Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England has approved a new blueprint for how U.S. military forces will expand their capacity and skills to conduct irregular warfare, fulfilling a central proposal of the Quadrennial Defense Review, according to defense officials.

The classified “Irregular Warfare Execution Roadmap” was signed by England on April 28. It is a collection of actions, tasks and new milestones -- focused largely on ground forces, Pentagon officials say -- that articulate how the Defense Department intends to improve U.S. forces' capability to conduct long-duration, unconventional operations.  

“The roadmap itself lays out a plan of action,” said Ryan Henry, principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy and one of the roadmap's principal authors, in an interview with InsideDefense.com.

It calls for each of the services and U.S. Special Operations Command to assess a range of issues dealing with doctrine, training, leader development, combat equipment and personnel policies, and it directs them to report back on their findings by next February, according to sources involved in drafting the roadmap.

“It will come back later on with recommendations on what the changes are,” said Henry. “It is in the information-gathering stage right now.”

This roadmap is one of eight assessments spawned by the recently completed Quadrennial Defense Review, covering areas that Pentagon officials deemed required additional focus “to refine the strategic direction” of the Defense Department, Henry said.

According to officials involved in developing the document, a key piece of the roadmap -- and a source of brief but intense debate -- is an official definition of irregular warfare:

“Irregular warfare is a form of warfare that has as its objective the credibility and/or legitimacy of the relevant political authority with the goal of undermining or supporting that authority. Irregular warfare factors indirect approaches, though it may employ the full range of military and other capabilities to seek asymmetric advantages, in order to erode an adversary's power, influence and will.”

Henry and Lt. Gen. James Conway, the Joint Staff director of operations, oversaw work on the roadmap, which Pentagon officials say will also steer investment decisions in the construction of the fiscal year 2008 to 2013 program objective memoranda, the U.S. military's new six-year spending plans.

“The roadmap is supposed to be the connective tissue between the QDR and the POM,” said a source involved in the effort.

To improve proficiency against terrorist networks in what it repeatedly termed “the long war,” the QDR calls for expanding the ranks of special operations forces by 15 percent and boosting the number of psychological operations and civil affairs units in the armed forces by one-third. A dedicated Air Force unmanned aerial vehicle squadron will also be established and assigned to U.S. Special Operations Command.

In wider terms, the QDR promises the Defense Department will rebalance general-purpose forces by shifting focus from conventional warfare to irregular warfare; boost the ranks of special operations forces; work with foreign governments to enhance the capacity of their military and security forces to deal with threats within their borders or in their regions; and forge closer cooperation with other parts of the federal government involved in the war on terrorism.

The subject of irregular warfare is expected to be a central theme of the upcoming “Senior Leaders Conference” that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is convening in Washington from May 22 to May 24.

This gathering of U.S. military leaders responsible for U.S. operations around the world and top Pentagon brass and civilian executives is expected to focus on how to fully resource operational plans for the war on terror, according to Pentagon officials familiar with the agenda.

Specifically, the meeting is expected to focus on recently drafted spending plans by the combatant commanders to fully execute “Concept of Operations Plan 7500,” the Defense Department's classified playbook for the global war on terrorism, according to military officials.

The Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force service chiefs are expected to demonstrate how each will make adjustments in their organizing, manning, training and equipping efforts to better accommodate the capability demands articulated by the combatant commanders, these sources said.