Book Description

A new security concept emerged on the American defense-planning scene several years ago. Asymmetric warfare was worked into the 1997 National Security Strategy. Analysts and major defense documents have since described the more vexing and menacing security challenges as asymmetric. The term is used in connection with threats, strategies, and warfare. Asymmetry typically describes an enemy that thinks or acts differently from America, especially when faced with conventionally superior U.S. forces. Asymmetric threats are most often associated with nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and unfamiliar capabilities such as those displayed in the attacks of September 11, 2001. Such weapons leverage vulnerabilities we either overlook or tolerate. And these asymmetric approaches can generate dramatic outcomes for a weaker power. Yet this concept has lost its usefulness in part because it means different things to different people. Moreover, when joined with warfare or threats, the term asymmetric adds little to the strategic thinking of ages past. Observations that weak and clever enemies can bring a stronger power to its knees by exploiting vulnerabilities or can brazenly challenge muscle-bound modern militaries with a surprise use of frightening weapons or unfamiliar maneuvering simply restate the obvious: strategy matters. So what does the concept of asymmetry add to an understanding of warfare and the threat? Is it a useful defense planning or policy analysis tool in this post-Cold War, post-9/11 world?