ASYMMETRIC WARS – LESSONS FROM RECENT
CONFLICTS AND ITS RELEVANCE TO INDIA
The enemy’s objective is to have us concentrate our main forces for
a decisive engagement. Our objective is exactly the opposite. We
want to choose conditions favorable to us, concentrate superior
forces and fight decisive campaigns and battles only when we are
sure of victory, we want to avoid decisive engagements under
unfavorable conditions when we are not sure of victory.
- Mao Tse-Tung
Introduction
Asymmetric warfare originally referred to war between two or more actors, or groups
of actors, whose relative power differed by a significant amount (David small, Goliath
big). Contemporary military thinkers tend to broaden this original meaning to include
asymmetry of strategy or tactics the core idea is that "weaker" combatants will attempt
to use strategy to offset deficiencies in quantity or quality.
Today, the asymmetric threat paradigm is defined by radically unconventional,
random, nonlinear, anarchistic, disproportionate, and unconstrained strategies
perpetrated by mostly non governmental and nonstate actors. The borders have
blurred between governments and people, military and populace, public and private.
New fourth generation warriors, nonnational and transnational groups based on
ideology, religion, tribe, culture, zealotry, and illegal economic activities, have pushed
many regions of the world into anarchy. 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. Current conventional
military capability lacks the “skill sets” to deal with this future asymmetric threat
effectively. In the absence of a pervasive human intelligence network, this threat is
extremely hard to detect.
Any attempt to judge a limited, asymmetric warfare in accordance with the same
yardstick of conventional conflict is not only a clash between a regular army and a
nonstate actor, it is almost always part of a broader and longer conflict, which cannot
be decided militarily at a single stroke. Objectives that can be achieved in all out war
are not usually attainable in a low intensity or asymmetric conflict. Inevitably,
expectations, of quick, low cost battles are almost always proven to be short lived,
unrealistic and disappointing. Currently, regular armies are not catered well for
asymmetric warfare and therefore the stronger party is not necessarily the triumphant
one.
What Is Asymmetric Warfare
