counterinsurgencies, and the Gulf War did nothing to convince the American military to abandon that attitude. During the 1980s, the United States had successfully supported a counterinsurgency campaign in El Salvador with just 55 military advisers – a light footprint of Special Forces replicated in the U.S. support of the Northern Alliance in

Special Forces and Central Intelligence Agency operatives teamed up with indigenous Afghan irregular forces of the Northern Alliance to battle Taliban militia. The U.S. military bolstered the war effort with heavy doses of air power and a conventional infantry unit, the 10th Mountain Division. This hybrid combination proved extremely effective at

This collection of essays represents a first step toward examining the nature of hybrid conflicts more closely. We have defined hybrid warfare as conflict involving a combination of conventional military forces and irregulars (guerrillas, insurgents, and terrorists), which could include both state and nonstate actors, aimed at achieving a common

Hybrid capabilities were most useful in converting conventional forces to the exigencies of irregular war, as against fighting a hybrid foe, which really were common only in the eighteenth century. For Britain, the normal problem in hybridity was in recalibrating forces from one task to another rather than in handling two competitions at once.

“Special operations” became another alternative for the Union army. Networks of spies, scouts, and paid informants infiltrated communities to discern rebel intentions and break up guerrilla bands. Major General Grenville Dodge, under the command of Major General Ulysses S. Grant, directed one of the most successful early operations. Based at

Guerrillas and Irregulars

From 1880 onward, it also strove to deny that technology to non-European peoples, which became a hidden element to its military superiority, as was the isolation of each theater through naval superiority and politics, and the ability to keep the dirty side of empire from public scrutiny. In East Asia, Western power was manifested through maritime

The ultimate, although far from successful, Union solution to these problems was the Mississippi Marine Brigade. Recruited in late 1862 and early 1863, this “special” unit was more a legion than a brigade, a self-sufficient body that included infantry, cavalry, and artillery. Transported on converted civilian packet boats, they became a mobile

Prime Minister Winston Churchill also recognized the power of using irregular forces to combat the Wehrmacht in conjunction with regular military operations. In July 1940, he charged a new organization, the Special Operations Executive (SOE), with the mission to “set Europe ablaze.”9 For the next several years, British agents assisted local