Manhunting: Counter-Network Organization for Irregular Warfare

Despite the increasing employment of manhunting, the U.S. national security establishment has not developed appropriate doctrine, dealt with challenging legal issues, nor has it organized forces and assigned clear responsibility to deploy and employ these capabilities. Manhunting could become an important element of future U.S. national security policy, as highly trained teams disrupt or disintegrate human networks. This monograph reviews historical cases related to manhunting and derives lessons from a large number of these historical manhunting operations. Building on these lessons, the monograph then explores potential doctrine, evaluates possible organizational structures, and examines how to best address the responsibility to develop manhunting as a capability for American national security.