“Asymmetric” has taken on a fuzzy definition in the military, kind of like “agile” or “disruptive” in more familiar domains. He states that submarines are the o

“Asymmetric” has taken on a fuzzy definition in the military, kind of like “agile” or “disruptive” in more familiar domains. He states that submarines are the one true asymmetric advantage they have, but the nature of asymmetry implies that one need not match force in kind. Submarines exploit a characteristic weakness of surface ships and nuclear first-strike, but they have their own characteristic weakness, so the asymmetric label is apt, but direct comparison of force-in-kind is irrelevant. As a different way to think about it, consider that the history of warfare is entirely dominated by strategic failures leading to symmetric attrition warfare. Historians do not classify asymmetric success as war, unless it comes at the culmination of symmetric attrition. We have an industry and a profession based on the study and execution of war, which, I suggest to you, is tautologically strategic failure. The Chinese have traditionally seen the bigger picture in their strategy of “unrestricted warfare”, and they seem to recognize that their struggle is not against a specific military power or system, but perhaps the emergent unstoppable power inherent in the lack of a system or strategy. It certainly was this way for us in our recent engagements, as it will be for the aggressors of today. And yet, I don’t see the adaptation. We grow the war in scope but lose the objective. There is too much in the Chinese and US system that secures its own existence through a war of attrition against itself. All great powers end up competing in the same race.