The one fundamental thing we didn't account for is the willingness of a massive industrialized nation in the modern age to burn off young men like cordwood by the hundreds of thousands to achieve their war aims. Just about every last bit of military thought in the past 70 years needs to be thrown out and rewritten with that in mind, as it invalidates everything we hold as common sense and viable strategy.
Successfully waging an asymmetric war relies on the assumption that in a conflict of choice, the agressor can be inflicted enough pain to quit. The Soviet failures in Afghanistan, and the Americans in Vietnam, convinced the world of this fact. But that breaks down entirely when your agressor treats their own people as cattle for the slaughter, and has the viable means to maintain power regardless. We are entering a dark new age where the answer to "what would WWI look like with modern technology" is now being answered.
(2001), actually: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38758187
Curious how this strategy updates now that drones make war even more asymmetric. A drone worth $100 can destroy a tank worth $1 million or a helicopter worth $10 millions. It's theorized that a drone swarm can sink an aircraft carrier group, which costs billions of dollars.
New technology used for war such as lasers or AI will only make war even more asymmetric.
So essentially, big-countries can't attack other big-countries because of nukes and MAD (mutually-assured-destruction). Big-countries can't attack small-countries because of asymmetric war. Small-countries can't attack big-countries for obvious reasons. So, the only war left is small-countries vs small-countries.
interesting that this was written in summer-2001, a bit before 9/11, which inspired one of the biggest asymmetric conflicts by the US. the power ratio was extremely skewed in US's favor, and yet resulted in a "forever war".
i'm curious how the author felt knowing that his paper would be so relevant only a few months after publication.
It doesn't seem particularly relevant to modern conflicts where both sides resort to both direct and indirect strategies simultaneously as soon as they are available.
One side fights to survive, the other to make a few billionaires a little richer. Their motivations are not the same.
Needs a (2021) tag.
..."The development and deployment of armed forces specifically equipped and trained for COIN operations."
Right now, the US has too much of that. Wars against peer or near-peer enemies need less counter-insurgency operations and more heavy equipment.
The US has become used to operating in environments where air superiority was total, and secure base camps were possible. That's over.
The US Army takes this seriously. Read Parameters, the War College journal, which has many articles on this subject. Here are two.[1][2] It's a major argument within the US military.
There are some serious mismatches in preparation. The USMC has a great concept of a MAGTF - a Marine Air Ground Task Force, usually carried in an amphibious assault ship. This is great for COIN - the ship can go somewhere in a hurry, park offshore, and send out landing craft and air support, while acting as a mobile base. This works great against an enemy with nothing capable of attacking such a ship. Less well against an enemy with truck-mounted anti-ship missiles.
The Army has too many vehicles intended to resist improvised explosive devices, and not enough heavy artillery and tanks. The Army is also used to being able to set up rear area bases in the open, and fortified fire bases in hostile territory. Those now look like soft targets.
The USAF is used to being able to fly cargo planes such as C-130s into combat zones. This now looks suicidal where everybody has anti-aircraft missiles. Today, if it flies over a combat zone, it had better be able to dodge, jam, and fight. Or be expendable, like a drone.
One of the lessons of the Ukraine war for the Navy is that you can't bring naval vessels near a hostile shore any more. Not since the Moskva.
[1] https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol46/iss4/3/
[2] https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol47/iss1/13/