The Irregular Warfare Initiative (IWI) is a platform that aims to bridge the gap between scholarly research on irregular warfare topics and practitioners in the field. It was established in May 2020 as the Irregular Warfare Podcast by two active duty military officers at Princeton University who recognized the inaccessibility of such research to irregular warfare practitioners. IWI continues the podcast's mission by providing a forum for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to engage in the incorporation of irregular warfare competencies into modern national security strategy.

As a collaborative space sponsored by the Modern War Institute at West Point and the Empirical Studies of Conflict Project, IWI focuses on three key pillars: content production, engagements, and a fellows program. The platform produces biweekly podcasts and written content that combine practitioner perspectives with scholarly research. It also hosts an annual conference and facilitates collaboration through interactive panels and presentations.

Additionally, the fellows program offers a venue for scholars and practitioners to study and debate irregular warfare topics. With the shifting focus of the US Department of Defense to great power competition, IWI contributes to the synthesis and archiving of the historical legacy of post-9/11 irregular warfare competencies. It also provides an opportunity to understand and characterize the actions of emerging threats, which increasingly employ novel approaches in nontraditional spaces.

IWI is a credible, accessible, and interactive platform that enables a comprehensive understanding of the modern national security environment and encourages productive engagement