5 ms·

How the weak win wars: A theory of asymmetric conflict [pdf] (2001)

59 points by butterNaN 3y ago

AustinDev 3y ago
Needs a (2021) tag.
- joshuaturner 3y ago
  It was downloaded in 2021 but published in 2001 https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-abstract/26/1/93/11698/How-the-Weak-Win-Wars-A-Theory-of-Asymmetric https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-abstract/26/1/93/11698/H...
Swizec 3y ago
One side fights to survive, the other to make a few billionaires a little richer. Their motivations are not the same.
- arwineap 3y ago
  To the privates on the battlefield, it's a fight to survive on both sides
  - rags2riches 3y ago
    Yet the consequences of "if only my side would lay down their arms" are are radically different.
  - RugnirViking 3y ago
    a fight to survive is not the same as a fight to achieve operational goals; a bunch of men trying not to die, when they see their colleagues doing the same, generally achieve that by not being at the front line at all
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- cscurmudgeon 3y ago
  Billionaires exist on all sides. https://nypost.com/2023/11/07/news/hamas-leaders-worth-11bn-live-luxury-lives-in-qatar/ https://nypost.com/2023/11/07/news/hamas-leaders-worth-11bn-...
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  That does make a difference to recruitment and morale, but tactics count for a lot more than ideology.
ramesh31 3y ago
The one fundamental thing we didn't account for is the willingness of a massive industrialized nation in the modern age to burn off young men like cordwood by the hundreds of thousands to achieve their war aims. Just about every last bit of military thought in the past 70 years needs to be thrown out and rewritten with that in mind, as it invalidates everything we hold as common sense and viable strategy. Successfully waging an asymmetric war relies on the assumption that in a conflict of choice, the agressor can be inflicted enough pain to quit. The Soviet failures in Afghanistan, and the Americans in Vietnam, convinced the world of this fact. But that breaks down entirely when your agressor treats their own people as cattle for the slaughter, and has the viable means to maintain power regardless. We are entering a dark new age where the answer to "what would WWI look like with modern technology" is now being answered.
- Animats 3y ago
  > The one fundamental thing we didn't account for is the willingness of a massive industrialized nation in the modern age to burn off young men like cordwood by the hundreds of thousands to achieve their war aims. Classic Russian strategy. The USSR lost 20 million people in WWII.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    People being an important word here. Russian woman fought well.
    - huytersd 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - quickthrower2 3y ago
        Not really: it is noteworthy in the historical context.
      - aebtebeten 3y ago
        I'm probably just being obtuse, but I fail to see how one justifies either "false" or lack of "equivalency"? Hath not a gal eyes? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as their brother is? If you prick them, do they not bleed? If you expend them, do they not die? (eg Lyudmila Pavlichenko's ~1'500 sister snipers who died fighting Nazis)
Animats 3y ago
..."The development and deployment of armed forces specifically equipped and trained for COIN operations." Right now, the US has too much of that. Wars against peer or near-peer enemies need less counter-insurgency operations and more heavy equipment. The US has become used to operating in environments where air superiority was total, and secure base camps were possible. That's over. The US Army takes this seriously. Read Parameters, the War College journal, which has many articles on this subject. Here are two.[1][2] It's a major argument within the US military. There are some serious mismatches in preparation. The USMC has a great concept of a MAGTF - a Marine Air Ground Task Force, usually carried in an amphibious assault ship. This is great for COIN - the ship can go somewhere in a hurry, park offshore, and send out landing craft and air support, while acting as a mobile base. This works great against an enemy with nothing capable of attacking such a ship. Less well against an enemy with truck-mounted anti-ship missiles. The Army has too many vehicles intended to resist improvised explosive devices, and not enough heavy artillery and tanks. The Army is also used to being able to set up rear area bases in the open, and fortified fire bases in hostile territory. Those now look like soft targets. The USAF is used to being able to fly cargo planes such as C-130s into combat zones. This now looks suicidal where everybody has anti-aircraft missiles. Today, if it flies over a combat zone, it had better be able to dodge, jam, and fight. Or be expendable, like a drone. One of the lessons of the Ukraine war for the Navy is that you can't bring naval vessels near a hostile shore any more. Not since the Moskva. [1] https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol46/iss4/3/ https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol46/iss4/3/ [2] https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol47/iss1/13/ https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol47/iss1/13/
- alfiedotwtf 3y ago
  Sounds like being able to launch a swarm of killer drones from a submarine is the next evolutionary step to superiority
  - YurgenJurgensen 3y ago
    That's something that's been around since the 1950s. Since a sub can't be expected to meaningfully recover a drone it launches, there's no functional difference between a 'drone' and a 'cruise missile' in this scenario.
layer8 3y ago
(2001), actually: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38758187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38758187
scotty79 3y ago
It doesn't seem particularly relevant to modern conflicts where both sides resort to both direct and indirect strategies simultaneously as soon as they are available.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
AlexanderTheGr8 3y ago
interesting that this was written in summer-2001, a bit before 9/11, which inspired one of the biggest asymmetric conflicts by the US. the power ratio was extremely skewed in US's favor, and yet resulted in a "forever war". i'm curious how the author felt knowing that his paper would be so relevant only a few months after publication.
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  'Every time an international relations professor wishes that their work was ‘policy relevant,’ another stubby, desiccated digit uncurls on the monkey’s paw.' from https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/my-time-in-the-torment-nexus https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/my-time-in-the-torment-...
AlexanderTheGr8 3y ago
Curious how this strategy updates now that drones make war even more asymmetric. A drone worth $100 can destroy a tank worth $1 million or a helicopter worth $10 millions. It's theorized that a drone swarm can sink an aircraft carrier group, which costs billions of dollars. New technology used for war such as lasers or AI will only make war even more asymmetric. So essentially, big-countries can't attack other big-countries because of nukes and MAD (mutually-assured-destruction). Big-countries can't attack small-countries because of asymmetric war. Small-countries can't attack big-countries for obvious reasons. So, the only war left is small-countries vs small-countries.
- 082349872349872 3y ago
  > So, the only war left is small-countries vs small-countries. That sounds like a recipe for Oceania/Eastasia proxy wars in the Disputed Territories?
- photonbeam 3y ago
  Big countries can still level a small country, they just cant try to occupy without huge risk and expense

59 points by butterNaN 3y ago

AustinDev 3y ago

Needs a (2021) tag.

joshuaturner 3y ago
It was downloaded in 2021 but published in 2001 https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-abstract/26/1/93/11698/How-the-Weak-Win-Wars-A-Theory-of-Asymmetric https://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-abstract/26/1/93/11698/H...

Swizec 3y ago

One side fights to survive, the other to make a few billionaires a little richer. Their motivations are not the same.

arwineap 3y ago
To the privates on the battlefield, it's a fight to survive on both sides
- rags2riches 3y ago
  Yet the consequences of "if only my side would lay down their arms" are are radically different.
- RugnirViking 3y ago
  a fight to survive is not the same as a fight to achieve operational goals; a bunch of men trying not to die, when they see their colleagues doing the same, generally achieve that by not being at the front line at all
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
cscurmudgeon 3y ago
Billionaires exist on all sides. https://nypost.com/2023/11/07/news/hamas-leaders-worth-11bn-live-luxury-lives-in-qatar/ https://nypost.com/2023/11/07/news/hamas-leaders-worth-11bn-...
anigbrowl 3y ago
That does make a difference to recruitment and morale, but tactics count for a lot more than ideology.

ramesh31 3y ago

The one fundamental thing we didn't account for is the willingness of a massive industrialized nation in the modern age to burn off young men like cordwood by the hundreds of thousands to achieve their war aims. Just about every last bit of military thought in the past 70 years needs to be thrown out and rewritten with that in mind, as it invalidates everything we hold as common sense and viable strategy. Successfully waging an asymmetric war relies on the assumption that in a conflict of choice, the agressor can be inflicted enough pain to quit. The Soviet failures in Afghanistan, and the Americans in Vietnam, convinced the world of this fact. But that breaks down entirely when your agressor treats their own people as cattle for the slaughter, and has the viable means to maintain power regardless. We are entering a dark new age where the answer to "what would WWI look like with modern technology" is now being answered.

Animats 3y ago
> The one fundamental thing we didn't account for is the willingness of a massive industrialized nation in the modern age to burn off young men like cordwood by the hundreds of thousands to achieve their war aims. Classic Russian strategy. The USSR lost 20 million people in WWII.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  People being an important word here. Russian woman fought well.
  - huytersd 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - quickthrower2 3y ago
      Not really: it is noteworthy in the historical context.
    - aebtebeten 3y ago
      I'm probably just being obtuse, but I fail to see how one justifies either "false" or lack of "equivalency"? Hath not a gal eyes? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as their brother is? If you prick them, do they not bleed? If you expend them, do they not die? (eg Lyudmila Pavlichenko's ~1'500 sister snipers who died fighting Nazis)

Animats 3y ago

..."The development and deployment of armed forces specifically equipped and trained for COIN operations." Right now, the US has too much of that. Wars against peer or near-peer enemies need less counter-insurgency operations and more heavy equipment. The US has become used to operating in environments where air superiority was total, and secure base camps were possible. That's over. The US Army takes this seriously. Read Parameters, the War College journal, which has many articles on this subject. Here are two.[1][2] It's a major argument within the US military. There are some serious mismatches in preparation. The USMC has a great concept of a MAGTF - a Marine Air Ground Task Force, usually carried in an amphibious assault ship. This is great for COIN - the ship can go somewhere in a hurry, park offshore, and send out landing craft and air support, while acting as a mobile base. This works great against an enemy with nothing capable of attacking such a ship. Less well against an enemy with truck-mounted anti-ship missiles. The Army has too many vehicles intended to resist improvised explosive devices, and not enough heavy artillery and tanks. The Army is also used to being able to set up rear area bases in the open, and fortified fire bases in hostile territory. Those now look like soft targets. The USAF is used to being able to fly cargo planes such as C-130s into combat zones. This now looks suicidal where everybody has anti-aircraft missiles. Today, if it flies over a combat zone, it had better be able to dodge, jam, and fight. Or be expendable, like a drone. One of the lessons of the Ukraine war for the Navy is that you can't bring naval vessels near a hostile shore any more. Not since the Moskva. [1] https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol46/iss4/3/ https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol46/iss4/3/ [2] https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol47/iss1/13/ https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol47/iss1/13/

alfiedotwtf 3y ago
Sounds like being able to launch a swarm of killer drones from a submarine is the next evolutionary step to superiority
- YurgenJurgensen 3y ago
  That's something that's been around since the 1950s. Since a sub can't be expected to meaningfully recover a drone it launches, there's no functional difference between a 'drone' and a 'cruise missile' in this scenario.

layer8 3y ago

(2001), actually: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38758187 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38758187

scotty79 3y ago

It doesn't seem particularly relevant to modern conflicts where both sides resort to both direct and indirect strategies simultaneously as soon as they are available.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

AlexanderTheGr8 3y ago

interesting that this was written in summer-2001, a bit before 9/11, which inspired one of the biggest asymmetric conflicts by the US. the power ratio was extremely skewed in US's favor, and yet resulted in a "forever war". i'm curious how the author felt knowing that his paper would be so relevant only a few months after publication.

anigbrowl 3y ago
'Every time an international relations professor wishes that their work was ‘policy relevant,’ another stubby, desiccated digit uncurls on the monkey’s paw.' from https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/my-time-in-the-torment-nexus https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/my-time-in-the-torment-...

AlexanderTheGr8 3y ago

Curious how this strategy updates now that drones make war even more asymmetric. A drone worth $100 can destroy a tank worth $1 million or a helicopter worth $10 millions. It's theorized that a drone swarm can sink an aircraft carrier group, which costs billions of dollars. New technology used for war such as lasers or AI will only make war even more asymmetric. So essentially, big-countries can't attack other big-countries because of nukes and MAD (mutually-assured-destruction). Big-countries can't attack small-countries because of asymmetric war. Small-countries can't attack big-countries for obvious reasons. So, the only war left is small-countries vs small-countries.

082349872349872 3y ago
> So, the only war left is small-countries vs small-countries. That sounds like a recipe for Oceania/Eastasia proxy wars in the Disputed Territories?
photonbeam 3y ago
Big countries can still level a small country, they just cant try to occupy without huge risk and expense