Unconventional Warfare as a Concern of American Foreign Policy

Abstract

War, strictly speaking, is armed conflict between or among organized groups having or aspiring to have a monopoly of coercion—an attribute of statehood—in a par ticular region. When acknowledged, war becomes conditioned by conventions related to the culture shared by states. When clandestine, it is disjoined from these conventions. Those raising unconventional war as internal aggression character istically and usually aspire to make it conventional and to take over state authority. The beset regime must try to keep the threat unconventional and, then, to stamp it out. To succeed requires political initiative—generally deficient in states sus ceptible to internal aggression. Political weakness is pervasive in the contemporary world—whence rise the Communists' opportunity and a core problem of world order of basic concern to United States foreign policy. An asymmetrical element of the situation is that the initiative in internal aggression rests with the adversary side. The difficulties and risks of redressing this asymmetry are considerable.