Irregular warfare: counterinsurgency in Iraq provides template for fighting terrorism.

• Author: Tiron, Roxana

The anti-insurgency tactics the U.S. military is learning in Iraq could be applied globally, which would turn the war on terrorism into a "war on insurgency," said Lt. Gen. William Boykin, deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence and war fighting support.

"My position is that this is a global insurgency," said Boykin during a forum on special operations and low intensity conflict.

In Iraq and other trouble spots, the United States has to come to grips with the nature of the enemy, he explained. "It is a web of networks that come together in a coalition of convenience. There are links to drug trafficking, money laundering and the like," he said.

An insurgency is a political-military activity, in which the political aspects are much more important than the military aspects, explained a Defense Department official who did not want to be quoted by name. "Understanding the political, economic, financial, legal and cultural issues, is at the core of understanding what is going on," the official said.

The resulting approach means that "we must run a global counterinsurgency if we accept what the war on terror actually is," said James Roberts, acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and combating terrorism.

The strength and, in many ways, the unpredictability of the insurgency the United States encountered in Iraq, is prompting the Defense Department to accord "stability and security" operations the same priority as combat operations, said Jeffrey "Jeb" Nadaner, deputy assistant secretary of defense for stability operations. "You have to think about what you can do in terms of stability on the ground immediately," and make sure that stability operations are part of the campaign plan from the onset, Nadaner said during a workshop at the conference.

To do that, the Defense Department realizes it has to work closely with both the State and Justice Departments and put their experiences to use in these campaigns, he said.

The department has to think about creating military-civilian teams and stress an interagency model, Nadaner pointed out. Depending on the nature of the stability operation, the makeup of the teams could be more military or more civilian, he suggested.

Congress needs to understand the connection between funding the civilian agencies such as the Agency for International Development and the military. "Funding AID is critical for the military, because AID needs to have funds to do its work in the field...