Professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction, this study examines this defining feature of recent conflicts, specifically the doctrinal and technical innovations giving rise to this new operational paradigm. Colonel Glenn Voelz describes the central pillars of individualized warfare, including the rise of identity-based targeting and the key role of information technology in conducting these operations. This work contributes to an important dialogue concerning lessons learned from a decade of global counterterror-ism operations and two extended counterinsurgency campaigns. It provides a useful case study on wartime military innovation by considering the policies and strategies that evolved in response to a new and unexpected adversary. He concludes this monograph with an in-depth discussion covering a range of emerging technologies likely to define how this kind of war will be waged in the future.

During a decade of global counterterrorism operations and two extended counterinsurgency campaigns, the United States was confronted with a new kind of adversary. Without uniforms, flags, and formations, the task of identifying and targeting these combatants represented an unprecedented operational challenge for which Cold War era doctrinal methods were largely unsuited. This dilemma became the catalyst for a decade of doctrinal, technical, and organizational change premised on the central idea that nonstate actors and individual combatants were a salient national security concern and, therefore, legitimate military targets. This strategic reprioritization evolved into a new model of state warfare centered on the operational tasks of identifying, screening, and targeting individual combatants and defeating their networks.

This mode of warfare has been characterized by analytical methods focused on the systematic dis-aggregation of threats down to the lowest possible level—often the individual combatant on the battlefield. When irregular adversaries could no longer be differentiated by uniform or status, identity attributes became the new technical signature of battlefield targeting. Biographic, biometric, and forensics data became a critical component of the targeting process. The collection and analysis of this data required new information management technologies designed to reduce anonymity on the battlefield, penetrate complex networks, and differentiate friend from foe. This also required architectures able to process and communicate identity data across the entire national security apparatus.

This monograph examines the doctrinal, technical, and bureaucratic innovations that evolved in response to these new operational challenges. It examines the transition from a conventionally focused, Cold War-era targeting process to one optimized for combating networks and conducting identity-based targeting. It analyzes the policy decisions and strategic choices that were the catalysts of this change and concludes with an in-depth examination of emerging technologies that are likely to shape how this mode of warfare will be waged in the future.