Since the beginning of American operations in Afghanistan in 2001 and then later in Iraq in 2003, military leaders and thinkers have worked to come to grips with the challenges of today's conflicts. This is because American operations since 2001 have not resembled what the United States military remembers of previous large engagements abroad such as the 1990-91 Gulf War. That earlier war seemed to adhere to then-current notions of what warfare regularly was. Military operations since 11 September 2001 have not conformed to these notions. In the search for a proper way to think about these kinds of 'new' military endeavour, then, the term and concept of choice has been Irregular Warfare. Conferences, working groups, funded programmes, and even official language from the US Department of Defense have all settled on Irregular Warfare to describe what is now seen.
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