JFQ 75, 4
th
Quarter 2014 Milevski 77
Asymmetry Is Strategy,
Strategy Is Asymmetry
By Lukas Milevski
M
uch of the strategic studies lit-
erature of the past two decades
identifies profound novelty in
the conduct and challenges of modern
war, novelty that ultimately calls into
question the nature and even existence
of war. War has allegedly now been
transformed from a regular, conven-
tional, purportedly symmetric exercise
into an irregular, unconventional,
asymmetric event, which must be
understood anew.
Of all the new descriptors for war,
“asymmetric” is among the broadest. It
has even been suggested that asymmetry
does not bear definition: “to define the
term defies its very meaning, purpose,
and significance.”
1
Some, undeterred
by such extreme pronouncements, have
attempted at least to categorize various
existing and potential concepts of asym-
metry. Thus, Jan Angstrom has identified
four different prisms through which
asymmetry may be interpreted: “power
distribution, organisational status of the
actor, method of warfare, and norms.”
2
Yet despite claims of newness, it has
also been observed that asymmetry has
infused nearly every, if not every, war in
recorded history. (Possibly only the hop-
lite phalanxes of ancient Greece could be
Lukas Milevski is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Graduate Institute of Political and International Studies at
the University of Reading, United Kingdom.
President Obama and Afghan President Hamid
Karzai exchange documents at Presidential
Palace in Kabul after signing Enduring Strategic
Partnership Agreement (White House/Pete Souza)
