irregular warfare

English

Noun

irregular warfare (uncountable)

1. Warfare in which one or more combatants are irregulars (such as partisans, guerrillas or insurgents) rather than regular military forces.
   • 2005, Robert Russell Mackey, The Uncivil War: Irregular Warfare in the Upper South, 1861-1865, →ISBN:
   • 2010, Stephen I. Rockenback, “The Spoliation of Defenseless Farmers and Villagers”, in U.S. Army and Irregular Warfare 1775-2007: Selected Papers, →ISBN:

     Studying the raid's effect on one community reveals how the different forms of irregular warfare — partisan warfare, guerrilla tactics, and cavalry raids — intertwined along the Ohio River border.

   • 2011, John Arquilla, Insurgents, Raiders, and Bandits: How masters of irregular warfare shaped our world, →ISBN:
   1. (in particular) Warfare with the aim of gaining or establishing political authority using asymmetric warfare tactics.

Quotations

• 2007, John Baylis, Strategy in the Contemporary World, →ISBN, page 163:

  Two recurrent themes run through the long history of irregular warfare. The first theme is that all forms of irregular warfare, including terrorism and insurgency, are appealing to those who seek change in the status quo against a more powerful adversary. […] The second theme is that conducting irregular warfare successfully to achieve change is a very challenging undertaking.

Antonyms

• conventional warfare

Hyponyms

• asymmetric warfare
• guerrilla warfare

Translations

warfare in which one or more combatants are irregulars

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 非正規戰爭／非正规战争

• Finnish: epäsäännöllinen sodankäynti
• French: guerre irrégulière f

See also

• insurgency