Joint unconventional warfare is the inter-agency, or international implementation of an unconventional warfare strategy, comprising elements of asymmetric warfare, irregular warfare, urban warfare and various forms of psychological operations deployed by non-traditional means.
Joint unconventional warfare would fall under the COIN theory of military operations, generally used in Counter-insurgency operations. The form of military activity has come very much into popular usage under the aegis of General David Petraeus and the former General General Stanley McCrystal.
The U.S. Naval definition of unconventional warfare comprises: "military and paramilitary operations, predominantly conducted through, with, or by indigenous or surrogate forces organized, trained, equipped, supported, and directed in varying degrees by an external source. Unconventional warfare includes, but is not limited to, guerrilla warfare, sabotage, subversion, intelligence activities, and unconventional assisted recovery".[1]
The U.S. Army field manual describes unconventional warfare as “intent of United States unconventional warfare operations is to exploit a hostile power’s political, military, economic, and psychological vulnerability by developing andsustaining resistance forces to accomplish U.S. strategic objectives.”[2]
The Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force Execute Order was a secret directive signed by General David Petraeus on 30 September 2009, which provided U.S. military and intelligence forces unprecedented powers to conduct operations on the sole mandate of operational military commandants. The JUWTF was reported by the New York Times on 25 May 2010, and was part of a wide-scale program providing unlimited powers to the U.S. military and intelligence community called Project Avocado, this being a program authorized by President Barack Obama during summer 2009, on the advisory of former General General Stanley McCrystal.