text: Threats
  paramilitaries, guerillas, and criminal organizations and networks. Irregular forces often work in concert with
  regular forces to support their objectives.
  Irregular forces or complex threats usually have political objectives motivated by ideologies or
  grievances. These grievances may be real or perceived. Identifying their objectives and motivations is often
  difficult because—
  * There may be multiple untraditional threats groups with differing goals and motivations.
  * Leaders change and the organization’s goals shift over time.
  * Movement leaders may have different motivations from their followers.
  * Organizations hide their true motivations and make false claims.
  Irregular forces customarily operate in small, dispersed, decentralized formations or cells (team and
  squad size) within a decentralized command and control structure while retaining the ability to concentrate
  forces if they perceive weakness. They establish local, regional, and worldwide support networks. Irregular
  threats’ military capabilities often include small-arms weapons, antitank weapons, man-portable air defense
  missiles, mortars, short-range rockets, homemade radio frequency weapons, rudimentary robotics, UASs,
  and land mines. Some irregular threats possess significant financial means, including state sponsorship, and
  can acquire advanced weapon systems and technologies. Irregular forces that have engaged in recent armed
  conflict include the—
  * Revolutionary Army Forces of Columbia-People’s Army (1964).
  * Mujahidin in Afghanistan (1979).
  * Palestine Liberation Organization in the West Bank (2001).
  * Taliban in Afghanistan (2001).
  * Al Qaeda in Iraq (2007).
  * Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (2013).
  * Iran’s Quds Force support to nonstate threat in foreign countries.
  Note. Russia’s version of hybrid warfare is built for limited war in which nations do not pursue
  strategies of annihilation but instead seek to impose their political will without destroying the
  political institutions of their adversaries. Russian hybrid warfare is a byproduct of the information
  age that seeks to operate in multiple domains to find methods to achieve a relative position of
  advantage in relation to an adversary, or to perpetually conduct operations aimed at weakening
  the adversary from the inside out. To do so, Russia leverages information, cyber, and electronic
  operations in addition to employing special operations forces to sow the seeds of discontent within
  the target population.
  Combat experiences in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other recent conflicts (such as those in Lebanon, Mali,
  Syria, Gaza, Northern Nigeria, and Southern Thailand) reveal a migration of capabilities, tactics, and
  techniques previously associated only with military forces of nation-states to state-sponsored and nonstate
  threat organizations. This migration of capabilities presents BCTs with challenges that extend beyond
  defeating an enemy’s regular force. Threats combine regular and irregular warfare and include adopting
  strategies, tactics, and techniques to evade and disrupt U.S. advantages and to gain tactical advantages within
  the physical, cognitive, informational, and political dimensions of armed conflict. As a result, the BCT must
  be prepared to assess the situation continuously and adapt to seize, retain, and exploit the initiative.
  STATE AND NONSTATE THREATS
  The BCT must prepare to defeat determined state and nonstate threats that combine conventional and
  unconventional tactics to avoid the U.S. forces’ strengths (such as mobility, long-range surveillance, and
  precision fires capabilities) while attacking perceived vulnerabilities (such as the difficulty in distinguishing
  the enemy from the civilian population). Threats combine a variety of means, including conventional
  combined arms operations, nontraditional tactics, political subversion, and information warfare, to
  accomplish objectives and attack U.S. forces. Enemies and adversaries exploit perceived U.S. and coalition