Introduction
Observing the news and media resources it could be said that the wars between equal opponents since World War II were apparently left in the past. In his book “Why Nations Go to War”, John G. Stoessinger introduces the idea that the “weak” sometimes have an important power over the “strong”. This paper analyzes this idea on the basis of the concept of asymmetric warfare.
Analysis
More often the concept of asymmetry is applied to characterize the relations between non-comparable opponents in military force and status, where it is possible to consider the popular mythological analogy of David and Goliath’s fight. With the exception of few literature sources of a strategic and legal character, the allocation of asymmetry, as a rule, specifies the paradoxical characteristics of the relations in which a weaker opponent is capable to cause serious damage and even imposing the will to the stronger opponent, whereas the stronger opponent is not always capable of defending own interests and subordinate the weak.
The beginning of the military operations in Iraq in 2003 and the inability of the coalition of the strongest powers to finish the war in accordance with primary plans, i.e. to establish full control over the country after defeating its armed forces, the transition of military actions to guerrilla warfare is considered by the experts as an example of classical «asymmetric conflict» which can be compared to the war in Vietnam. In the Iraq conflict, the obvious disproportion of power possibilities of opponents, their statuses and the tactics of military actions can be revealed. Guerrilla wars in the conditions of occupation or colonial government and the national-liberation movements were ranked as a category of asymmetric conflicts in the sixties of the past century.
Over the last years that passed after the end of World War II, many national-liberation and anti-colonial movements used the strategy of guerrilla warfare as a result of which it was possible for these movements to exhaust if not force the will of the opponents and to force them to make concessions.
The popular reasoning of Mao Zedong about the strategy and the tactics of guerrilla warfare are surprisingly conformable to those reasons of the outcome of the US War in Vietnam (1964-1975) which were outlined by Henry Kissinger. Both politicians saw the reasons for the victory of the Vietnamese in the long pattern of the war which exhausted the USA, despite their military superiority.
The success in Vietnam was brought by guerrilla tactics of the small victories, allowing the communists to evade from large direct collisions with American forces, the reticence and the invulnerability of the dispersed forces of Vietnamese guerrillas against the apparent concentration of armies of the United States. In addition, the local population supported the communists, considering their struggle against the American armies fair and emancipating.
For the weak in the Vietnamese war, it was enough not to lose. The strong, on the other hand, had to win to declare victory. Henry Kissinger even derived a formula of the guerrillas win “A conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if it does not lose.” He named also another important factor of a victory – the ability of everyone in the struggling parties to provide the safety of the civilians in the zone of operations. The forces that win are those armed forces (regular or guerrilla) that are capable of providing safety completely.
This problem often appears impossible for the regular armies which are at war in another territory. In that sense, the weak side is doomed to a victory sooner or later.
Terrorism of 2000s years is a variant of asymmetric operations as it embodies the logic of the conflict of the weak against the strong. Terrorism, as weaks’ way of struggle, has replaced guerrilla warfare which in the 20th century carried out this function for a long time.
Terrorism differs from guerrilla warfare by the offensive nature, smaller dependence on the local population and the ability to actively use the infrastructure of the developed countries for their purposes. Modern terrorism is a version of war in its classical definition, i.e. violent imposing of will on opponents with that only important feature, that terrorist struggle is focused on asymmetry by the means of which the sides which are infinitely weaker technologically and organizationally, than their more powerful opponents, appear capable of imposing a war against them
The distinction between guerrilla war and terrorist strategy consists of the conscious use of paradoxical advantages of strategic asymmetry. Traditional guerrilla movements in the wars between initially different opponents aspired to reach symmetry in their relations, and then to win in the armed war. Terrorist groups aspire to undermine the morale and psychological potential of the opponent without contact with its military vehicle. With that, they choose for the blows the most vulnerable goals in the country, simply “bypassing” all military barriers and protective mechanisms in the creation of which modern societies put so much for the sake of maintaining the safety and the security of their country.
Once Andrew Mack in his work “Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars” noticed, that behind inequality of the powerful possibilities of the participants of a conflict more important asymmetries can be hidden- asymmetries of the relations to a concrete war and asymmetry of the ability of the countries to achieve the mobilization of the society in the interest of leading the war. The second type of asymmetries is shown in the dichotomy of the limited and the total war or the application of asymmetric tactics – actions of guerrilla groups against the regular army. Quite often this type also explains the reasons for the victory of the weak and the defeat of the strong.
The main message in such reflections consisted that the party that loses the political will to continue loses the war, and the major condition of the presence of such will is the public support of the war’s goals. According to Mack, democratic countries often lose “small wars” on the internal battlefront as they happen to be in a condition that does not enable them to mobilize the society for the continuation of the war and to present convincing justifications of its goals, human victims and the material expenses, as a result of which the war loses legitimacy in the opinion of the nation.
Conclusion
Only those countries which really lead a war for the sake of a significant general idea are capable to provide for a long time the mobilization of the material and human resources for achieving a victory over opponents surpassing them in force. Strong adherence of the society to war can push the idea of total war. In that sense, that logic always defeats the logic of war whether limited or small.
The reasoning about asymmetry in the world policy returns to the dispute on the parity of forces, norms and values in the international system. The reference to the problem of providing safety reminds us that the concept of force is complex and is not defined by the set of power, economic, and manpower resources and that in the conditions of real conflicts the superiority in military force can be compensated by finding the weak spots of the strong opponent. The United States must be prepared to fight and win both conventional and asymmetric or “small” wars where an ideal U.S. strategic response in an asymmetric conflict, therefore, demands two central elements: (1) preparation of public expectations for a long war despite U.S. technological and material advantages, and (2) the development and deployment of armed forces specifically equipped and trained for COIN operations. Without a national consensus and realistic expectations, the United States would be politically vulnerable in an asymmetric conflict.”
Works Cited
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- Cassidy, Robert M. “Why Great Powers Fight Small Wars Badly.” US Army -Military Review (2000): 13.
- “Excerpts from the Writings of Mao Zedong and Che Guevara”. 2009. The Ohio State University.
- GOULDING, VINCENT J. “Back to the Future with Asymmetric Warfare”. 2000. US Army War College.
- Münkler, Herfried, and Patrick Camiller. The New Wars. Polity, 2005.
- Stoessinger, John George. Why Nations Go to War. Thomson Learning EMEA, 2008.
- TUCKER, JONATHAN B. “Asymmetric Warfare”. 1999. Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy.