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The Center for Asymmetric Warfare (CAW) was established in 1999. CAW is a U.S. Navy entity dedicated to supporting U.S. military forces, as well as local, state, and federal organizations, in countering and controlling the effects of asymmetric warfare, and in support of the Global War on Terrorism. Their focus is on training & education ...
- The Present Asymmetric Orientation
- Modern Roots of The Term
- Rewarding The Enemy: Asymmetry’S First Sin
- That Which Is Seen and Unseen: Domestic Consequences of Asymmetric Thinking
- Why Strategists Stumble Asymmetrically
- Orientating Asymmetric Thinking Towards GPC
- Tensions
- Value
- Future Asymmetric Warfare Group
In October 2020, the US Army announced it was going to disband the Asymmetric Warfare Group[i]. Founded in 2003, AWG was formed to counter the improvised explosive device (IED) threat that emerged early in the Iraq War.[ii] AWG was composed of military experts who could use their extensive experience to formulate solutions to problems that were upe...
“Asymmetric warfare” emerged as the axiom to explain the environment of the early Iraq conflict. It seemed apropos as the small Iraqi “David” was using their relative size against the US “Goliath” to move, act, and evolve quicker. An internet search of “Asymmetric warfare” appears to corroborate this assumption. Most definitions describe an asymmet...
The Iraq and Afghanistan insurgencies understood a conventional fight would be impossible with the US. What the insurgents needed was to invert the operational environment (OE) to their strengths and then “min-max”[vii] those strengths and metrics for victory. They effectively discovered this equation, defined the variables for victory, and put the...
In his seminal text The Law, Frederic Bastiat[xix] encourages economists to look beyond the superficial effect of a law or policy and broaden their perspective to consider secondary and tertiary consequences. His challenge to readers is to divine “seen and unseen” effects from a given choice or policy.[xx] Just like economic concerns, foreign polic...
What might explain this limited mindset that leads to these consequences? There has been much written about the difficulty grooming and selecting strategic planners within the military. One critic notes those who rise to the top of the strategic decision-making pyramid are poorly qualified for the task[xxix] due to a personnel system that bases pro...
The following will not be an ambitious conception of re-building of strategy. Instead it will advocate for the incorporation of certain principles to better assist strategists conceive of asymmetric opportunities with GPCs or any other adversary.
Center of Gravity (COG) analysis informs current problem framing in joint doctrine with its constituent vulnerabilities, requirements, and capabilities.[xxxv] While appropriate for force on force, COG should not influence asymmetric planning. As an analytical tool, COG inevitably frames an adversary in a “blue on red” context, which will push plann...
Just as strategists should look to Bastiat for guidance, they should also look to economists such as Carl Menger, William Jevons, and Leon Walras. Within a few years of one another, these three economists posited value derived from utility, not from labor.[xliii] In overturning this Marxist proposition and simultaneously answering the “diamond-wate...
Asymmetry’s current orientation and subsequent responses have been ineffective and damaging to the larger US society. Strategists owe the US citizenry better. The future of Asymmetry must be radical and proactive, not a reactive spending spree. If DoD is dealing with a traditional GPC opponent, the US is not going to be able to outspend it. Future ...
Asymmetric warfare is a form of irregular warfare – conflicts in which enemy combatants are not regular military forces of nation-states. The term is frequently used to describe what is also called guerrilla warfare, insurgency, counterinsurgency, rebellion, terrorism, and counterterrorism .
Asymmetrical warfare, unconventional strategies and tactics adopted by a force when the military capabilities of belligerent powers are not simply unequal but are so significantly different that they cannot make the same sorts of attacks on each other. Guerrilla warfare, occurring between lightly.
- Ellen Sexton
Key takeaways. Asymmetric warfare pits states against non-state entities. These entities have long been defined as being at a technical disadvantage when faced with conventional forces. But today asymmetric warfare relies on technology and its strategic models are not dissimilar to those of start-ups. Épisode 2/4.
Merriam-Webster defines warfare as military operations between enemies, an activity undertaken by a political unit (as a nation) to weaken or destroy another (e.g., economic warfare) or a struggle between competing enemies.3 Traditional warfare has taken the form of violent military action among nation-states.
Nov 6, 2023 · Asymmetric Warfare. Featured. The 9/11 terrorist attacks and the war in Afghanistan are among the best-known recent examples of asymmetric warfare: conflicts between nations or groups that have disparate military capabilities and strategies.