What is asymmetric warfare?

At least from the very academic viewpoint, war is a condition of armed conflict between at least two sides (but, in fact, states). There are, historically, several types of warfare as conventional warfare, civil war, lightning war (blitzkrieg in German), total war, hegemonic war, liberation war, war on terrorism, etc. However, according to the used warfare technique, there is, for instance, little war (guerrilla war in Spanish) or according to the (counter)balance of warfare sides, there is asymmetric war as an example.

Asymmetric warfare exists in the case when two sides of combat forces (two states, two blocs, a state vs. one military bloc, etc.) are very or even extremely different regarding their military and other capacities to fight each other. They are as well as very different in the terms of their areas of comparative strategic advantage, Therefore, the confrontation between such two different sides is coming to turn on one belligerent side’s ability/capacity to force the other side to fight on their own terms and conditions.

Another feature of asymmetric warfare is that the strategies that the weaker side has consistently adopted against the stronger side (enemy) often involve targeting the enemy’s domestic political base as much as its forward military capabilities. Nevertheless, in essence, usually, such strategies involve inflicting pain over time without suffering unbearable retaliation in return.

In practice, a very illustrative example of asymmetric warfare was when on March 20th, 2003, US-led coalition forces invaded (made aggression) Iraq of Saddam Hussein with the objective of locating and disarming suspected (and not existing) Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The coalition forces lead a very fast and overwhelmingly successful military campaign with the occupation of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. Consequently, the Iraqi military forces collapsed and finally surrendered to the occupants. US President Bush Junior declared the official end of major fighting operations in Iraq on May 2nd, 2003. On one hand, historically speaking, the casualties during the conventional part of the war were low for major modern and contemporary military conflicts. However, on other hand, the fighting soon has been evolved into an insurgency in which the combination of guerrilla/terrorist attacks on both Western coalition forces and the civilians of Iraq became the everyday norm. Therefore, by the spring of 2007, the coalition had suffered some 3.500 men and around 24.000 wounded. Some independent sources estimate that total Iraqi war-related deaths are up to 650.000 (the minimum is 60.000). The 2003 Iraqi War is an example of how the asymmetric war can be transformed into guerrilla warfare with unpredictable consequences for the originally victorious side. The same happened with the war in Afghanistan in 2001 which started as an asymmetric war but was finished twenty years later with the victory of Taliban guerrilla forces over the Western coalition.

Nevertheless, the 2003 Iraqi War illustrated several themes that have been prominent in the talks regarding the future development of warfare including the question of asymmetric war as well. In this particular case, one of the focal features of asymmetric warfare was the fact that the fast military victory of the US-led coalition saw the Iraqi armed forces overrun by the technological superiority of the advanced weapons and information systems of the West, particularly of the US. It simply suggested that military revolution was on the way (RMA – revolution in military affairs).

Countercurrents