Less is more: the problematic future of irregular warfare in an era of collapsing states

Abstract

US success against irregular threats is inversely related to the priority senior US officials (civilian and military) attach to the effort. When one investigates the return on investment in the global war on terror (gwot), now increasingly described as the Long War, in Iraq versus in the Philippines, it is clear that US efforts in the Philippines are achieving great success with minimal resources, while efforts in Iraq are achieving limited success with almost unlimited resources. The same is true of US success against an irregular threat in El Salvador in the 1980s. During that period the focus of US military attention was in Europe. El Salvador was a backwater that was never of particularly great importance to the Pentagon. This paper will seek to understand why limited efforts against irregular threats seem to result in greater success than all-out efforts.