Mitch Rapp
06-24-2005, 04:22 PM
Why Great Powers Fight Small Wars Badly
Major Robert M. Cassidy, US Army
Historically, great powers have fought small wars and counter-insurgencies
badly. They do not lose them so much as they fail to win them. Cassidy considers historical instances of this phenomenon and concludes that asymmetry in strategy, technology, or national will creates an Achilles heel for great powers.
THESE QUOTES ENGENDER two truisms about the military organizations of great powers: they embrace the big-war para-digm,and because they are large, hierarchical institutions, they gener-ally innovate incrementally. This means that great-power militaries do not innovate well, particularly when the required innovations and adap-tations lie outside the scope of conventional war. In other words, great powers do not win small wars because they are great powers: their militaries must maintain a central competence in symmetric warfare to pre-serve their great-power status vis-à-vis other great powers; and their militaries must be large organizations. These two characteristics combine to create a formidable competence on the plains of Europe or the deserts of Iraq. However, these two traits do not produce institutions and cultures that exhibit a propensity for counterguerrilla warfare.
In addition to a big-war culture, there are some contradictions that derive from the logic that exists when a superior industrial or postindustrial power faces an inferior, semifeudal, semicolonial, or preindustrial adversary. On one hand, the great power intrinsically brings overwhelmingly superior resources and technology to this type of conflict. On the other hand, the seemingly inferior opponent generally exhibits superior will, demonstrated by a willingness to accept higher costs and to perse-vere against many odds. “Victory or Death” is not simply a statement on a bumper sticker; it is a dilemma that embodies asymmetric conflicts.
The qualitatively or quantitatively inferior opponent fights with limited
means for a strategic objective—independence. Conversely, the qualitatively or quantitatively superior opponent fights with potentially unlimited means for limited ends—maintaining some peripheral territory or outpost. Seemingly weaker military forces often prevail over those with superior firepower and technology because they are fighting for survival.
History offers many examples of big-power failures in the context of
asymmetric conflict: the Romans in the Teutoburg Forest, the British in
the American Revolution, the French in the Peninsular War, the French
in Indochina and Algeria, the Americans in Vietnam, the Russians in Af-ghanistan and Chechnya, and the Americans in Somalia. This list is not
entirely homogeneous, and it is important to clarify that the American
Revolution, the Peninsular War, and the Vietnam war are examples of
great powers failing to win against strategies that combined asymmetric
approaches with symmetric approaches.
However, two qualifications are necessary when generalizing great
powers’ failures in small wars. First, big powers do not necessarily lose
small wars; they simply fail to win them. In fact, they often win many
tactical victories on the battlefield. However, in the absence of a threat
to survival, the big powers’ failure to quickly and decisively attain their
strategic aim causes them to lose domestic support. Second, weaker opponents must be strategically circumspect enough to avoid confronting
the great powers symmetrically in conventional wars.
History also recounts many examples wherein big powers achieved crushing victories over small powers when the inferior sides were injudicious enough to fight battles or wars according to the big-power paradigm. The Battle of the Pyramids and the Battle of Omdurman provide the most conspicuous examples of primitive militaries facing advanced militaries symmetrically. The Persian Gulf war is the most recent example of an outmatched military force fighting according to it opponent’s preferred paradigm. The same was true for the Italians’ victory in Abyssinia, about which Mao Tse-tung observed that defeat is the inevitable result when semifeudal forces fight positional warfare and pitched battles against modernized forces. Asymmetric conflict is the most probable form of conflict that the United States may face. Four factors support this probability:
- The Western Powers have the world’s most advanced militaries in technology and firepower.
- The economic and political homogenization among the Western Powers precludes a war among them.
- Most rational adversaries in the non-Western world should have learned from the Gulf war not to confront the West on its terms.
- As a result, the United States and its European allies will employ their firepower and technology in the less-developed world against ostensibly inferior adversaries employing asymmetric approaches.
Asymmetric conflict will therefore be the norm, not the exception.
Even though the war in Afghanistan departs from the model of asymmetric conflict presented in this article, the asymmetric nature of the war there only underscores the salience of asymmetric conflicts.
The term “asymmetric conflict” first appeared in a paper as early as 1974, and it has become the strategic term de jour. 7 However, the term “asymmetric” has come to include so many approaches that it has lost
its utility and clarity. For example, one article described Japan’s World
War II direct attack on Pearl Harbor as conventional but its indirect attack against British conventional forces in Singapore as asymmetric. So encompassing a definition diminishes the term’s utility. If every type of
asymmetry or indirect approach is subsumed within this definition, then
what approaches are excluded?
This article circumscribes the scope of asymmetric conflict to analyze
conflicts in which either national or multinational superior external military forces confront inferior states or indigenous groups in the latter’s territory. Insurgencies and small wars lie within this category, and this article uses both terms interchangeably. Small wars are not big, force-on-force, state-on-state, conventional, orthodox, unambiguous wars in which success is measured by phase lines crossed or hills seized. Small wars are counterinsurgencies and low-intensity conflicts in which ambiguity rules and superior firepower does not necessarily guarantee success.
PDF file: http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/cassidy1.pdf
Major Robert M. Cassidy, US Army
Historically, great powers have fought small wars and counter-insurgencies
badly. They do not lose them so much as they fail to win them. Cassidy considers historical instances of this phenomenon and concludes that asymmetry in strategy, technology, or national will creates an Achilles heel for great powers.
THESE QUOTES ENGENDER two truisms about the military organizations of great powers: they embrace the big-war para-digm,and because they are large, hierarchical institutions, they gener-ally innovate incrementally. This means that great-power militaries do not innovate well, particularly when the required innovations and adap-tations lie outside the scope of conventional war. In other words, great powers do not win small wars because they are great powers: their militaries must maintain a central competence in symmetric warfare to pre-serve their great-power status vis-à-vis other great powers; and their militaries must be large organizations. These two characteristics combine to create a formidable competence on the plains of Europe or the deserts of Iraq. However, these two traits do not produce institutions and cultures that exhibit a propensity for counterguerrilla warfare.
In addition to a big-war culture, there are some contradictions that derive from the logic that exists when a superior industrial or postindustrial power faces an inferior, semifeudal, semicolonial, or preindustrial adversary. On one hand, the great power intrinsically brings overwhelmingly superior resources and technology to this type of conflict. On the other hand, the seemingly inferior opponent generally exhibits superior will, demonstrated by a willingness to accept higher costs and to perse-vere against many odds. “Victory or Death” is not simply a statement on a bumper sticker; it is a dilemma that embodies asymmetric conflicts.
The qualitatively or quantitatively inferior opponent fights with limited
means for a strategic objective—independence. Conversely, the qualitatively or quantitatively superior opponent fights with potentially unlimited means for limited ends—maintaining some peripheral territory or outpost. Seemingly weaker military forces often prevail over those with superior firepower and technology because they are fighting for survival.
History offers many examples of big-power failures in the context of
asymmetric conflict: the Romans in the Teutoburg Forest, the British in
the American Revolution, the French in the Peninsular War, the French
in Indochina and Algeria, the Americans in Vietnam, the Russians in Af-ghanistan and Chechnya, and the Americans in Somalia. This list is not
entirely homogeneous, and it is important to clarify that the American
Revolution, the Peninsular War, and the Vietnam war are examples of
great powers failing to win against strategies that combined asymmetric
approaches with symmetric approaches.
However, two qualifications are necessary when generalizing great
powers’ failures in small wars. First, big powers do not necessarily lose
small wars; they simply fail to win them. In fact, they often win many
tactical victories on the battlefield. However, in the absence of a threat
to survival, the big powers’ failure to quickly and decisively attain their
strategic aim causes them to lose domestic support. Second, weaker opponents must be strategically circumspect enough to avoid confronting
the great powers symmetrically in conventional wars.
History also recounts many examples wherein big powers achieved crushing victories over small powers when the inferior sides were injudicious enough to fight battles or wars according to the big-power paradigm. The Battle of the Pyramids and the Battle of Omdurman provide the most conspicuous examples of primitive militaries facing advanced militaries symmetrically. The Persian Gulf war is the most recent example of an outmatched military force fighting according to it opponent’s preferred paradigm. The same was true for the Italians’ victory in Abyssinia, about which Mao Tse-tung observed that defeat is the inevitable result when semifeudal forces fight positional warfare and pitched battles against modernized forces. Asymmetric conflict is the most probable form of conflict that the United States may face. Four factors support this probability:
- The Western Powers have the world’s most advanced militaries in technology and firepower.
- The economic and political homogenization among the Western Powers precludes a war among them.
- Most rational adversaries in the non-Western world should have learned from the Gulf war not to confront the West on its terms.
- As a result, the United States and its European allies will employ their firepower and technology in the less-developed world against ostensibly inferior adversaries employing asymmetric approaches.
Asymmetric conflict will therefore be the norm, not the exception.
Even though the war in Afghanistan departs from the model of asymmetric conflict presented in this article, the asymmetric nature of the war there only underscores the salience of asymmetric conflicts.
The term “asymmetric conflict” first appeared in a paper as early as 1974, and it has become the strategic term de jour. 7 However, the term “asymmetric” has come to include so many approaches that it has lost
its utility and clarity. For example, one article described Japan’s World
War II direct attack on Pearl Harbor as conventional but its indirect attack against British conventional forces in Singapore as asymmetric. So encompassing a definition diminishes the term’s utility. If every type of
asymmetry or indirect approach is subsumed within this definition, then
what approaches are excluded?
This article circumscribes the scope of asymmetric conflict to analyze
conflicts in which either national or multinational superior external military forces confront inferior states or indigenous groups in the latter’s territory. Insurgencies and small wars lie within this category, and this article uses both terms interchangeably. Small wars are not big, force-on-force, state-on-state, conventional, orthodox, unambiguous wars in which success is measured by phase lines crossed or hills seized. Small wars are counterinsurgencies and low-intensity conflicts in which ambiguity rules and superior firepower does not necessarily guarantee success.
PDF file: http://www.smallwarsjournal.com/documents/cassidy1.pdf