Thesis
The American Revolution, Algerian, Irish and Peruvian Terror Wars, Vietnam and Afghanistan are perfect examples of how great powers, like the United States, France, and Britain can be defeated by weaker adversaries who employ irregular warfare. It is not the irregular warfare that defeats powers that are greater in number, skills and resources; it is how the great powers prepare and respond to such tactics. Nor does the weaker adversaries use of irregular warfare solely responsible for its success; great powers lose to weaker adversaries by first, not understanding the nature of the war; secondly, becoming a cooperative adversary; and lastly, their inability to reassess and adapt to the war.
Irregular Warfare Defined
The Army Field Manual (FM) 3-0, Operations, defines Irregular Warfare as "a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over a population. Furthermore, IW consist of various methods such as terrorism, guerilla warfare, and insurgencies. While IW is inherently used by non-state actors, state actors have also employed such methods.
Point #1: Misunderstanding the Nature of the War-“Know your Enemy”
Often those who employ irregular warfare, based on the cases studied, are non-state actors or non-conventional forces. When great powers face any belligerent or better yet, when war is on the horizon, military and political leaders must perform an assessment of themselves as well as the other belligerent. The assessment is the most important task, as it will drive both belligerents to determine their strategy in obtaining their political objectives. Moreover, for great powers this task determines what elements of national power, diplomatic, informational, and military or eco...
... middle of paper ...
...itary in nature, states have made the grave mistake of responding in the same manner as the weaker adversary. Of course it is hard to fathom that after 9/11 President Bush would have sent a delegation to GCC to discuss how to address Al-Qaeda and Usama Bin- Laden diplomatically.
Moreover, great powers institutionally do not learn the lesson of failure very well. The AMREV should had been a lesson learned for the British and France. However, during the Algerian and Irish terror wars they forgot how powerful independence and all it entails can maintain the energy of a weaker adversary to defeat a great power. The AMREV offers a lesson learned to the US during Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan; it is not the size or the capabilities of your military but to effectively addressing the grievances of people can defeat a weaker adversary who employs irregular warfare.
Insurgency is defined as a rebellion against an indigenous government or a foreign occupier. In an asymmetric war there are two sides a strong and a weak side which have two strategies each. The French, who were the “stronger” side used “direct attack” which aimed at destroying the weak actor’s (Algeria) armed forces and thereby their capacity to offer violent resistance. During the seco...
The world’s history is majorly shaped by mega wars that happen both inside and outside the boundaries of individual nations. Almost every sovereign state in the world had to forcefully liberate itself from its colonizers and oppressors mainly through warfare. For instance, America had to fight a long and exhausting revolutionary war against the British before it could attain its independence in 1783, likewise is the fate of many other nations. It is important to understand the two distinct types of wars that exist and their implications. Guerrilla warfare and the conventional military warfare are two types of war that are very different in their execution and military approach. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the similarities and differences existing between the American war in Vietnam and the American Revolution (Vetter, 1997).
Thinking historically while conducting counterinsurgency in the 21st century poses questions regarding how to develop political and strategic plans. This bibliographic essay will examine the political and military aspect of fighting counterinsurgent warfare by 20th century theorists Galula’s, “Counterinsurgency Warfare Theory and Practice” and Trinquier’s, “Counterinsurgency Warfare Theory and Practice”. Strategy in fighting guerilla wars will be discussed by comparing conflicts in battles and ideologies from the past to current day. Moreover, ways to avoid the one size fits all war mentality when combating modern day insurgents will be recommended.
Tzu, Mo. Against Offensive Warfare. Ed. Michael Austin. Reading the World: Ideas that Matter. 2nd ed. New York: Norton, 2010. 254-255. Print.
There is a general discord among stakeholders on the definition of irregular warfare and where the term and concept fits within the joint and the individual services’ doctrine. The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review report uses the term “irregular” only once in its one hundred and five pages and only in terms of a focus on building the joint force’s capability and capacity to deal with irregular warfare while maintaining a clear conventional and nuclear global superiority. Currently, the definition is ambiguous and results in conflict or duplication of efforts across Department of Defense stakeholders. For the purposes of this paper, the stakeholders discussed are the Army and the Marine Corps. Stakeholders must reach a consensus and clearly define irregular warfare in order to establish comprehensive irregular war policy and strategy.
This allowed the conflicts to transition to phase two, guerrilla warfare, and armed struggle. In guerrilla warfare, attacks are carefully planned for heightened effect, but usually not for military purposes.
War is a universal phenomenon, it is a violent tool people use to accomplish their interests. It is not autonomous, rather policy always determines its character. Normally it starts when diplomacy fails to reach a peaceful end. War is not an end rather than a mean to reach the end, however, it does not end, and it only rests in preparation for better conditions. It is a simple and dynamic act with difficult and unstable factors which make it unpredictable and complex. It is a resistant environment where the simplest act is difficult to perform. In this paper, I will argue why war is a universal phenomenon and what are the implications of my argument to strategists.
The first concept is Clausewitz’s Trinity of War which is comprised of “…three categories of forces: irrational forces…; non-rational forces…; and reason or rational calculation…” [Bassford, pg 205]. The irrational forces are hostility and violence that originate mainly with the people and are the impetus of a political solution that may result in war. The non-rational forces refer to chance and probability which are primarily...
War is the means to many ends. The ends of ruthless dictators, of land disputes, and lives – each play its part in the reasoning for war. War is controllable. It can be avoided; however, once it begins, the bat...
Vego defines the center of gravity as the “source of massed strength—physical or moral—or a source of leverage whose serious degradation, dislocation, neutralization, or destruction would have the most decisive impact on the enemy’s or one’s own ability to accomplish a given military objective.” (Vego, 2007). On the strategic level, a nation’s strength arises from its political, military, economic, and informational power. Nations use these powers against opponents to achieve political goals. Successful campaigns leverage a nation’s strengths against enemy’s weaknesses.
“A prince, therefore, must not…take anything as his profession but war…” these are the words of Nicollo Machiavelli and which he exclaims very clearly in his philosophies, that a good ruler must be great at the art war to succeed. One of the ways M shows his outlook on war, is by explaining how important it is to bear arms at all times and to never be without a weapon, for weapons are the tools of war and if used correctly and intelligently you will prevail over all during times of war. Secondly, M explains that a necessary induced order, unity, and fealty to the leader of a nation by projected and incited fear of that leader or leadership is the only way a leader can be looked can be respected by his own military. Moreover, with the respect of that military, a leader must have a good knowing of his home terrain in order to plan both offensive and defensive actions, and also to know history of great past leaders bouts with other countries, for this knowledge gai...
By definition, a successful military invasion gives the occupier superiority on the ground and in the air, in the ability to use physical force and violence. Despite that, when a military invader loses control of what the people read and believe, of when and if they work, of how they spend their money — when the occupiers are constantly on the defensive, as they try to maintain their position — their ability to command events is detached from their ability to use violence.
Current military leadership should comprehend the nature of war in which they are engaged within a given political frame in order to develop plans that are coherent with the desired political end state. According to Clausewitz, war is an act of politics that forces an enemy to comply with certain conditions or to destroy him through the use of violence. A nation determines its vital interests, which drives national strategy to obtain or protect those interests. A country achieves those goals though the execution of one of the four elements of power, which are diplomatic, informational, military and economical means. The use of military force...
In modern military theory, the highest level is the strategic level, in which activities at the strategic level focus directly on policy objectives, both during peace and warfare. In the study of modern military strategy, there is a distinction between military strategy and national strategy, in which the former is the use of military objective to secure political objectives and the latter coordinates and concentrates all the elements of national...
All living things need the resources provided by our natural world to live, leading to them adapting to specific environments. Animals in particular are mobile creatures that move from place to place searching for the best environments for their survival. The most intelligent creatures in our animal world are human beings and like other animals, they moved from place to place while organized into races in search of the elusive desirable environments. However, there is always the likelihood of finding fellow humanity already thriving in that environment. This resulted to conflict as competition for the inadequate resources arose. Consequently, human beings formed nations, allegiance to the national system meant loyalty to the governance, and regions and they formed military groups to defend their resources. However, the military warfare has changed with international understanding, though the idea still rests heavily on fight for resources. Further, international politics illustrates the causes and effects of modern military war have changed due to chan...