1-21. Waging protracted IW depends on building global capability and capacity. IW will not be won by the United States alone but rather through combined efforts with multinational partners. Combined IW (Irregular Warfare, euphemism for TERRORISM) will require the joint force to establish a long-term sustained presence in numerous countries to build partner capability and capacity. This capability and capacity extends U.S. operational reach, multiplies forces available, and provides increased options for defeating adversaries. The constituent activities of IW are:

* Insurgency.
* COIN.
* UW.
* Terrorism
* CT.
* FID.
* Stability, security, transition, and reconstruction (SSTR) operations.
* Strategic communication (SC).
* PSYOP.
* Civil-military operations (CMO).
* Information operations (IO).
* Intelligence and counterintelligence (CI) activities.
* Transnational criminal activities, including narco-trafficking, illicit arms dealing, and illegal financial transactions that support or sustain IW.
* Law enforcement activities focused on countering irregular adversaries.

1-22. The above list of operations and activities can be conducted within IW;

...

--Headquarters, Department of the Army, Army Special Operations Forces Unconventional Warfare, September 2008

The well-informed countries --western Europe --know perfectly well what our game is. General de Gaulle took France out of NATO because he suspected that we were in the empire--building business, and he didn't want to go along with it yet, simultaneously, France remained an ally in case there was a major war with the Soviets. I don't think we should take too seriously those eastern European countries. In due course, they will wake up, as Turkey did, that we are dangerous.

--Gore Vidal, The Erosion of the American Dream