While researching a future post, I came across this utterly fascinating and eerily prescient report from July 1998 and published by the Army War College entitled “CHALLENGING THE UNITED STATES SYMMETRICALLY AND SYMMETRICALLY: CAN AMERICA BE DEFEATED?” The whole thing is worth a read and for those studying counterinsurgency and many of the names are a who’s who of modern warfare writers. Some extracts from General Charles Dunlap Jr’s piece titled “PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS: ASYMMETRICAL WARFARE AND THE WESTERN MINDSET” General Dunlap’s lately been making comments about airpower that I don’t totally agree with but I give him a great deal of credit for this article and these short extracts:
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In fact, an over-emphasis on technology can cause the West to overlook the any low-tech ways in which adversaries might asymmetrically respond to gadgetry-obsessed and gadgetry-vulnerable Western opponents. What is so remarkable about this is that so few seem to remember the lessons of relatively recent history.
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Future adversaries may wage asymmetrical warfare by combining available low- tech equipment with a culturally-oriented strategy.
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Surface ships may face an even more insidious threat: an enemy could use a civilian airliner covertly loaded with explosives to launch an attack on a high-value target such as an aircraft carrier. The plane might be flown by a suicide pilot (or automatically guided) and carry a hostage or even volunteer group of civilian passengers.
And this gem from LtCol USAF(ret) and current Ohio State history Professor John Guilmartin (one of the reasons I found this was looking for information on him) His piece “TECHNOLOGY AND ASYMMETRICSIN MODERN WARFARE”
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In this context, pedestrian technologies and insights can be critical. Some years ago an American military pundit, probably an infantryman I would love to take credit, but I can’t, came up with an astonishingly effective law for predicting the location of our next major military commitment. I’ve been applying it for decades and it works beautifully. Closely examine our military footgear, then identify the country and climate for which it is least well suited, and that’s where we’re headed. We deployed to Vietnam with leather combat boots beautifully suited to Western Europe; we deployed to the Persian Gulf with jungle boots tailored for the jungles of Southeast Asia.
If that's the case we are headed for the Arctic! I will be lightly posting for a couple of days as I've got a PME test to attend to but will have a zinger in a couple of days, to my deployed friends and all those in Harms Way from all the colaition countries, stay safe and best of luck with the mission