ASU selected to support DOD Irregular Warfare Center
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Editor’s note: This story is featured in the 2024 year in review.
Arizona State University has been selected to work closely with the U.S. Department of Defense to provide reputable academic research support to deepen the understanding of current and emerging global trends in nontraditional warfare. ASU will lead a national consortium supporting the DOD’s Irregular Warfare Center (IWC) in the National Capital Region.
The consortium will help the IWC accelerate the ability to understand and respond to changing trends in irregular warfare, forecast and track shifts in tactics, and assess the effectiveness of such approaches. The goal is to create a pool of national experts who can help the United States, through research, develop effective irregular warfare solutions and tactics.
“Arizona State University has been disciplined about developing expertise in this area and we are committed to being of service at the highest level for this important national security assignment,” ASU President Michael Crow said. “Being selected to lead this work is a responsibility that we take very seriously, and we are grateful to the entire Arizona congressional delegation for its support and confidence in us, and particularly for the leadership of Sens. Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly.”
Irregular warfare refers to a broad spectrum of missions and activities that are often indirect and non-attributable, including unconventional warfare. The U.S. invests a great deal of money in maintaining its conventional and nuclear edge; the IWC-led and ASU-support effort represents an intellectual investment to ensure America can compete effectively in irregular warfare, as well.
“The ways in which nations wage war are changing well beyond how armies face each other on a battlefield. Irregular warfare takes into account all the instruments available to governments to shape the world’s balance of power,” said Chris Howard, ASU executive vice president and chief operating officer, and a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy who served as a helicopter pilot and then became an intelligence officer for the elite Joint Special Operations Command. “This new activity takes to heart the adage ‘war is too important for just soldiers’ and will bring to bear cutting-edge research forged by experts across multiple disciplines.”
The ASU-led consortium will include technologists, social scientists, educators, legal experts, historians and more from universities around the country with established irregular warfare programs and deep connections to units within the U.S. Department of Defense.
Projects will be conducted in areas such as information operations, emerging technologies (virtual reality, artificial intelligence), economic statecraft, and military assistance and cooperation.
“This effort demonstrates ASU’s capacity to contribute to the national security mission by leveraging our innovative organizational strengths, interdisciplinary research expertise and established record on national security research priorities,” ASU Executive Vice President Sally Morton said.
ASU, an R1 institution with over $900 million in research expenditures in FY23, is still finalizing agreements with prospective consortium partners. Each university, think tank and small business that will join the consortium will bring unique expertise to the study of irregular warfare.
"This work will advance not only our understanding of the evolving irregular warfare landscape, but how emerging technologies can help shape that landscape. There will be great depth of expertise within this consortium,” said Nadya Bliss, executive director of ASU’s Global Security Initiative. “ASU brings with it a range of disciplines and strengths — from cybersecurity, AI and microelectronics to social sciences and international law and more — that we can now bridge to new areas.”
ASU’s universitywide effort to advance national security priorities builds on a long history of successful collaboration with the DOD and military service branches, national networks of academic institutions and federal research labs, policymakers and leading defense contractors. ASU has more than $55 million in DOD-sponsored project expenditures over more than 250 projects, with more than 200 faculty experts engaged in defense programs.
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