research Report (Santa Monica,
CA: RAND, 2019), available at <https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1086498.pdf>; Uwe
Hartmann, “The Evolution of the Hybrid Threat, and Resilience as a Countermeasure,”
NATO Research Paper No. 139 (September 2017), 1–8.
35
Lawrence Freedman, The Transformation of Strategic Affairs, Adelphi Paper 379
(Abingdon, NY: Routledge, 2006), 22.
36
Joseph S. Nye, Jr., “The Information Revolution and Power,” Current History 113,
no. 759 (January 2014), 20. Citing John Arquilla.
37
Aymenn Jawad al-Tamini, “Review of ‘ISIS: The State of Terror,’” Syria Comment,
March 27, 2015, available at <www.joshualandis.com/blog/review-of-isis-the-state-of-
terror/>.
38
Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger, ISIS: The State of Terror (New York: Ecco Press/
HarperCollins, 2016), 150. See also Laura Huey, “This Is Not Your Mother’s Terrorism:
Social Media, Online Radicalization and the Practice of Political Jamming,” Journal of
Terrorism Research 6, no. 2 (May 25, 2015), 2, available at <https://doi.org/10.15664/
jtr.1159>; Jerome P. Bjelopera, American Jihadist Terrorism: Combating a Complex Threat,
R41416 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, January 23, 2013), 20.
39
It must be kept in mind that what is being posited is not merely an effort at
deception but the advancing of correct interpretation of objective realities—as seen by the
challenger—in a subjective manner that advances the cause. Vladimir Lenin, among many
possibilities, made clear that strategic fidelity allowed any degree of tactical compromise.
84
Use of the latter did not mean belief in the former was duplicitous. Useful discussion in
Sonia Ryang, Language and Truth in North Korea (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
2021).
40
Alan Greeley Misenheimer, Thucydides’ Other “Traps”: The United States, China,
and the Prospect of “Inevitable” War (Washington, DC: NDU Press, 2019), 53–54. We are
indebted to Jesse Curtis for alerting us to this concept.
41
Peter Mattis, “China’s ‘Three Warfares’ in Perspective,” War on the Rocks, January
30, 2018, available at <https://warontherocks.com/2018/01/chinas-three-warfares-
perspective/>; Marks, Counterrevolution in China.
42
Gerasimov, “The Value of Science in Prediction.”
43
Irregular Warfare, 9.
44
Clausewitz, On War, 69.
45
Christopher Coker, Rebooting Clausewitz: “On War” in the Twenty-First Century
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 146.
46
F.G. Hoffman, Decisive Force: The New American Way of War (Westport, CT:
Praeger, 1996); Russell Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United States
Military Strategy and Policy (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1977).
47
Philip N. Howard, Bharath Ganesh, and Dimitra Liotsiou, The IRA, Social Media,
and Political Polarization in the United States, 2012–2018 (Oxford: Computational
Propaganda Research Project, December 2018). See also Mie Kim Young, “Uncover:
Strategies and Tactics of Russian Interference in U.S. Elections,” Project DATA (Digital
Ad Tracking & Analysis), University of Wisconsin, Madison, September 4, 2018,
available at <https://journalism.wisc.edu/wp-content/blogs.dir/41/files/2018/09/Uncover.
Kim_.v.5.0905181.pdf>.
48
John Raidt, “Coronavirus Has Exposed the United States’ Own Political Virus,”
Atlantic Council, April 29, 2020, available at <https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/content-
series/beyond-covid-19/coronavirus-has-exposed-the-united-states-own-political-
virus/>. For exploitation thereof, see Michael R. Gordon and Dustin Volz, “Russian
Disinformation Campaign Aims to Undermine Confidence in Pfizer, Other Covid-19
Vaccines, U.S. Officials Say,” Wall Street Journal, March 7, 2021, available at <https://www.
wsj.com/articles/russian-disinformation-campaign-aims-to-undermine-confidence-in-
pfizer-other-covid-19-vaccines-u-s-officials-say-11615129200>.
49
Charles A. Kupchan and Peter L. Trubowitz, “Dead Center: The Demise of Liberal
Internationalism in the United States,” International Security 32, no. 2 (2007), 40.
50
Adrian Karatnycky and Alexander J. Motyl, “Ukraine’s Promising Path to
Reform,” Foreign Affairs, July 16, 2018, available at <www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/
ukraine/2018-07-16/ukraines-promising-path-reform>; Isabel Weininger, “Die Ukraine—
Transparent, aber Korrupt?” Auslandsinformationen, no. 4 (2019), 13. In Transparency
International’s Corruption Perception Index of 2019, Ukraine still ranks as the second-
85
Ucko and Marks
most corrupt nation in Europe (after Russia). See Corruption Perceptions Index 2019
(Berlin: Transparency International, 2020), available at <https://images.transparencycdn.
org/images/2019_CPI_Report_EN.pdf>.
51
Until 2013, the media produced by the U.S. Government’s Broadcasting Board of
Governors (BBG), such as Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the
Middle East Broadcasting Networks, could not be disseminated domestically for fear
of subjecting U.S. citizens to government propaganda. Though that has changed, and
the BBG is now the U.S. Agency for Global Media, these outlets are clearly insufficient
for strategic communications (even communications built on facts as opposed to spin).
During this time, the United States has allowed outlets owned by foreign governments to
broadcast freely and without label.
52
As Matthew Armstrong has noted, even at the high point of U.S. strategic
communications, the organization faced a range of problems, from “a lack of training, to
bureaucratic lethargy, to a failure to align and coordinate overt and covert activities.” See
Matthew Armstrong, “The Politics of Information Warfare in the United States,” in Hybrid
Conflicts and Information Warfare: New Labels, Old Politics, ed. Ofer Fridman, Vitaly
Kabernik, and James C. Pearce (London: Lynne Rienner, 2019), 108.
53
Observations based on interviews with members of the Global Engagement
Center. See also Matthew Armstrong, “The Past, Present, and Future of the War for
Public Opinion,” War on the Rocks, January 19, 2017, available at <https://warontherocks.
com/2017/01/the-past-present-and-future-of-the-war-for-public-opinion/>.
54
Fareed Zakaria, “Defense Spending Is America’s Cancerous Bipartisan Consensus,”
Washington Post, July 18, 2019, available at <https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/
defense-spending-is-americas-cancerous-bipartisan-consensus/2019/07/18/783a9e1a-
a978-11e9-9214-246e594de5d5_story.html>.
55
Robert M. Gates, “The Overmilitarization of American Foreign Policy,” Foreign
Affairs, July/August 2020, available at <www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-
states/2020-06-02/robert-gates-overmilitarization-american-foreign-policy>.
56
See Phillip Lohaus, “A New Blueprint for Competing Below the Threshold: The
Joint Concept for Integrated Campaigning,” War on the Rocks, May 23, 2018, available
at <https://warontherocks.com/2018/05/a-new-blueprint-for-competing-below-the-
threshold-the-joint-concept-for-integrated-campaigning/>; Joint Concept for Integrated
Campaigning (Washington, DC: The Joint Staff, March 16, 2018), available at <http://www.
jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/concepts/joint_concept_integrated_campaign.pd
f?ver=2018-03-28-102833-257>.
57
As cited in John Costello and Peter Mattis, “Electronic Warfare and the Renaissance
of Chinese Informational Operations,” in China’s Evolving Military Strategy, ed. Joe
McReynolds (Washington, DC: The Jamestown Foundation, 2017), 191.
86
58
Detailed foundational treatments in Thomas A. Marks, “‘Counterterrorism’ 2018:
Where We Stand Analytically,” The Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security
International 24, no. 1 (Winter 2018), 26–36; Thomas A. Marks, “Combating ‘Terrorism’:
A Strategic Warfighting Perspective,” in Essays in Honour of K.P.S. Gill, ed. Ajai Sahni
(New Delhi: Kautilya, 2019), 99–128. See also Ucko and Marks, “Violence in Context.”
59
Hew Strachan, “Strategy and the Limitation of War,” Survival 50, no. 1 (March
2008), 51, available at <https://doi.org/10.1080/00396330801899470>.
60
Clausewitz, On War, 75.
61
“Pour Foch, stratège par excellence, ‘la stratégie est un système d’expédients; le
savoir transporté dans la vie réelle.’ Son premier pas appelle une réponse à la fameuse
interrogation: ‘De quoi s’agit-il ?’” [For Foch, the ultimate strategist, ‘strategy is a system of
expedients; knowledge applied to real life.’ Its first step requires a response to the famous
question: ‘what is it all about?’]. See Général de Lattre, “Foch,” Revue Des Deux Mondes
(1829–1971), no. 4 (1949), 588.
62
Heather Marquette and Caryn Peiffer, “Corruption and Transnational Organised
Crime,” in The Routledge Handbook of Transnational Organized Crime, ed. Felia Allum and
Stan Gilmour, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge, 2022), 473.
63
See Matt Andrews, Lant Pritchett, and Michael Woolcock, “Escaping Capability
Traps through Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA),” CGD Working Paper
(Washington, DC: Center for Global Development, 2012), 237.
64
Susan L. Woodward, “Do the Root Causes of Civil War Matter? On Using
Knowledge to Improve Peacebuilding Interventions,” Journal of Intervention
and Statebuilding 1, no. 2 (June 2007), 143–170, available at <https://doi.
org/10.1080/17502970701302789>. The vexing question of why some individuals
participate and others do not is the central issue in Christopher R. Browning’s
groundbreaking study of individual involvement in the mass killing of Jews. See
Christopher R. Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final
Solution in Poland, rev. ed. (New York: Harper Perennial, 2017).
65
See, for example, Lorne L. Dawson and Amarnath Amarasingam, “Talking to
Foreign Fighters: Insights Into the Motivations for Hijrah to Syria and Iraq,” Studies in
Conflict and Terrorism 40, no. 3 (March 4, 2017), 191–210, available at <https://doi.org/10.
1080/1057610X.2016.1274216>.
66
Doug McAdam, “Recruitment to High-Risk Activism: The Case of Freedom
Summer,” American Journal of Sociology 92, no. 1 (1986), 64–90.
67
Benchmark work is Peter K. Eisinger, “The Conditions of Protest Behavior in
American Cities,” The American Political Science Review 67, no. 1 (March 1973), 11–28.
See also Donatella Della Porta, Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State: A
Comparative Analysis of Italy and Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2006). The concept can become overspecified, and we do not delve here into the extensive
87
Ucko and Marks
derivative work that followed the foundational treatment, which held in straightforward
fashion that a structure of opportunity will politically either hinder or facilitate the
realization of individual aspirations. For assessment of the growth and controversy
involving this simple reality, see Karl-Dieter Opp, Theories of Political Protest and Social
Movements: A Multidisciplinary Introduction, Critique, and Synthesis (London: Routledge,
2009), esp. chapter 6.
68
Over time, this leads to what Della Porta refers to as a “state of clandestinity.” See
Donatella Della Porta, Clandestine Political Violence (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2013). See also Wieviorka’s work on “inversion.” Michel Wieviorka, The Making of
Terrorism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 61–77.
69
On Weather Underground, see Arthur M. Eckstein, Bad Moon Rising: How the
Weather Underground Beat the FBI and Lost the Revolution (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2016). On Black Panthers, see Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin, Black Against
Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party (Oakland: University of
California Press, 2016); Doug McAdam, Political Process and the Development of Black
Insurgency, 1930–1970, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982).
70
Jean Lartéguy, The Centurions, trans. Alexander Wallace Fielding (New York:
Penguin, 2015), 474.
71
V.I. Lenin, Selected Works [of] V.I. Lenin (New York: International Publishers,
1968), 40.
72
Nguyên Giáp Võ, People’s War, People’s Army: The Viet Công Insurrection Manual for
Underdeveloped Countries (New York: Praeger, 1967), 78.
73
See Akil N. Awan, “The Virtual Jihad: An Increasingly Legitimate Form of Warfare,”
The Virtual Jihad 3, no. 5 (May 2010), 10–13.
74
Peter Pomerantsev, “How Vladimir Putin Is Revolutionizing Information Warfare,”
The Atlantic, September 9, 2014, available at <www.theatlantic.com/international/
archive/2014/09/russia-putin-revolutionizing-information-warfare/379880/>.
75
Heidi Holz and Anthony Miller, China’s Playbook for Shaping the Global Media
Environment (Arlington, VA: CNA, February 2020), available at <https://www.cna.org/
CNA_files/PDF/IRM-2020-U-024710-Final.pdf>.
76
See J. Michael Cole, “Chinese Disinformation in Taiwan,” Taiwan Sentinel,
December 30, 2019, available at <https://sentinel.tw/chinese-disinformation-in-taiwan/>.
77
For a debate on the evolution of this phenomenon, see Thomas Rid and Marc
Hecker, War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2009).
78
Donatella Della Porta and Mario Diani, Social Movements: An Introduction, 2nd ed.
(Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006), 74–88.
79
For the seminal treatment on which nearly all subsequent work draws, wittingly
or not, see Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974).
88
80
Within a broad academic literature devoted to empathy, it can be helpfully defined
as “imagining or simulating another’s experience and perspective, to better understand
them. Empathy, in this sense, is rational and cognitive . . . a tool for understanding the way
another person thinks, feels, or perceives. It enables us to comprehend another’s mindset,
driving emotions or outlook, without requiring us to share the other’s thoughts, feelings,
and perceptions, or, indeed, approve of them.” See Matt Waldman, Strategic Empathy
(Washington, DC: New America Foundation, 2012), 2.
81
Tony Judt, Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals, 1944–1956 (New York: NYU Press,
2011), 48.
82
For an analysis of how these methods cut across highly disparate cases, see Charles
Lindholm and Jose Pedro Zúquete, The Struggle for the World: Liberation Movements for
the 21st Century (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010).
83
Judt, Past Imperfect, 317.
84
The quotation continues, “Nothing henceforth can disturb the convert’s inner peace
and serenity—except the occasional fear of losing faith again, losing thereby what alone
makes life worth living, and falling back into the outer darkness where there is wailing and
gnashing of teeth.” Arthur Koestler, as cited in Luther P. Gerlach and Virginia H. Hine,
People, Power, Change Movements of Social Transformation (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill,
1970), 141.
85
As cited in G.M. Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
1947), 278.
86
This was the advice Senator Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI) offered for how President
Harry S. Truman might gain domestic support for American assistance to Turkey and
Greece. See E.J. Dionne, Jr., “Inevitably, the Politics of Terror,” Washington Post, May
25, 2003, available at <https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/05/25/
inevitably-the-politics-of-terror/c4fdf19a-8d88-4109-9c2f-06602221928f/>.
87
As cited in Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary, 278.
88
See David H. Ucko, “‘The People Are Revolting’: An Anatomy of Authoritarian
Counterinsurgency,” Journal of Strategic Studies 39, no. 1 (January 2, 2016), 40–41.
89
Both Soviet (now Russian) and Chinese doctrine go to extensive lengths to delimit
target sets within populations. For the former, a recent addition to the literature is Mark
Galeotti, Russian Political War: Moving Beyond the Hybrid (London: Routledge, 2019). For
the latter, see Marks, Counterrevolution in China.
90
Sergìj Mikolajovič Plohìj, The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine (New York:
Basic Books, 2017), 351.
91
Arthur F. Lykke, Jr., “Defining Military Strategy,” Military Review 69, no. 5 (May
1989), 3.
92
Jeffrey W. Meiser, “Ends + Ways + Means = (Bad) Strategy,” Parameters 46, no. 4
(2016), 83.
89
Ucko and Marks
93
This section draws on Ucko and Marks, “Violence in Context.”
94
Paul B. Rich, “People’s War Antithesis: Che Guevara and the Mythology of
Focismo,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 28, no. 3 (May 4, 2017), 451–487, available at
<https://doi.org/10.1080/09592318.2017.1307616>; Walter Laqueur, Guerrilla Warfare: A
Historical and Critical Study (London: Transaction Publishers, 1998), 330–331.
95
George F. Kennan, “The Inauguration of Organized Political Warfare [Redacted
Version],” April 30, 1948, 1, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, obtained
and contributed by A. Ross Johnson. Cited in his book Radio Free Europe and Radio
Liberty: [The CIA Years and Beyond (Woodrow Wilson Center Press with Stanford
University Press, 2010)], Ch1n4. NARA release courtesy of Douglas Selvage. Redacted
final draft of a memorandum dated May 4, 1948, and published with additional redactions
as document 269, “FRUS, Emergence of the Intelligence Establishment,” available at
<https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/114320>.
96
A crucial distinction between these terms of provided in Frank G. Hoffman,
“Examining Complex Forms of Conflict: Gray Zone and Hybrid Challenges,” PRISM 7,
no. 4 (2018), available at <http://cco.ndu.edu/News/Article/1680696/examining-complex-
forms-of-conflict-gray-zone-and-hybrid-challenges/>.
97
Frank G. Hoffman, “The Missing Element in Crafting National Strategy: A Theory
of Success,” Joint Force Quarterly 97 (2nd Quarter 2020).
98
JP 5-0, Joint Planning (Washington, DC: The Joint Staff, 2017), IV-28, available at
<http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp5_0_20171606.pdf>.
99
Field Manual 3-0, Operations (Washington DC: Headquarters Department of the
Army, 2001).
100
JP 5-0, IV-29.
101
Ucko and Marks, “Violence in Context.” For the academic precedents of these
five questions, see Marks, “Counterinsurgency in the Age of Globalism”; Marks, Maoist
People’s War in Post-Vietnam Asia.
102
Frequently represented as decision points in conventional treatment, what are
here conceptualized as campaigns are more accurately represented, using the vernacular
of political economy, as struggles, the preeminent early theorist of which was Max Weber,
father of sociology, but also in the economic world, Karl Marx, hence the influence on
Soviet and Chinese communist (and later Vietnamese) theorists.
103
Claudio Ramos da Cruz and David H. Ucko, “Beyond the Unidades de Polícia
Pacificadora : Countering Comando Vermelho’s Criminal Insurgency,” Small Wars &
Insurgencies 29, no. 1 (January 2, 2018), 38–67; Enrique Desmond Arias and Corinne
Davis Rodrigues, “The Myth of Personal Security: Criminal Gangs, Dispute Resolution,
and Identity in Rio de Janeiro’s Favelas,” Latin American Politics & Society 48, no. 4 (2006),
53–81; James Freeman, “Raising the Flag over Rio de Janeiro’s Favelas: Citizenship and
Social Control in the Olympic City,” Journal of Latin American Geography 13, no. 1 (2014),
90
7–38; “Slum Lords—Comando Vermelho’s Hold on Brazil’s Favelas,” IHS Jane’s, August 31,
2011.
104
For an assessment of Russian hashtag activism in Ukraine, see Oleksandr
Nadelnyuk, “How Russian ‘Troll Factory’ Tried to Effect on Ukraine’s Agenda: Analysis of
755 000 Tweets,” VoxUkraine, n.d., available at <https://voxukraine.org/longreads/twitter-
database/index-en.html>.
105
For a fuller discussion of this trend, see Ucko, The Insurgent’s Dilemma.
106
As cited in Antulio J. Echevarria II, Clausewitz and Contemporary War (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2007), 182.
107
Ibid., 182. Also, possibly the most detailed treatment of the concept as concerns
irregular conflict, see Carlos Ospina, La Estrategia En Colombia: Variaciones Del Centro de
Gravedad (Washington, DC: William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Studies, April 2014).
108
This quest for analytical parsimony echoes Clausewitz’s own take on the center
of gravity. He exhorts strategists to “trace the full weight of the enemy’s power to as
few centers of gravity as possible and, when feasible, to one; and . . . to act with utmost
concentration.” Of course, Clausewitz also speaks of striking the center of gravity as few
times and as swiftly as possible, which does not necessarily apply to the protracted nature
of irregular warfare. See Echevarria, Clausewitz and Contemporary War, 170–199.
109
Cord Schmelzle, Evaluating Governance: Effectiveness and Legitimacy in Areas of
Limited Statehood (Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network, January 16, 2012), 7,
available at <https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=1986017>.
110
Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2006), 111–145.
111
Idayat Hassan, “The Danger of a Better-Behaved Boko Haram,” The New
Humanitarian, August 21, 2018, available at <http://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/
opinion/2018/08/21/opinion-nigeria-militancy-peace-boko-haram>. See also Edward
Stoddard, “Revolutionary Warfare? Assessing the Character of Competing Factions within
the Boko Haram Insurgency,” African Security 12, no. 3–4 (October 2, 2019), 300–329,
available at <https://doi.org/10.1080/19392206.2019.1668632>.
112
Gareth Evans, “Russia and the ‘Responsibility to Protect,’” Los Angeles Times,
August 31, 2008, available at <www.latimes.com/la-oe-evans31-2008aug31-story.html>.
113
Corneliu Bjola and Krysianna Papadakis, “Digital Propaganda, Counterpublics
and the Disruption of the Public Sphere: The Finnish Approach to Building Digital
Resilience,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 33, no. 5 (September 2, 2020),
638–666, available at <https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2019.1704221>; “Study:
Estonians Have Higher Trust in Government than Latvians, Lithuanians,” ERR, December
29, 2020, available at <https://news.err.ee/1221847/study-estonians-have-higher-trust-
in-government-than-latvians-lithuanians>; Kalev Stoicescu, “The Evolution of Russian
91
Ucko and Marks
Hybrid Warfare: Estonia,” CEPA, January 29, 2021, available at <https://cepa.org/the-

evolution-of-russian-hybrid-warfare-estonia/>.
114
Carlos Ospina and Thomas A. Marks, “Colombia: Changing Strategy Amidst the
Struggle,” Small Wars & Insurgencies 25, no. 2 (March 4, 2014), 364. Funding and the
“structures” (that is, organizations) of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia were
identified as operational centers of gravity, or what in our terminology would best be
described as critical vulnerabilities (see discussion below).
115
JP 5-0.
116
Hoffman, “The Missing Element in Crafting National Strategy.”
117
In that sense, the approach mirrors much of the analysis in Ben Connable,
Redesigning Strategy for Irregular War: Improving Strategic Design for Planners and
Policymakers to Help Defeat Groups Like the Islamic State (Santa Monica, CA: RAND,
2017), available at <https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WR1172.html>.
118
As cited in William M. Blair, “President Draws Planning Moral,” New York Times,
November 15, 1957, available at <www.nytimes.com/1957/11/15/archives/president-
draws-planning-moral-recalls-army-days-to-show-value-of.html>.
119
As cited in Terence M. Holmes, “Planning versus Chaos in Clausewitz’s On War,”
Journal of Strategic Studies 30, no. 1 (February 1, 2007), 131, available at <https://doi.
org/10.1080/01402390701210855>.
120
As cited in P.G. Tsouras, The Greenhill Dictionary of Military Quotations (London:
Greenhill Books, 2000), 363.
121
Michael Howard, “Military Science in an Age of Peace,” The RUSI Journal 119,
no. 1 (March 1, 1974), 6, available at <https://doi.org/10.1080/03071847409421160>.
Emphasis in original.
122
For a treatment of the topic, see Michael J. Mooney, “A Military Assessment of
the Islamic State’s Evolving Theory of Victory,” War on the Rocks, June 26, 2017, available
at <https://warontherocks.com/2017/06/a-military-assessment-of-the-islamic-states-
evolving-theory-of-victory/>; Hoffman, “The Missing Element in Crafting National
Strategy.”
123
The notion of positional advantage as a replacement for center of gravity is put
forth in Lawrence Freedman, “Stop Looking for the Center of Gravity,” War on the Rocks,
June 24, 2014, available at <https://warontherocks.com/2014/06/stop-looking-for-the-
center-of-gravity/>.
124
Eliot A. Cohen, “What’s Obama’s Counterinsurgency Strategy for Afghanistan?”
Washington Post, December 6, 2009, available at <www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/
content/article/2009/12/04/AR2009120402602.html>.
125
Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., Law and Military Interventions: Preserving Humanitarian
Values in 21st Century Conflicts (Cambridge: Harvard University Kennedy School of
Government, 2001), 5.
92
126
For discussion, see Weston R. Sager, “Apple Pie Propaganda: The Smith-Mundt Act
Before and After the Repeal of the Domestic Dissemination Ban Notes and Comments,”
Northwestern University Law Review 109, no. 2 (2014–2015), 511–546; Allen W. Palmer
and Edward L. Carter, “The Smith-Mundt Act’s Ban on Domestic Propaganda: An
Analysis of the Cold War Statute Limiting Access to Public Diplomacy,” Communication
Law and Policy 11, no. 1 (January 2006), 1–34, available at <https://doi.org/10.1207/
s15326926clp1101_1>.
127
Frank Kitson, Bunch of Five (London: Faber and Faber, Ltd., 1977), 289.
128
For one critical view, see Michael German, “Squaring the Error,” symposium
address at Law vs. War: Competing Approaches to Fighting Terrorism, U.S. Army War
College, Carlisle Barracks, PA, 2005.
129
Not least because the 2001 U.S. Authorization for the Use of Military Force
states that “the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against
those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed,
or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such
organizations and persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism.”
See U.S. Congress, “Authorization for the Use of Military Force,” S.J. Res. 23 § (2001).
130
Robert P. Barnidge, Jr., “The Principle of Proportionality Under International
Humanitarian Law and Operation Cast Lead,” in New Battlefields, Old Laws: Critical
Debates on Asymmetric Warfare, ed. William C. Banks (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2011), 181. It should be acknowledged that just as legality can be necessary but
insufficient for legitimacy, legitimacy can also be achieved without clear legality. An
example is the case of the 1999 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) intervention
in Kosovo, which proceeded without a United Nations Security Council resolution or
other legal basis but was perceived by most, but not all, as justified and, overall, just. See
Nicholas J. Wheeler, “Reflections on the Legality and Legitimacy of NATO’s Intervention
in Kosovo,” The International Journal of Human Rights 4, no. 3–4 (September 2000),
144–163, available at <https://doi.org/10.1080/13642980008406897>.
131
C. von der Groeben, “The Conflict in Colombia and the Relationship Between
Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law in Practice: Analysis of the New Operational
Law of the Colombian Armed Forces,” Journal of Conflict and Security Law 16, no. 1
(March 1, 2011), 141–164, available at <https://doi.org/10.1093/jcsl/krr004>. As von der
Groeben further explains, the status of an operation would be determined on a case-by-
case basis by a Grupo Asesor and an Asesor Juridico Operacional, based on the military
balance and the organizational capacity of the adversary (based on intelligence). The
norms would be set up to inform several types of actions at once rather than one by one,
and ex post investigations helped ensure dedication to the principle at hand.
132
Caroline Vakil, “Lithuanian Parliament Calls Russia ‘a State Supporting and
Carrying out Terrorism,’” The Hill, May 10, 2022, available at <https://thehill.com/policy/
93
Ucko and Marks
international/3483345-lithuanian-parliament-calls-russia-a-state-supporting-and-
carrying-out-terrorism/>.
133
See Vera Zimmerman, “What Does Ukraine’s New Military Approach Toward the
Donbas Mean?” Atlantic Council, May 15, 2018, available at <https://www.atlanticcouncil.
org/blogs/ukrainealert/what-does-ukraine-s-new-military-approach-toward-the-donbas-
mean/>; “Special Procedure for Announcing the Start of the Operation of the Joint Forces
in the Donetsk and Luhansk Regions,” Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, April 28, 2018,
available at <http://www.mil.gov.ua/news/2018/04/28/osoblivij-poryadok-shho-bude-
diyati-z-ogoloshennyam-pochatku-provedennya-operaczii-obednanih-sil-na-teritorii-
doneczkoi-ta-luganskoi-oblastej/>.
134
“FITS Resources,” Australian Government, Attorney-General’s Department,
accessed June 14, 2022, available at <https://www.ag.gov.au/integrity/foreign-influence-
transparency-scheme/fits-resources>; “National Security Legislation Amendment
(Espionage and Foreign Interference) Act 2018,” Pub. L. No. 67 (2018), available at
<https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2018C00506>.
135
See the various legislative efforts related to the Strategic Competition Act, the
Countering China Propaganda Act, and the Countering China Economic Coercion Act.
136
The U.S. invasions and counterinsurgency operation in Iraq and Afghanistan
were both based on fatally flawed assumptions. See T.X. Hammes, William S. McCallister,
and John M. Collins, “Afghanistan: Connecting Assumptions and Strategy,” U.S. Naval
Institute Proceedings 135, no. 11 (November 2009), 16–20; John M. Collins, “You Can’t
Assume Nothin’,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, May 2003, available at <https://www.
usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2003/may/you-cant-assume-nothin>.
137
James A. Dewar et al., Assumption-Based Planning: A Planning Tool for Very
Uncertain Times (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1993), 9, available at <https://www.rand.org/
pubs/monograph_reports/MR114.html>. Emphasis in original.
138
For this distinction, see Dewar et al., Assumption-Based Planning, 6–7.
139
David A. Graham, “Rumsfeld’s Knowns and Unknowns: The Intellectual History
of a Quip,” The Atlantic, March 27, 2014, available at <www.theatlantic.com/politics/
archive/2014/03/rumsfelds-knowns-and-unknowns-the-intellectual-history-of-a-
quip/359719/>.
140
For a key resource for this step, see U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command,
The Red Team Handbook: The Army’s Guide to Making Better Decisions, Version 9.0 (Fort
Leavenworth, KS: University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies, 2008).
141
The same can be stated about counterinsurgency and its focus on addressing
root causes. As Marks and Bell argue, “Counterinsurgency, contrary to much misguided
talk now, is not intended as the solution to the political breakdown which produced the
challenge to the old-order by the insurgents’ intended new-order. Neither is it merely
the restoration of the status quo. Rather, counterinsurgency is armed reform that meets
94
armed challenge to restore a political process that is given a second chance to reshape
the political opportunity structure so that violence is neither necessary nor embraced by
opposition to see grievances mediated. It restores the sickly body, in other words; it does
not provide it with immunity.” Thomas A. Marks and Michael S. Bell, “The U.S. Army
in the Iraq War: Volume 1 (Invasion, Insurgency, Civil War 2003–2006),” Small Wars &
Insurgencies 30, no. 3 (April 16, 2019), 704, available at <https://doi.org/10.1080/09592318
.2019.1601873>.
142
J. McDougall et al., NESET II: Teaching Media Literacy in Europe; Evidence
of Effective School Practices in Primary and Secondary Education (Luxembourg:
Publications Office of the European Union, 2018), 49, available at <https://data.europa.
eu/doi/10.2766/613204>. The is an age-old dilemma: Hannah Arendt captured well the
firm grip of totalitarian propaganda, describing it as “foolproof against arguments based
on a reality which the movements promised to change, against a counterpropaganda
disqualified by the mere fact that it belongs to or defends a world which the shiftless
masses cannot and will not accept.” See Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism
(New York: Harcourt Publishers, 1973), 363.
143
As cited in Judt, Past Imperfect, 22.
144
In the case of the so-called Islamic State (IS), interviews with former members
suggest major sources of disillusionment included mistreatment of civilians, women, and
IS members, along with the lack of food. The violence was “often defined as hypocrisy
on the part of ISIS leadership.” See Anne Speckhard and Molly Ellenberg, “ISIS in Their
Own Words: Recruitment History, Motivations for Joining, Travel, Experiences in ISIS,
and Disillusionment over Time—Analysis of 220 In-Depth Interviews of ISIS Returnees,
Defectors and Prisoners,” Journal of Strategic Security 13, no. 1 (April 2020), 109–110,
available at <https://doi.org/10.5038/1944-0472.13.1.1791>.
145
Iffat Idris, Political Will and Combatting Serious Organised Crime, Serious
Organised Crime & Anti-Corruption Evidence (SOC ACE) Evidence Review Paper 1
(Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham, May 2022); Carmen Malena, “Building
Will for Participatory Governance: An Introduction,” in From Political Won’t to Political
Will: Building Support for Participatory Governance, ed. Carmen Malena (Sterling, VA:
Kumarian Press, 2009), 3–30. See also Heather Marquette, Moving “from Political Won’t
to Political Will” for More Feasible Interventions to Tackle Serious Organised Crime and
Corruption, SOC ACE Briefing Note 1 (Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham, May
2022).
146
Harry G. Summers, American Strategy in Vietnam: A Critical Analysis (Mineola,
NY: Dover Publications, 2012), 1, available at <http://public.eblib.com/choice/
publicfullrecord.aspx?p=1890088>.
95
Ucko and Marks
147
For an excellent discussion of these difficulties, see Ben Connable, Embracing the
Fog of War: Assessment and Metrics in Counterinsurgency (Santa Monica, CA: RAND,
2012), 79–92.
148
Hilary Synnott, Bad Days in Basra: My Turbulent Time as Britain’s Man in Southern
Iraq (London: I.B. Tauris, 2008), 211.
149
See, for example, the generally negative impact of benevolent aid projects in
Afghanistan: Paul Fishstein and Andrew Wilder, Winning Hearts and Minds? Examining
the Relationship Between Aid and Security in Afghanistan (Medford, MA: Feinstein
International Center, January 2012), 41–53, available at <http://fic.tufts.edu/assets/
WinningHearts-Final.pdf>.
150
David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big
One (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 71. Emphasis in original.
151
See the critique of Kilcullen’s metrics in Connable, Embracing the Fog of War,
81–89.
152
Lynette M.B. Arnhart and Marvin L. King, “Are We There Yet? Implementing Best
Practices in Assessments,” Military Review, June 2018, 20–29.
153
Stanislav Andreski, Social Sciences as Sorcery (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin,
1973), 110.
154
Michael J. Mazarr, “Rethinking Risk in Defense,” War on the Rocks, April 13, 2015,
available at <https://warontherocks.com/2015/04/rethinking-risk-in-defense/>.
155
Douglas W. Hubbard, The Failure of Risk Management: Why It’s Broken and How to
Fix It (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2009).
156
Army Techniques Publication 5-19, Risk Management (Washington, DC:
Headquarters Department of the Army, September 8, 2014), 1–10.
157
Mazarr, “Rethinking Risk in Defense.”
96
About the Authors

Dr. David H. Ucko is professor of international security studies in the College
of International Security Affairs (CISA) at the National Defense University, where
he also serves as chair of the War and Conflict Studies Department.
Dr. Ucko’s research areas include political violence, irregular warfare, coun-
terinsurgency, and war-to-peace transitions. He is the author of The Insurgent’s Di-
lemma: A Struggle to Prevail (Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2022) and four other
books on irregular warfare, counterinsurgency, and political reintegration. He has
also published on the United Nations, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, counter-
ing violent extremism, and counterinsurgency in a range of peer-reviewed journals.
Dr. Ucko is an adjunct professor at The Johns Hopkins University, where he
teaches social movement theory and mobilization into terrorism, insurgency, and
gangs. He serves as a visiting senior research fellow in the Department of War
Studies at King’s College London, where for many years, as a program coordinator
and research fellow, he oversaw the Conflict, Security, and Development Research
Group.
Prior to joining CISA, Dr. Ucko was a Transatlantic Post-Doctoral Fellow in
the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik in Berlin and at the RAND Corporation in
Washington, DC. From 2001 to 2003, he worked as deputy defense analyst (armed
conflict) at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
Dr. Ucko obtained his doctoral and masters degrees in the Department of War
Studies at King’s College London and his bachelor of science in international rela-
tions at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Dr. Thomas A. Marks is Distinguished Professor and MG Edward G. Lans-

dale Chair of Irregular Warfighting Strategy in CISA. He assumed his present rank
and position on July 1, 2016, after 12 years as the founding chair of the War and
Conflict Studies Department and professor of terrorism at CISA. He was asked
to occupy these positions following the attacks of September 11 because of his
extensive academic and field experience concerning irregular warfare strategy and
operations.
97
Ucko and Marks
Dr. Marks previously served as the Oppenheimer Chair of Warfighting Strat-

egy at the Marine Corps University and as a longtime adjunct professor at both
the U.S. Air Force Special Operations School (USAFSOS) and the Sherman Kent
School for Intelligence Analysis. In 2006, he was named USAFSOS Educator of
the Year. In 2007, he received the Fellow Award from the Royal Military Institute
of Manitoba. In 2014, he was awarded the Faith in the Cause medal by the Colom-
bian army for contributions to the country’s counterinsurgency effort. In 2016, he
received a grant from the Minerva Research Initiative to pursue fieldwork on the
topic of female combatant motivation in the Nepali Maoist insurgency. He was
also the chief foreign correspondent for Soldier of Fortune magazine.
A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Dr. Marks
completed his doctoral work in his home state of Hawaii, where for 14 years he
was chair and professor of social science at Academy of the Pacific, a private high
school, and, for more than two decades, a highly successful cross country and
track coach.
Dr. Marks has authored hundreds of publications, both peer reviewed and
journalistic. His latest edited books are People’s War: Variants and Responses, co-
edited with Paul Rich (Routledge, 2018), and Perspectives on the American Way of
War: The U.S. Experience in Irregular Combat, co-edited with Kirklin J. Bateman
(Routledge, 2019). Most recently, Dr. Marks penned “Violence in Context: Map-
ping the Strategies and Operational Art of Irregular Warfare,” Contemporary Secu-
rity Policy (February 2018), co-authored with Dr. David H. Ucko, which received
the Bernard Brodie Prize 2019 for best 2018 article.
98
Crafting Strategy for
Irregular Warfare
A Framework for Analysis and Action
Second Edition

Crafting Strategy For Irregular Warfare 2nded

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Crafting Strategy For Irregular Warfare 2nded

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Crafting Strategy For Irregular Warfare 2nded

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

What is irregular warfare and how does the book define it?

What is irregular warfare and how does the book define it?

What analytical framework does the book present for diagnosing irregular threats?

What analytical framework does the book present for diagnosing irregular threats?

Crafting Strategy for

National Defense University Press

Portions of this work may be quoted or reprinted without permission, pro-

Cover: ©Brendan Pound. Used with permission.

Second edition, September 2022

So What Is Irregular Warfare?................................................................8

The U.S. Crisis of Irregular Warfare.....................................................15

The Estimate: An Analytical Framework to Diagnose

The COA Framework: How to Respond to

Appendix A. Strategic Estimate of the Situation:

Appendix B. The Course of Action: A Study Guide...........................74

About the Authors..................................................................................97

Seeking to remedy this problem, the National Defense Strategy devoted an

To aid educators, students, and practitioners of irregular warfare, this mono-

So What Is Irregular Warfare?

visible methods, to include—at some point—the use or threat of coercion. The

First, irregular warfare blends disparate lines of effort (LOE) to engage in

The U.S. Crisis of Irregular Warfare

The Estimate: An Analytical Framework to Diagnose Irregular

the situation at hand.62 This approach is both counterproductive and disturbingly

◆ the drivers of mobilization

◆ the adversary’s framing, or way of seeing the world

◆ the multifaceted approach applied by the challenger

◆ the strengths and weaknesses of the current government response.

Figure 1. Graphical Representation of the Strategic Estimate

Methodologically, the strategic estimate framework draws on a range of influ-

The Problem Statement

Roots of the Conflict

FARC’s ability to commandeer local populations within Colombia’s hinterland is

Frame and Narrative

The exchange demonstrates the decisive role of meaning, or the importance of

In the face of a collective struggle in which participation denotes risk, it is

puzzle assembled by magic at one stroke. There is now an answer

The epiphanic nature of the experience is hardly unique to Marxism. It speaks to

example, whether the Islamic State is communicating to the Sunnis of Iraq or to a

military concepts and terminology to encompass political and psychological di-

◆ How is the threat mobilizing politically?

◆ How is violence used to enable its political project?

◆ How is nonviolence used?

◆ How is it exploiting tactical alliances to better reach its objective?

◆ What is the role of internationalization in the strategy?101

Figure 2. A Standard People’s War Insurgency, Mapped as Lines of

NON- Information Erode/gain

Figure 3. Russia’s Operational Art in Ukraine, ca. 2017, Mapped as

Naval block- Maintain control/

NON- Information Energy Discredit Kyiv

Societal Material “Useful Legitimize proxies

Figure 4. Operational Art of the Rio-Based Criminal Gang Comando

Mediate Basic service Provide Illicit Obtain local

Drug Obtain Gain

INTER- Drug Money- African Facilitate

Violence vs. Violence vs. Freedom of

Governance, a campaign with the political LOE, could include subcampaigns of

and elsewhere, Russia pointed to supposedly threatened pockets of the population