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Asymmetric warfare
Asymmetric warfare is war between belligerents whose relative military power differs significantly, or whose strategy or tactics differ significantly. "Asymmetric warfare" can describe a conflict in which the resources of two belligerents differ in essence and in the struggle, interact and attempt to exploit each other's characteristic weaknesses. Such struggles often involve strategies and tactics of unconventional warfare, the weaker combatants attempting to use strategy to offset deficiencies in quantity or quality.[1] Such strategies may not necessarily be militarized.[2] This is in contrast to symmetric warfare, where two powers have similar military power and resources and rely on tactics that are similar overall, differing only in details and execution. The term is frequently used to describe what is also called "guerrilla warfare", "insurgency", "terrorism", "counterinsurgency", and "counterterrorism", essentially violent conflict between a formal military and an informal, poorly-equipped, but resilient opponent.
Asymmetric warfare
Strategic basis
In most conventional warfare, the belligerents deploy forces of a similar type and the outcome can be predicted by the quantity of the opposing forces or by their quality, for example better command and control of their forces (c3). There are times where this is not true because the composition or strategy of the forces makes it impossible for either side to close in battle with the other. An example of this is the standoff between the continental land forces of the French army and the maritime forces of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. In the words of Admiral Jervis during the campaigns of 1801, "I do not say, my Lords, that the French will not come. I say only they will not come by sea",[4] and a confrontation that Napoleon Bonaparte described as that between the elephant and the whale.[5]
Tactical basis
The tactical success of asymmetric warfare is dependent on at least some of the following assumptions: One side can have a technological advantage which outweighs the numerical advantage of the enemy; the decisive English longbow at the Battle of Crcy is an example. Technological inferiority usually is cancelled by more vulnerable infrastructure which can be targeted with devastating results. Destruction of multiple electric lines, roads or water supply systems in highly populated areas could have devastating effects on economy and morale, while the weaker side may not have these structures at all. Training and tactics as well as technology can prove decisive and allow a smaller force to overcome a much larger one. For example, for several centuries the Greek hoplite's (heavy infantry) use of phalanx made them far superior to their enemies. The Battle of Thermopylae, which also involved good use of terrain, is a well known example. If the inferior power is in a position of self-defense; i.e., under attack or occupation, it may be possible to use unconventional tactics, such as hit-and-run and selective battles in which the superior power is weaker, as an effective means of harassment without violating the laws of war. Perhaps the classical historical examples of this doctrine may be found in the American Revolutionary War, movements in World War II, such as the French Resistance and Soviet and Yugoslav partisans. Against democratic aggressor nations, this strategy can be used to play on the electorate's patience with the conflict (as in the Vietnam War, and others since) provoking protests, and consequent disputes among elected legislators. If the inferior power is in an aggressive position, however, and/or turns to tactics prohibited by the laws of war (jus in bello), its success depends on the superior power's refraining from like tactics. For example, the law of land warfare prohibits the use of a flag of truce or clearly marked medical vehicles as cover for an attack or ambush, but an asymmetric combatant using this prohibited tactic to its advantage depends on the superior power's obedience to the corresponding law. Similarly, laws of warfare prohibit combatants from using civilian settlements, populations or facilities as military bases, but when an inferior power uses this tactic, it depends on the premise that the superior power will respect the law that the other is violating, and will not attack that civilian target, or if they do the propaganda advantage will outweigh the material loss. As seen in most conflicts of the 20th and 21st centuries, this is highly unlikely as the propaganda advantage has always outweighed adherence to international law, especially by dominating sides of any conflict. As noted below, the Israel-Palestinian conflict is one recent example of asymmetric warfare. Mansdorf and Kedar[6] outline how Islamist warfare uses asymmetric status to gain a tactical advantage against Israel. They refer to the "psychological" mechanisms used by forces such as Hezbollah and Hamas in being willing to exploit their own civilians as well as enemy civilians towards obtaining tactical gains, in part by using the media to influence the course of war.
Asymmetric warfare
Use of terrain
Terrain can be used as a force multiplier by the smaller force and as a force inhibitor against the larger force. Such terrain is called difficult terrain. The contour of the land is an aid to the army; sizing up opponents to determine victory, assessing dangers and distance. "Those who do battle without knowing these will lose." Sun Tzu, The Art of War The guerrillas must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea. Mao Zedong. A good example of this type of strategy is the Battle of Thermopylae, where the narrow terrain of a defile was used to funnel the Persian forces, who were numerically superior, to a point where they could not use their size as an advantage. For a detailed description of the advantages for the weaker force in the use of built-up areas when engaging in asymmetric warfare, see the article on urban warfare.
War by proxy
Where asymmetric warfare is carried out (generally covertly) by allegedly non-governmental actors who are connected to or sympathetic to a particular nation's (the "state actor's") interest, it may be deemed war by proxy. This is typically done to give deniability to the state actor. The deniability can be important to keep the state actor from being tainted by the actions, to allow the state actor to negotiate in apparent good faith by claiming they are not responsible for the actions of parties who are merely sympathizers, or to avoid being accused of belligerent actions or war crimes. If proof emerges of the true extent of the state actor's involvement, this strategy can backfire; for example see Iran-contra and Philip Agee.
Asymmetric warfare Confrontation of World War II, German-Norwegian Confrontation of World War II, German-Belgian Confrontation of World War II, German-Dutch Confrontation of World War II, Italo-Greek Confrontation of World War II, German-Yugoslav Confrontation of World War II, Korean War, Himalayan War, First Indochina War, Vietnam War, Second Sino-Vietnamese War, Soviet War in Afghanistan, Gulf War, War in Afghanistan, Iraq War, 2006 Lebanon War, 2011 Libyan civil war.
Asymmetric warfare
Asymmetric warfare United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS) China Burma India Theatre: Merrill's Marauders and OSS Detachment 101
21st century
Israel/Palestinians The battle between the Israelis and some Palestinian organizations (such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad) is a classic case of asymmetric warfare. Israel has a powerful army, air force and navy, while the Palestinian organisations have no access to large-scale military equipment with which to conduct operations; instead, they utilize asymmetric tactics, such as: small gunfights, cross-border sniping, rocket attacks,[15] and suicide bombing.[16] Sri Lanka The Sri Lankan Civil War which raged on and off from 1983 to 2009, between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) saw large scale asymmetric warfare. The war started as an insurgency and progressed to a large scale conflict with the mixture of guerrilla and conventional warfare. The LTTE pioneered the use of suicide bombing and perfected it with the use of male/female suicide bombers both on and off battlefield; use of explosive-filled boats for suicide attacks on military shipping; use of light aircraft targeting military installations. Iraq The victory by the US-led coalition forces in the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, demonstrated that training, tactics and technology can provide overwhelming victories in the field of battle during modern conventional warfare. After Saddam Hussein's regime was removed from power, the Iraq campaign moved into a different type of asymmetric warfare where the coalition's use of superior conventional warfare training, tactics and technology were of much less use against continued opposition from the various partisan groups operating inside Iraq.
Asymmetric warfare
References
[1] Tomes, Robert (Spring 2004). "Relearning Counterinsurgency Warfare" (http:/ / www. army. mil/ prof_writing/ volumes/ volume2/ march_2004/ 3_04_1. html). Parameters (US Army War College). . [2] Stepanova, E (PDF). 2008 Terrorism in asymmetrical conflict: SIPRI Report 23 (http:/ / books. sipri. org/ files/ RR/ SIPRIRR23. pdf). Oxford Univ. Press. . [3] Zhao, et al. (2 October 2009). "Anomalously Slow Attrition Times for Asymmetric Populations with Internal Group Dynamics" (http:/ / scitation. aip. org/ getabs/ servlet/ GetabsServlet?prog=normal& id=PRLTAO000103000014148701000001& idtype=cvips& gifs=yes). Physical Review Letters 103, 148701 (2009) (APS). . [4] Andidora, Ronald (2000). Iron Admirals: Naval Leadership in the Twentieth Century (http:/ / books. google. com/ ?id=0P-A8rIfO34C& pg=PA3). Greenwood Publishing Group. p.3. ISBN0-313-31266-4. . [5] Nicolson, Adam (2005). Men of Honor: Trafalgar and the making of the English Hero. HarperCollins. p.73. ISBN0-00-719209-6. [6] Mansdorf, I.J. and Kedar, M. The Psychological Asymmetry of Islamist Warfare. Middle East Quarterly, 2008, 15(2), 37-44 [7] Reshaping the military for asymmetric warfare (http:/ / www. cdi. org/ terrorism/ asymmetric. cfm) Center for Defense Information [8] Asymmetric Warfare, the Evolution and Devolution of Terrorism (http:/ / www. d-n-i. net/ fcs/ asymmetric_warfare_staten. htm) Emergency Response & Research Institute [9] Cordesman, Anthony H (2006). Arab-Israeli military forces in an era of asymmetric wars (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=3eZK7cm6pjoC& pg=PA5). ISBN978-0-275-99186-9. . [10] Tourtellot, A.B. (August 1959). "Harold Murdock's "The Nineteenth of April 1775"" (http:/ / www. americanheritage. com/ articles/ magazine/ ah/ 1959/ 5/ 1959_5_60. shtml). American Heritage Magazine 10 (5). . Retrieved 2008-01-13. [11] Bicheno, Hugh (2003). Rebels & Redcoats. London: HarperCollins. ISBN0-00-715625-1. [12] Chris Bray, The Media and GI Joe, in Reason (Feb 2002) [13] Oxford English Dictionary [14] Anonymous (Michael Scheuer), Imperial Hubris - Why the West is Losing the War on Terrorism, Washington DC, Brassey's (2004) ISBN 1-57488-849-8, Chap. 2 [15] "Hamas claims responsibility for attack" (http:/ / www. upi. com/ Top_News/ 2009/ 05/ 06/ Hamas-claims-responsibility-for-attack/ UPI-59801241613436/ ). 6 May 2009. . Retrieved 2009-05-06. [16] McCarthy, Rory (1 January 2008). "Death toll in Arab-Israeli conflict fell in 2007" (http:/ / www. guardian. co. uk/ world/ 2008/ jan/ 01/ israelandthepalestinians. international). The Guardian. . Retrieved 2008-02-18.
Further reading
Bibliographies Compiled by Joan T. Phillips Bibliographer at Air University Library: A Bibliography of Asymmetric Warfare (http://www.au.af.mil/au/aul/bibs/asw.htm), August 2005. Asymmetric Warfare and the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) Debate (http://www.comw.org/rma/ fulltext/asymmetric.html) sponsored by the Project on Defense Alternatives Books Arreguin-Toft, Ivan, How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict, New York & Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005 ISBN 0-521-54869-1 Barnett, Roger W., Asymmetrical Warfare: Today's Challenge to U.S. Military Power, Washington D.C., Brassey's, 2003 ISBN 1-57488-563-4 Friedman, George, America's Secret War: Inside the Hidden Worldwide Struggle between the United States and Its Enemies, London, Little, Brown, 2004 ISBN 0-316-72862-4 Paul, T.V., Asymmetric Conflicts: War Initiation by Weaker Powers, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-521-45115-5 J. Schroefl, Political Asymmetries in the Era of Globalization, Peter Lang, 2007, ISBN 978-3-631-56820-0 Kaplan, Robert D., Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos, New York, Vintage, 2003 ISBN 0-375-72627-6 Merom, Gil, How Democracies Lose Small Wars, New York, Cambridge, 2003 ISBN 0-521-80403-5 Metz, Steven and Douglas V. Johnson II, Asymmetry and U.S. Military Strategy: Definition, Background, and Strategic Concepts, Carlisle Barracks, Strategic Studies Institute/U.S. Army War College, 2001 ISBN 1-58487-041-9 (http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB223.pdf)
Asymmetric warfare J. Schroefl, S.M. Cox, T. Pankratz, Winning the Asymmetric War: Political, Social and Military Responses, Peter Lang, 2009, ISBN 978-3-631-57249-8 Record, Jeffrey, Beating Goliath: Why Insurgencies Win, Washington D.C., Potomac Books, 2007, ISBN 978-1-59797-090-7 Gagliano Giuseppe,Introduzione alla conflittualita' non convenzionale,New Press,2001 Sobelman, Daniel, 'New Rules of the Game: Israel and Hizbollah after the Withdrawal from Lebanon, Tel-Aviv University, Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, 2004 [www.inss.org.il/upload/(FILE)1190276456.pdf] Sobelman, Daniel, 'Hizbollahfrom Terror to Resistance: Towards a National Defence Strategy, in Clive Jones and Sergio Catignani (eds.), Israel and Hizbollah An Asymmetric Conflict in Historical and Comparative Perspective,Routledge, 2010 (pp.4966) Articles and papers Ivan Arreguin-Toft, "How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict", International Security, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Summer 2001), pp.93128. J. Paul Dunne, et al., "Managing Asymmetric Conflict," Oxford Economic Papers, Vol. 58 (2006), pp.183208. Fowler, C. A. "Bert" (March, 2006). "Asymmetric Warfare: A Primer" (http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/mar06/ 3091). IEEE Spectrum. Marcus Corbin Reshaping the Military for Asymmetric Warfare (http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/asymmetric. cfm) CDI website October 5, 2001. Vincent J. Goulding, Jr. Back to the Future with Asymmetric Warfare (http://74.125.95.132/ search?q=cache:http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/00winter/goulding.htm&ie=utf-8& oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a) From Parameters, Winter 200001, pp.2130. Hemmer, Christopher (Autumn 2007). "Responding to a Nuclear Iran" (http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/ Parameters/07autumn/hemmer.htm). Parameters (US Army). Andrew J.R. Mack, "Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars: The Politics of Asymmetric Conflict", World Politics, Vol. 27, No. 2 (January 1975), pp.175200. Montgomery C. Meigs Unorthodox Thoughts about Asymmetric Warfare (http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ usawc/Parameters/03summer/meigs.pdf) (PDF) Richard Norton-Taylor Asymmetric Warfare: Military Planners Are Only Beginning to Grasp the Implications of September 11 for Future Deterrence Strategy (http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/ 0,1361,562298,00.html), in The Guardian, October 3, 2001 Michael Novak, "Asymmetrical Warfare" & Just War: A Moral Obligation (http://www.nationalreview.com/ novak/novak021003.asp) in NRO, February 10, 2003 Toni Pfanner, Asymmetrical warfare from the perspective of humanitarian law and humanitarian action, International Review of the Red Cross Vol. 87 No. 857 (March 2005), p.149-174. Sullivan, Patricia. 2007. War Aims and War Outcomes: Why Powerful States Lose Limited Wars Journal of Conflict Resolution 51 (3):496-524. Jonathan B. Tucker Asymmetric Warfare (http://forum.ra.utk.edu/1999summer/asymmetric.htm), a 6 page analysis, Summer 1999. Asymmetry and other fables (http://jdw.janes.com/subscribe/jdw/doc_view_print.jsp?K2DocKey=/content1/ janesdata/mags/jdw/history/jdw2006/jdw30244.htm@current&Prod_Name=JDW&showUpdate=false&), Jane's Defence Weekly, 18 August 2006 David Buffaloe 'Defining Asymmetric Warfare' (http://www.ausa.org/PDFdocs/LWPapers/LWP_58.pdf) September 2006 Gates Assails Pentagon on Resources for Battlefields (http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/ 2008/04/21/AR2008042100950.html?) Washington Post April 22, 2008
Asymmetric warfare Zhenyuan Zhao, Juan Camilo Bohorquez, Alex Dixon,and Neil F. Johnson "Anomalously Slow Attrition Times for Asymmetric Populations with Internal Group Dynamics", (http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/ GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=PRLTAO000103000014148701000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes), Physical Review Letters 103, 148701 (2009), 2 October 2009 Mandel, Robert. "Reassessing Victory in Warfare." Armed Forces & Society, Jul 2007; vol. 33: pp.461495. http://afs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/33/4/461 Mandel, Robert. "The Wartime Utility of Precision Versus Brute Force in Weaponry." Armed Forces & Society, Jan 2004; vol. 30: pp.171201. http://afs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/30/2/171
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