ALEXANDER NOYES, DANIEL EGEL, ANNIE YU KLEIMAN
Exploring the Strategic
Potential of Expanded
Security Cooperation
Support to American
Irregular Warfare
T
he escalating use of “coercive and malign activities in the ‘gray zone’” by state actors is one of
the central strategic challenges facing the United States.
1
These gray zone activities include
increasing Chinese use of political warfare, media warfare, and lawfare under the mantra of
“unrestricted warfare;”
2
Russian use of disinformation and territorial encroachment;
3
and
Research Report
KEY FINDINGS
■ We explore how security cooperation support for American irregular warfare might be used
to address the threats posed by state actors. Our analysis explores two modalities—internal
defense and national resilience—through which the United States can combine its security
cooperation and irregular warfare activities to support its allies and partners in contesting
coercion and other malign influence applied by state actors.
■ A mapping of existing security cooperation authorities demonstrates that there are few exist-
ing authorities that are designed with the purpose of supporting these modalities. The impli-
cation of this finding is that existing security cooperation and related authorities are inad-
equate for building, developing, and supporting the internal defense and national resilience
capabilities of U.S. allies and partners.
■ Through a discussion of the pros and cons of a variety of options, we articulate and assess
how the U.S. Department of Defense can better leverage security cooperation and related
concepts in irregular warfare campaigns to support allies and partners and, thereby,
achieve holistic national security objectives. We illustrate the potential of these options
with current (as of 2024) and expanded means through two empirical vignettes focused on
Ukraine and Venezuela.
