4 ms·

What a succinct demonstration of how asymmetric warfare works: how much did it cost to attempt to kill one person?

throwndown 9y ago
An instance where we do know the numbers: 9/11 attacks cost the attackers $500,000 according to intelligence estimates. The government response so far has cost $2 trillion (wars, etc.). That's a 4 million to 1 ratio.
- oceanbreeze83 9y ago
  This seems to take a very inclusive account of government spending but maybe not so for the attackers. We may need to consider the recruiting costs and ongoing operation cost for years leading up to the attack - even for expenses unrelated to the attack but part of the support and growth that led to it. You could argue that every AQ expense upto 911 was in some way building towards that event. I think if we have such a broad account of the government spend, we should do likewise for the other side. But your point is still good.
  - SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
    Then do we count all the military R&D to develop the weapon systems used or the infrastructure for deploying a military response. I think a better measure would be total funds that wouldn't have been spent otherwise (had 9/11 not occurred), as a measure. So for the US the costs to cleanup/rebuild Ground Zero and the Pentagon + the cost of deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan and whatever we're spending on Syria now plus whatever other operations happened as a result. For AQ it would be the cost of the attacks plus costs of expanding into Iraq and whatever involvement they had in Afghanistan. This is to say nothing of the human costs in all this which we can all agree are the real tragedy.
bluedino 9y ago
There are estimates that all in all, 250,000 rounds of ammunition are used for every person killed in the Iraq war https://www.google.com/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-forced-to-import-bullets-from-israel-as-troops-use-250000-for-every-rebel-killed-314944.html%3Famp https://www.google.com/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...
VLM 9y ago
Its a classic glass half full / glass half empty argument. Remember, each side killed one person. One side can only afford to dispatch one soldier, with a non-sniper rifle, on a sniper patrol, and the pessimism shows in that he did the spray and pray technique every day and went home, knowing that his side couldn't bother even providing a proper sniper rifle. "They pretend to supply us, we pretend to fight for them". Its just bad luck that eventually a spray -n- pray weapons policy randomly hit some poor guy on our side resulting in massive retaliation. The glass half empty way to look at $100K of small arms ammo to kill one guy is it cost $100K and that's not scalable if there's more than one guy. The other way to look at it, is this only happened once, which tells you all you really need to know about the opfor's opinion of this tactic, and furthermore we didn't appear to mind spending $100K on one opfor. That's why this kind of suicide kamikaze tactic was not super popular. Now with backpack nukes, or maybe IEDs, maybe the scales tilt. But if all you have is an AK47 and a small amount of ammo per day, this isn't going to happen too much. How do you win against an opponent who demonstrably doesn't care how much it costs to get you? Apparently, the only working strategy is you wait for him to leave. Which seems to be pretty much how it turned out. As a side meta comment, times have changed on our side too. Back then the Army spent $100K on small arms ammo and they must have fired a hundred thousand rounds up at that hill, and somehow hit the opfor although they also hit roughly 99999 other things, hopefully not civilians. Now a days you get the opfor on the IR drone scope and drop a single hellfire missile costing $100K on him from the air. Its the same cost but much less visually impressive and much lower civilian casualties or general destruction.
- omginternets 9y ago
  You seem to be arguing that this is a scalability issue, and I disagree. It's a sustainability issue. Viewed in this light, it's most certainly not a glass-half-full/glass-half-empty situation. Never in all history has a state benefitted from a prolonged state of war, and this is especially true of foreign campaigns.
- int_19h 9y ago
  > Remember, each side killed one person. They didn't - the sniper got away.
int_19h 9y ago
This book is a must read for anyone interested in the subject of asymmetric warfare and terrorism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp_(novel) Amazingly, it was written in 1957. But when you read it, you'll see just how much more relevant it became since then. Just to give a taste of it: "Next, Mowry went to the crowded main post office, took half a dozen small but heavy parcels from his case, addressed them and mailed them. Each held an airtight can containing a cheap clock-movement and a piece of paper, nothing else. The clock-movement emitted a sinister tick – just loud enough to be heard if a suspicious-minded person listened closely. The paper bore a message short and to the point. This package could have killed you. Two different packages brought together at the right time and place could kill a hundred thousand. End this war before we end you! Dirac Angestun Gesept. Paper threats, that was all – but they were effective enough to eat still further into the enemy’s war effort. They’d alarm the recipients and give their forces something more to worry about. Doubtless the military would provide a personal bodyguard for every big wheel on Jaimec; that alone would pin down a regiment. Mail would be examined, and all suspicious parcels would be taken apart in a blast-proof room. There’d be a city-wide search with radiation-detectors for the component parts of a fission bomb. Civil defence would be alerted in readiness to cope with a mammoth explosion that might or might not take place. Anyone on the streets who walked with a secretive air and wore a slightly mad expression would be arrested and hauled in for questioning."

An instance where we do know the numbers: 9/11 attacks cost the attackers $500,000 according to intelligence estimates. The government response so far has cost $2 trillion (wars, etc.). That's a 4 million to 1 ratio.

oceanbreeze83 9y ago
This seems to take a very inclusive account of government spending but maybe not so for the attackers. We may need to consider the recruiting costs and ongoing operation cost for years leading up to the attack - even for expenses unrelated to the attack but part of the support and growth that led to it. You could argue that every AQ expense upto 911 was in some way building towards that event. I think if we have such a broad account of the government spend, we should do likewise for the other side. But your point is still good.
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
  Then do we count all the military R&D to develop the weapon systems used or the infrastructure for deploying a military response. I think a better measure would be total funds that wouldn't have been spent otherwise (had 9/11 not occurred), as a measure. So for the US the costs to cleanup/rebuild Ground Zero and the Pentagon + the cost of deploying to Iraq and Afghanistan and whatever we're spending on Syria now plus whatever other operations happened as a result. For AQ it would be the cost of the attacks plus costs of expanding into Iraq and whatever involvement they had in Afghanistan. This is to say nothing of the human costs in all this which we can all agree are the real tragedy.

bluedino 9y ago

There are estimates that all in all, 250,000 rounds of ammunition are used for every person killed in the Iraq war https://www.google.com/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-forced-to-import-bullets-from-israel-as-troops-use-250000-for-every-rebel-killed-314944.html%3Famp https://www.google.com/amp/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...

VLM 9y ago

Its a classic glass half full / glass half empty argument. Remember, each side killed one person. One side can only afford to dispatch one soldier, with a non-sniper rifle, on a sniper patrol, and the pessimism shows in that he did the spray and pray technique every day and went home, knowing that his side couldn't bother even providing a proper sniper rifle. "They pretend to supply us, we pretend to fight for them". Its just bad luck that eventually a spray -n- pray weapons policy randomly hit some poor guy on our side resulting in massive retaliation. The glass half empty way to look at $100K of small arms ammo to kill one guy is it cost $100K and that's not scalable if there's more than one guy. The other way to look at it, is this only happened once, which tells you all you really need to know about the opfor's opinion of this tactic, and furthermore we didn't appear to mind spending $100K on one opfor. That's why this kind of suicide kamikaze tactic was not super popular. Now with backpack nukes, or maybe IEDs, maybe the scales tilt. But if all you have is an AK47 and a small amount of ammo per day, this isn't going to happen too much. How do you win against an opponent who demonstrably doesn't care how much it costs to get you? Apparently, the only working strategy is you wait for him to leave. Which seems to be pretty much how it turned out. As a side meta comment, times have changed on our side too. Back then the Army spent $100K on small arms ammo and they must have fired a hundred thousand rounds up at that hill, and somehow hit the opfor although they also hit roughly 99999 other things, hopefully not civilians. Now a days you get the opfor on the IR drone scope and drop a single hellfire missile costing $100K on him from the air. Its the same cost but much less visually impressive and much lower civilian casualties or general destruction.

omginternets 9y ago
You seem to be arguing that this is a scalability issue, and I disagree. It's a sustainability issue. Viewed in this light, it's most certainly not a glass-half-full/glass-half-empty situation. Never in all history has a state benefitted from a prolonged state of war, and this is especially true of foreign campaigns.
int_19h 9y ago
> Remember, each side killed one person. They didn't - the sniper got away.

int_19h 9y ago

This book is a must read for anyone interested in the subject of asymmetric warfare and terrorism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasp_(novel) Amazingly, it was written in 1957. But when you read it, you'll see just how much more relevant it became since then. Just to give a taste of it: "Next, Mowry went to the crowded main post office, took half a dozen small but heavy parcels from his case, addressed them and mailed them. Each held an airtight can containing a cheap clock-movement and a piece of paper, nothing else. The clock-movement emitted a sinister tick – just loud enough to be heard if a suspicious-minded person listened closely. The paper bore a message short and to the point. This package could have killed you. Two different packages brought together at the right time and place could kill a hundred thousand. End this war before we end you! Dirac Angestun Gesept. Paper threats, that was all – but they were effective enough to eat still further into the enemy’s war effort. They’d alarm the recipients and give their forces something more to worry about. Doubtless the military would provide a personal bodyguard for every big wheel on Jaimec; that alone would pin down a regiment. Mail would be examined, and all suspicious parcels would be taken apart in a blast-proof room. There’d be a city-wide search with radiation-detectors for the component parts of a fission bomb. Civil defence would be alerted in readiness to cope with a mammoth explosion that might or might not take place. Anyone on the streets who walked with a secretive air and wore a slightly mad expression would be arrested and hauled in for questioning."