Mattis: Irregular war must be core competency - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Mattis: Irregular war must be core competency

The military must make combating irregular warfare a “core competency,” one top American commander told a Senate panel on Tuesday, while another warned Washington’s relations with Russia will remain prickly for some time.

In testimony prepared for the Senate Armed Services Committee, Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, U.S. Joint Forces Command chief, said American “forces must develop a mastery of the irregular fight on par with our conventional and nuclear capabilities.”

Echoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Mattis told the panel “our forces must be flexible and adaptable enough to operate across the spectrum of conflict — this is not an either/or proposition.”

Mattis wants Pentagon officials to build into the general force irregular warfare expertise that “makes them adaptable to however the enemy chooses to fight.”

In some cases, he said, general purposes forces need to be able to do things now done by U.S. special operators.

“We are working closely with U.S. Special Operations Command and the services to export traditional special operations forces expertise to our general purpose forces,” according to Mattis’ written testimony.

“Specifically, Security Force Assistance is a role well-suited to general purpose forces, and transitioning significant portions of the mission their way will help relieve pressure on our over-extended SOF,” Mattis wrote, referring to things like training local forces.

During the hearing, he told the committee that the idea here is to prepare local forces “so we don’t always have to use American troops.”

While the JFCOM chief’s comments are in line with those of senior Pentagon officials, some military experts are cautioning against putting too much focus on irregular fights.

Mattis also told the panel his command is working to improve the U.S. military’s lack of cultural training and to speed lessons gleaned from combat operations into operating doctrine. The latter now takes more than three years, he said.

Meantime, Army Gen. Bantz Craddock, U.S. European Command chief, warned the panel Russia is likely to continue recent actions that have strained relations with Washington and Europe.

“The relationship with Russia is likely to be more difficult to manage in coming years than any time since the end of the Cold War,” Craddock told the committee.

Moscow, he said, “seems determined to see Euro-Atlantic security institutions weakened and has shown a readiness to use economic leverage and military force to achieve its aims.”

Several panel members expressed concern about U.S.-Russian relations, including Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., who told Craddock that Washington should be “talking with” Moscow.