Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars: The Politics of Asymmetric Conflict

Abstract

The Vietnam and Algerian wars have demonstrated that the overwhelming conventional military superiority of major powers is no guarantee against their defeat in wars against small nations. For external powers such wars are necessarily “limited,” which constrains escalation above certain levels. With no direct survival interest at stake, fighting the war does not take automatic priority over the pursuit of other social, political, and economic objectives. Prosecuting the war consumes resources—economic, human, and political—which are thus not available for the pursuit of these other objectives. In the absence of a quick victory this creates the potential for those political divisions which historically have shifted the balance of forces in the metropolis in favor of withdrawal. For the insurgents, the fact of invasion and occupation generates cohesion, minimizes constraints on mobilization, and maximizes the willingness to incur costs. Precisely the opposite effects tend to characterize the war effort of the external power. A conceptual framework for the analysis of the evolution and outcome of such conflicts is presented and its applications and limitations discussed.

Both sides retaliate in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict

“…In addition, there is some evidence that Israel increases its vigilance (e.g., by closing borders) after it has killed Palestinians (8). This fact might make it even more difficult for Palestinians to retaliate, leading them to resort to rockets as the only viable form of retaliation (28)(29)(30). Second, though Qassams are not particularly effective at killing Israelis, they do cause significant psychological distress among Israelis (though not incurring a military response from Israel in the period under investigation, discussed below), which is mirrored in the strong political and public response to the rocket attacks in Israel (3, 7).…”

Potential uses of Numerical Simulation for the Modelling of Civil Conflict

“…This figure again illustrates the use of the present relative-power approach in producing highly visually-effective representations of conflict progress. The classic empirical case of asymmetric conflict is the Vietnamese-US war (ArreguinToft 2001;Mack 1975;Paul 1994). The present analysis produces a new representation of asymmetric concept based on the current extension to the relative-power approach proposed by Christia (2012).…”

“…Previous empirical research on asymmetric conflict has focused on how particular strategies and conditions allow weaker rebels to prevail against stronger opponents (Arreguin-Toft 2001;Mack 1975). In such conflicts, the rebel side is at an advantage over the government, in spite of their smaller size, because the government must search for their opponents before they can make a kill, whilst the rebels are able to make a direct-kill by targeting government strongholds.…”

Small Wars and the War Crime Dilemma: The “Weaponization” of the Laws of War in Non-Conventional Warfare

“…In this context, asymmetric warfare means war between two unequal parties in which one party in the conflict (often the lesser party) adopts "different" legally and morally controversial means, strategies, and tactics to maximize an advantage, take the initiative, or exploit the opponent's weaknesses in armed conflict. This kind of conflict has been addressed by many nomenclatures: 'low-intensity conflicts' (Kitson 1971), 'fourth-generation warfare (4GW)' (Lind et al 1989;Lind 2004), 'small wars' (U.S. Marine Corps 1940;Merom 2003), 'network centric warfare' (Cebrowski and Garstka 1998;see also Arquilla 2007), 'authorless war' (Appadurai (2006, 16-17), 'nonconventional', 'hybrid' (Mattis and Hoffman 2005), and 'asymmetric' wars (Mack 1975;Paul 1994;Arreguı´n-Toft 2001), among other designations. Although each of these terms has a technical peculiarity, they all almost mean the same thing.…”