The Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, the Center for Global Health Engagement from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and the Irregular Warfare Center jointly hosted the Irregular Warfare Medical Resiliency Working Group in Bethesda, Maryland, Feb. 22-24. This was the first of a series of irregular warfare working groups that expands the relationship between U.S. and allied special operations forces with medical communities across the U.S. government to hone the use of operational medicine in achieving strategic goals. As directed by the National Defense Strategy, the Department of Defense’s central mission is to develop, combine and coordinate our strengths to maximum effect, and the Military Health System is an integral part to creating dilemmas for our adversaries by preventing attrition.
Medical leaders from U.S. Special Operations Command, the theater special operations commands, Department of Defense medical security cooperation entities, the Department of State, the Department of Health and Human Services and several allied nations discussed the use of medical security cooperation as an integral part of medical support to IW. Initiatives that focus on building ally and partner capacity for casualty care enhances their medical resiliency and enables their will to resist adversarial aggression.