[Austin-ghetto-list] Asymmetric Warfare- a primer

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Asymmetric Warfare: Old Method, New Concern
David L. Grange

“By indirection find directions out.”
—Shakespeare, Hamlet

Strategists define asymmetric warfare as conflict deviating from the norm, 
or an indirect approach to affect a counter-balancing of force. Such warfare 
is not new. Combatants throughout the ages have continually sought to negate 
or avoid the strength of the other, while applying one’s own strength 
against another’s weakness. Asymmetric warfare is best understood as a 
strategy, a tactic, or a method of warfare and conflict. Because no group or 
state can defeat the U.S. in conventional warfare, America’s adversaries and 
potential adversaries are turning to asymmetric strategies. We must 
therefore understand asymmetric warfare, and be able to respond in kind.

“When conventional tactics are altered unexpectedly according to the 
situation, they take on the element of surprise and increase in strategic 
value.”
—Sun Bin, The Lost Art of War

Though there are numerous examples of asymmetry in 20th century warfare, its 
use was not as pronounced between adversaries as it is today. Wars were 
primarily fought by nation-states with balanced, conventional fighting 
capabilities. When asymmetric methods were used, usually in the form of 
maneuver or technological advantage, they had a dramatic effect.

Three prominent examples of asymmetric actions that counterbalanced 
established force are: the sturmtrupp assault tactics that broke the 
trench-line stalemate and three-dimensional warfare as a result of the 
airplane during World War I; the panzer blitzkrieg through France in World 
War II; and the Strategic Defense Initiative that helped end the nuclear 
arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The kind of asymmetric 
strategy and tactics seen in the Vietnam War were termed guerilla warfare. 
These asymmetric actions, however, did not produce the dramatic, day-to-day 
effects on operations that we have seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

At the present time the U.S. has no identified conventional, war-making 
peer, as we had prior to Desert Storm. This absence of global peer 
competitors makes the world more uncertain, unstable, and difficult to 
anticipate. As the sole superpower, with the accompanying expectations 
placed on the U.S. and our extensive presence around the world, the U.S. has 
become a big and inviting target. The U.S. engages in humanitarian 
assistance, peacekeeping, and enforcement of UN or NATO sanctions, and 
maintains bases necessary for force projection worldwide. Our adversaries 
confront and confuse us with a multitude of asymmetric actions that catch us 
by surprise, to which we continue to respond with a Cold War mentality.

Since Desert Storm, our adversaries have learned not to come at us in a 
symmetric way since it is impossible for any country to engage the U.S. in 
an arms race. By using asymmetric actions, our adversaries exploit our 
vulnerabilities; taking advantage of the global information environment, 
they are also able to do so on the cheap.

Reality of the Operational Environment

“Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.” 
—Nicolo Machiavelli, The Prince

Today we see an ambiguous world, with people, groups, and governments 
pursuing complex goals. The borders have blurred between governments and 
people, military and populace, public and private. New fourth-generation 
warriors1, non-national and trans-national groups based on ideology, 
religion, tribe, culture, zealotry, and illegal economic activities, have 
pushed many regions of the world into anarchy.
Russia is in disarray, with increased fighting within its Muslim states in 
the oil-rich Caspian Sea region. The Balkans, though somewhat stabilized, 
have enormous corruption problems with no real peace in sight. The 
counter-drug war in Colombia and Mexico has intensified. Israel, the Middle 
East, North Korea, and Taiwan remain powder kegs.
This dangerous environment, coupled with the increased use of our military 
as an extension of U.S. diplomacy, has placed us in a situation where our 
adversaries employ asymmetric tactics to negate superior conventional 
strength. We Americans look at conflict through a winner’s eyes-usually from 
a past war. Setbacks cause concern, and if our quick-fix for the conflict at 
hand derails, due to unintended consequences, we usually overreact and are 
unable to deal with reality. Our standard approach to adversary actions 
means that we have trouble adapting to what we actually find on the ground. 
Planned intervention on the cheap, with awkward constraints, is inflexible 
and pompous. Past high-tech, standoff warfare is largely ineffective against 
these fourth-generation adversaries. We continue trying to play American 
football on a European soccer field.

Captain Larry Seaquist notes, “While the U.S. military pushed toward 
high-tech, low-casualty combat, war went the opposite direction-toward 
brutal neighbor-on-neighbor killing, carried out by ragtag collections of 
citizen-warriors, some of them just children.”2

These low-intensity conflicts have no quick-fix solutions. They have complex 
cultural, religious, and historical origins where criminality, population 
coercion, and extremist politics abound. Asymmetric tactics, usually 
conducted out of necessity by our adversaries, are an economy of force and a 
weapon of choice.

As Liddell Hart explained, “Campaigns of this kind are more likely to 
continue because it is the only kind of war that fits the conditions of the 
modern age, while being at the same time suited to take advantage of social 
discontent, racial ferment, and nationalist fervors.”3
Our diplomats, commercial investors, and military will continue to 
experience the unpredictability, chaos, and asymmetric threats that are 
becoming the norm around the world. The greatest threat to world stability 
appears to be small, regional wars with which the U.S. will be forced to 
contend.4 Are we ready for this type of threat?

The Threat

“It is every Muslim’s duty to wage war
against U.S. and Israeli citizens
anywhere in the world.”
—Osama bin Laden5

Americans separate war and peace; most of our enemies today do not. Osama 
bin Laden in Afghanistan, the “Army of Mohammed” in Yemen, and 
narco-guerrillas in Colombia are but a few groups that threaten America, our 
allies, and regional stability. The extensive, twisted links between 
terrorism, black marketers, drug lords, arms dealers, and zealots have 
created a formidable enemy.

Most of our adversaries are non-nation-state actors (terrorists, 
international and trans-national criminal organizations, or insurgents). 
They have a completely different mindset, believing they are continuously at 
war. Violence is a way of life. They know violence is an excellent tool 
against a democratic people worried about any threat to its way of life. 
Taking advantage of the information age, our adversaries are able to show 
atrocities, abuse, and destruction on our television screen daily. The 
values of enemies are different from ours, making it very difficult for us 
to understand why they don’t behave the way we believe they should.

Operating in agrarian cultures, with a small toolbox of dangerous, high-tech 
capabilities, they maintain power with machete-wielding intimidation. Most 
are predators that take advantage of weak states for refuge, and the 
discontent of the local populace for support. If they cannot inspire support 
from the people, they coerce recalcitrant members. Once established, they 
operate in and out of these areas with impunity.

“Greater powers and resources
do not guarantee tactical superiority.”
—Sun Bin, The Lost Art of War

These fourth-generation enemies have become very adept at using the 
asymmetric tactics of information warfare. They manipulate print and radio, 
distort images with perception management and background film clips (or “B 
Roll”) on global television, and disrupt the Internet. The infosphere has 
become a new battleground suited for asymmetric attack from across the 
globe. Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic was an expert at using the media 
as a weapon. Through deception, disinformation, and the “CNN factor,” he 
excelled at this cerebral form of competition.

Saddam Hussein has convinced most of the Iraqi population, many of our 
Western allies, and the Arab world that the UN-U.S. sanctions are directed 
against the people, not his tyranny. For 10 years, through the use of 
asymmetric actions, he has tied up countless ships, troops, and aircraft 
without reinstating sanctioned compliance inspections.
The Chinese have taken serious steps in their warfighting strategy for 
future conflict. Not only have they steadily enhanced their conventional 
arsenal with high-tech innovation, but they have learned the pronounced 
effect asymmetric actions have had on the U.S. and its allies over the last 
10 years. Two modern-day strategists, Senior Colonel Qiuo Liang and Senior 
Colonel Wang Xiangsui, have laid out in detail how to conduct full-spectrum 
warfare against the U.S., using asymmetric strategy, in their book 
Unrestricted Warfare.6 This warfare strategy doesn’t follow any rules, 
counters the U.S.’s high-tech advantages, and optimizes the electro-magnetic 
spectrum. All dimensions of space are considered the battleground.

Adversary Actions

“Water shapes its course according to the ground over which it flows;
the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is 
fighting.”
—Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Recent examples of asymmetric actions abound around the world. Riots planned 
by faction leaders, made up of coerced non-combatants, and manipulated by 
gangster police, were effective against NATO troops keeping the peace in 
Bosnia. Milosevic was able to move special police troops and other thugs at 
will throughout Kosovo, destroying life and infrastructure, while NATO’s 
unmatched air power was incapable of stopping him.

A group of Palestinians redirected British funds earmarked for education 
programs to further ideals of tolerance, mutual respect, and peace, instead 
using the money to send children to guerrilla training schools and then put 
them on the streets of Israel to fight. This was a successful deception of 
the British government’s generosity.7
One of the insurgent forces in Colombia, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de 
Colombia (FARC), has nationally threatened every Colombian millionaire and 
corporate CEO unless a tax is paid for protection. This action has produced 
immense pressure from the upper class on government authorities in Colombia. 
The FARC has also leveraged the Colombian government into conceding a 
portion of the country to their control, separated by a recognized and 
accepted demilitarized zone. Colombia now has more displaced citizens (one 
million) than Kosovo experienced during their war.

Chechen rebels in Russia have demonstrated time after time the effectiveness 
of asymmetric action against conventional forces by capitalizing on local 
support, information warfare, terror, cutting critical supply lines, and 
using urban areas to render irrelevant the superiority of the Russian 
armored forces.

Our national expectation of a casualty-free, high-tech conflict is 
challenged, for example, by rogue-state impertinence, setbacks dealt by the 
warlords of Mogadishu, and terrorist attacks, like those on the USS Cole and 
our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. We have been forced to pull back in 
fear, changing our operational effectiveness around the world.

What Can We Do?

“He will conquer who has learnt the artifice of deviation”
—Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Our response to asymmetric actions has usually been to react with defensive, 
hunkering-down, panic decisions; or in some cases to retaliate ineffectively 
with air or cruise missile attacks, occasionally injuring non-combatants or 
disgracing ourselves in the media. We continue to restrict ourselves to 
unrealistic rules of engagement, regardless of the situation. Deception, 
psychological operations, cyberwar, disinformation, “softwar,”8 are all 
non-kinetic ingredients in the toolbox of fourth-generation warriors, that 
should, in turn, be used against them.

We must understand that relative strength is situational; it is based on 
time, speed, location, and conditions. These intangibles are harder to 
define and offer strength in different circumstances. The side that is 
weaker in resources or complex command and control systems can balance that 
with superior cleverness, morale, offensive attitude, security, surprise, 
flexibility, and organizational design that fit the task at hand. We must 
preempt enemy asymmetric actions by attacking the cohesion and flow of their 
operational cycle.

An adversary must plan, gain support, move, stage, attack, and regroup 
during any operation or in pursuit of a cause (Figure 1). We can cause him 
to fail anywhere along this process-optimally, prior to his attack phase. 
It’s all a matter of gaining positional advantage, mentally or physically, 
over an opponent. Our adversaries have been very adept at gaining positional 
advantage with asymmetrical action against our moral and organizational 
domain (Figure 2). We can reverse this advantage by doing the same.

Asymmetrical targeting (deny, destroy, disrupt, dislocate, degrade) of 
adversary moral and organizational domains, instead of our typical, 
predictable, standard, conventional approach against physical strength 
provides a faster, effective defeat. Indirectly preventing our enemy from 
gaining ascendancy over the local population, denying organizations the use 
of safe areas, disrupting cash-flow and other supplies, negating effective 
use of the media, exposing corruption, disgracing the leadership, breaking 
power relationships, will put adversaries on the defensive and force them 
off balance.
This requires initiative, momentum, out-of-the-box thinking, flexibility, 
and a winning mindset. Crimes against humanity, small wars, and probable 
mega-terrorist (biological, chemical, nuclear, information) disasters are 
threats worthy of our attention. We must turn the tide on these 
fourth-generation warriors using asymmetric actions with a preemptive 
strategy. It’s a matter of being the hunter or the prey.

Notes
1. Lind, William S., Maj. John F. Schmitt, and Col. Gary I. Wilson. 
“Fourth-Generation Warfare: Another Look,” Marine Corps Gazette, December 
1994.
2. Seaquist, Larry. “Community War,” Naval Institute Proceedings, August 
2000.
3. Hart, Liddell. Low-Intensity Operations, 1971, p. 16.
4. Grau, Lester and Jacob Kipp. “Small Wars,” NSF Review, Summer 2000.
5. Vince Crawley “Terror Alert,” Army Times, Nov. 6, 2000.
6. Liang, Qiuo and Wang Xiangsui. Unrestricted Warfare, 1996
7. “Why are we paying for children to learn how to kill?” News of the World, 
November 5, 2000.
8. Softwar is a term developed by information operations strategist Chuck 
DeLaco to describe the hostile use of global visual media to shape another’s 
will.

BG (Ret.) David L. Grange is Executive Vice President and Chief Operating 
Officer of the Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation. He retired from the 
U.S. Army in 1999 after 30 years of service, with his final position as 
Commanding General of the First Infantry Division. In that position, he 
served in Germany, Bosnia, Macedonia, and Kosovo.

forwarded by Telebob

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