Quote Originally Posted by William F. Owen View Post
I'm not sure I am. I don't view Military history as a buffet bar to be raided selectively in support of doctrine. If it is, then that forgives all the stupidity you see in armies today! Military history does layout clear lessons, and the context of those lessons is critical. The US IW definition is not founded in any historical fact. It is a definition used to support doctrine, when it should be the opposite.


An irregular opponent is one that is not part of a regular army. Regular armies have a defined set of legal, social and organisational characteristics, generally lacking in irregulars.
That the JOC rejected it, is not evidence that we should. The JOC came up with "hybrid," which is a clumsy forcing mechanisms to try and short cut real military education.
I don't view military history as a buffet, but you have to survey all of the appropriate facts and establish a hypothesis. The authors of the IW JOC surveyed the historical facts and established a hypothesis. While you may not agree with their hypothesis, and I’m not sure I’m completely sold either, there is historical fact that supports the current IW definition. And the definition for IW was first established in the JOC and then doctrine was written for that paradigm, not the other way around. From writing several recent doctrinal manuals, I can say that the manuals flow from theory and terminology. For example, how you define insurgency drives COIN doctrine.

Please elaborate on the defined set of legal, social, and organizational characteristics—that is the hard part. Although this material will not appear in the definition itself, it will have to be discussed in some detail in support of the definition. This discussion tends to quickly become mired in mirror imaging and cultural bias. And “generally lacking in irregulars” is circular.