Terrorism as Asymmetry

INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM AS ASYMMETRIC WARFARE
"The pirate code is more what'ya call guidelines than actual rules" (Pirates of the Caribbean)

Modern terrorism is a manifestation of asymmetric warfare. In recent years, there has been a transition or evolution in terrorist strategy. While old tactics remain, newer terrorists shun hierarchical command structures in favor of horizontal, leaderless structures or amorphous "freelance" activities. It used to be that most terrorists wanted a lot of people watching, but today, most terrorists seem to want a lot of people dead. Martyrdom is the weapon of choice for asymmetric fighters because it shows the extent to which they are willing to accept casualties. It is a low-tech, low-cost weapon wielded against formidable adversaries with unrivaled might and power. When Osama bin Laden issued his 1998 fatwa calling for Americans to be killed anywhere in the world, he laid the foundation for an asymmetrical international war, which Raymond (2003) defines as "organized violence conducted between political units of vastly unequal military capability, where the weaker side relies on relatively low-tech means to attack a more powerful high-tech opponent."

Basically, asymmetric warfare involves overcoming the superior with the inferior, but as Stepanova (2008) notes, the fighting is not always militarized nor should it always be called "warfare." Other terms exist to describe the nature of demilitarized asymmetry, such as "conflict" or "confrontation." Asymmetric conflict can be said to occur when a weak actor battles a more powerful actor thru unorthodox or unconventional tactics, using different weapons, technologies, and rules of engagement. Conflicts such as this, no matter whether "low" or "high" intensity, have well-described most insurgencies and secessionist movements since 1941 (Black 2000). Asymmetric confrontation can include such things as economic destabilization, cyberterrorism, narcoterrorism, and domestic terrorism (flooding a powerful country with fake currency, computer viruses, harmful drugs, or dangerous ideas). Confrontations such as this can involve "virtual" opposition between ideologies, identities, and intellect. In this sense, it can even be said that "spiritual warfare" or "mental fight" involves the asymmetric confrontations we see today with secular rationality giving way to religious zealotry, inner-worldliness to other-worldliness, and rational thought to imaginary grievances. By using the word "warfare" to describe such things does not mean that a military approach is the only approach possible, but it helps to put the nature of the problem in perspective.

The traditional military approach is taken by Metz & Johnson (2001) who define asymmetry as "acting, organizing, and thinking differently than opponents in order to maximize one's advantages, exploit an opponent's weaknesses, attain the initiative, or gain greater freedom of action." Normally, a regular military force engages in asymmetry unintentionally during the heat of war, but an irregular military force, like terrorism, engages in asymmetry deliberately. Following Metz & Johnson's (2001) conceptualization, terrorism is a low cost but high risk approach since it can generate a backlash against those who use it, and many terrorists engage in psychological (image of fierceness) rather than material asymmetry also because it is low cost but difficult to sustain. Sustaining asymmetry over the long-term requires constant effort and adaptation, hence its most common form is short-term at the operational level. At the strategic level, a distinction can be made between positive and negative asymmetry. Positive asymmetry involves using superior resources, like overwhelming firepower, to gain an advantage. Negative asymmetry is what a weaker opponent, like a terrorist, uses to threaten a stronger opponent's vulnerabilities.

Asymmetry does not mean that some weapons are better or worse than others. This is an important reminder because asymmetry should not be confused with weapons of mass destruction or unconventional warfare of that kind. Instead, what is "unconventional" about asymmetric warfare involves the use of weapons, any weapons, beyond the "conventional" limitations or restrictions (moral, legal) regarding their use. The word "nontraditional" or the phrase "fighting unfair" describe asymmetry well, but the concept of fairness is, of course, subjective and has definitional problems. A far better description would capture the attributes of breathtaking ruthlessness and craftiness. The notion that terrorists use the privileges of liberty to destroy liberty captures the concept well. Then again, the concept of liberty varies, and asymmetry (as difference) is likely the norm in international affairs, given uneven development between nations and peoples. Only in a theoretical sense is there symmetry in the real world. Asymmetry is a fluid concept, used conceptually in many ways. Lambakis et. al. (2002:242) list some common ways the term is used, as follows:

It will be noted with the last two on this list, which might be called "failed positive asymmetry" that it is possible for a major power, like the U.S., to defeat itself. In fact, that is an inherent part of asymmetric warfare when a weaker opponent tries to draw a more powerful yet restrained opponent into a so-called "quagmire" or intractable conflict. Magstadt (2004:160) has a good, description of the factors which constitute a quagmire, as follows:

The United States as a military power is unmatched by any "peer" competitor. It has successfully fought such peers, even those who used asymmetric tactics, since the 1700s, and it has done so while maintaining civil liberties and while fighting countries which did not have to worry about justifying "controversial" tactics to its citizens. However, what the United States is poorly prepared for is asymmetric warfare by "non-peer" competitors. Take Somalia, for instance, where elite U.S. military forces suffered an ignominious defeat by a small enemy who engaged in "barbaric" acts for the benefit of the news media. The attacks of 9/11 also represent asymmetric warfare because the hijacking and crashing of planes into symbolic targets was unimaginable and unthinkable.

It's not hard to do. The will (moral nerve, resolve, popular support, commitment, or whatever you want to call it) of a major power can be easily broken by asymmetric warfare. Major powers, despite their enormous resources, usually have an aversion to casualties, can tolerate only so much damage, are sensitive to public opinion, and are reluctant to commit to any long war. In this sense, the "culture" of a major power represents its greatest vulnerability. A country ruled by the will of its people, as Ignatieff (2004) points out, is vulnerable precisely because the truths it holds to be self-evident are exactly the ones a terrorist hopes to turn against it. Every terrorist hopes their opponent will eventually join them; "if you wish to beat me, you will have to join me" (Ignatieff 2004a). Modern terrorists are now film directors, scoring propaganda triumphs anytime the news media broadcasts another one of their beheading videos, speeches by terrorist leaders, or martyrdom tapes. Nothing is more ready-made for a corporate, information society driven by news ratings. Images (Nacos 1996), spectacles (Giroux 2006), and megaspectacles (Kellner 2005) become weapons of war, and ways to test and shatter will. The terrorist is counting on moral disgust and the sense of futility that follows disgust. Terrorist media campaigns are designed to crack the will to continue to fight.

A clever enemy of a major power will use the latter's self-imposed constraints against them. Not just freedom of speech and freedom of the press, but freedom of religion as well, and of course, any constitutional safeguards protecting the rights of criminal defendants and/or prisoners of war. When captured in the heat of battle, every terrorist wants their day in court, will exhaust every possible appeal, and will play every card they can to "beat the system." They know this prolongs the matter, ties up a wider civilian audience, and counts on a relatively inefficient and sometimes contradictory criminal justice system to perhaps set them free on a technicality. They know lawyers exist which can successfully defend the devil, and even though they don't know all the ins and outs of law, they intuitively know that there is likely to be something justicable in the novel and surprising way their asymmetric threat played out. Creating uncertainty in the legal system is part of a terrorist's objectives. It creates dissension within the ranks and is almost as powerful a tool as getting a major power's allies to withdraw support, a "stalling" or delaying tactic typically engaged in by terrorists. Without popular support, every terrorist knows that political will cannot sustain.

Strong powers can engage in asymmetric warfare, too, although American forces only have experience with wars of attrition (like Vietnam) and Fabian tactics (like those used by George Washington during the Revolutionary War). An attrition strategy involves wearing down the enemy until they lose their will to fight. A Fabian strategy involves harassing an enemy to cause attrition and loss of morale. Fabian tactics avoid direct engagements, relying instead upon chance encounters and skirmishes. Fabian strategy is a policy of continual retreat that is often combined with scorched earth tactics. In modern parlance, it is known as a "drain the swamp" strategy, where a major power intervenes in the internal affairs of a place breeding terrorism, and in rather muscular fashion, sorts out the friendlies from the non-friendlies, destroying anything and everything that could ever be used by terrorists or their sympathizers. Obviously, this is not a just war strategy in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and it also runs contrary to modern OPLAW or nation-rebuilding responsibilities under international law. A related strategy is assassination (of terrorist leaders), but the efficacy of that is not so much questionable on moral grounds but for the practical reasons that it usually results in rampaging, out-of-control followers, brings to power more militant, replacement leaders, and encourages the counter-assassination of our own leaders.

It is the consensus of most experts that attrition warfare should be avoided, at least in favor of small wars where expeditionary force is joined by diplomatic effort (Boot 2003). The hard truth is that any war against terrorism is going to need successes, and lots of them. Success, even the perception of success, will overcome decline in popular support. Yet, it is important to note that major powers and terrorists define success differently. A major power usually defines success in terms of surrender, while a terrorist usually defines success as resistance. While the idea of terrorist surrender sounds idealistic, theoretically, attrition would likely destroy terrorism once and for all by tackling it head-on. Attrition warfare is usually defined as the direct clash of forces, without finesse, lasting until the superior force, by weight of its mighty resources, overwhelms the inferior force. It is an "overwhelming firepower" strategy advocated by the theories of Clausewitz. In modern parlance, it is known as "shock and awe" and involves spectacular displays of power (Ullman & Wade 1996). It tries to avoid civilian casualties through surgical precision strikes, although too much precision defeats the purpose, and what is called "blitzkrieg" is more surgical and tightly focused. Shock and awe is rapid like a blitzkrieg, but it is designed to send a society-wide message of incomprehensible destruction wielded by the hands of an invincible power. It is supposed to make an enemy feel impotent and demoralized, especially when combined with a propaganda or disinformation campaign. Where it fails is with an irrational, suicidal enemy who wants to fight to the death, but then, attrition warfare welcomes that too. Martyrdom is not continuously contagious and only delays the inevitable since it is possible to kill enough martyrs to ultimately have a deterrent effect. Killing would-be martyrs is a dangerous game, however.

Consider the madman case of North Korea which knows it can never withstand the onslaught of a full-scale attack by the world's remaining superpower. Such a nation might calculate that it must risk everything, including its own destruction, because it has nothing left to lose. Under such circumstances, the asymmetric relationship involves gambling with self-destruction, and it is proper, as Arreguin-Toft (2001) points out, to focus on the relationship of the strategy, not the power of the actors, their technology, or whatever outside support they are receiving. After all de-escalation efforts have failed, what you have left is the only proper way to counter a lose-it-all gamble, which is what martyrdom's strategy is, and that is to counteroffer a vision of what hell looks like with the antagonists in it. This might be possible to accomplish via propaganda, but a get-tough example or two will probably be needed.

It is brutally clear that a wide spectrum of asymmetric "threats" exist, with the word threat understood here in the sense that Cordesman (2001) uses it to describe everything from overt attacks by long-range missiles to deranged acts of madness by some psychologically disturbed individual. In terms of forecasting the future, it can be said that the lethality of terrorist incidents is likely to increase as terrorist groups in today's world set new standards for barbarism. Nobody knows exactly how asymmetric threats will evolve in the future, but it is likely that weapons of mass destruction will be involved, as technology becomes cheaper and espionage becomes better. Industrial espionage is always a threat, especially to a country that is the world's leader in research and development, but so is good, old-fashioned espionage. For example, Cordesman (2001) says that a significant number of Iranian students attending U.S. universities are hardcore members of Anjoman Islamie, a fanatical, anti-American, pro-Iranian, student organization which the Iranian government relies upon for low-level intelligence and technical expertise. There are good reasons why some terrorist operations are closely tied to schools, colleges, and universities -- they are safe environments relatively free from penalty and prosecution. Libertarians, at least, argue that colleges and universities ought to be places of extreme dissent. However, an alternative view might hold that colleges and universities ought to be honored places where only the "study" of ideology occurs, and where there is no place for radical pedagogy. Nonetheless, colleges and universities represent the most open of all institutions in an open society. They appeal to terrorists seeking asymmetric advantage in the same way an open border does.

Cyberspace is another medium for terrorist advantage. Beyond having open borders, the Internet represents an area of the commons where freedom of access to information is cherished but not safeguarded. Terrorists use the Internet for a number of purposes: intelligence gathering, communication, recruitment, and propaganda. Terrorists would never unleash viruses, worms, or distributed denial of service attacks because they have a vested interest in seeing that the Internet remains functional. Yet, whenever so inclined, terrorists, especially heavily-funded narcoterrorists or organized criminals could probably take down the Internet tomorrow. It's hard for cybersecurity to stay one step ahead of the hackers, and EMP (Electromagnetic pulse) weapons are easily created and deployed. Information warfare is the more likely scenario, though, as the Western nations are continually learning from sophisticated intrusions emanating from within China.

Intelligence failure is another part of asymmetric warfare, and indeed, an expected part. It is exactly the terrorist intention to thwart confidence in intelligence-led counterterrorism, to stymie the ability to predict when the "different" or "unknown" is about to happen. There are many ways to commit intelligence failure, but bureaucratic ineptitude at not being able to connect the dots is probably the worst way. Mirror-imaging is also a problem because asymmetric threats are novel and imaginative. They defeat the strategic imagination as well as imaginative threat assessment. Another problem is when intelligence is subordinated to policy, or what is more typically referred to as pressure for consensus. When terrorists catch a major power's intelligence services off guard, this is more than a trophy for them. It makes that whole nation look stupid, dumb, foolish, incompetent, and cowardly.

Another, not unimportant, part of asymmetric warfare is that it spreads or spills over (the spillover effect). By this is meant that, today, the terrorists are coming after America, but tomorrow, it can easily be another nation next. In fact, it could be argued, as Crenshaw (2003) does, that the primary reason America is the popular target today is because as an open society, America is a "soft" target and the radical frustration generated within the Middle East was unable to be played out in the relatively totalitarian societies there. In other words, the Palestinian conflict got spilled over. It may or may not be the case that another nation gets targeted because they are allies with America; it may be the case that some poor, innocent nation gets targeted simply because they're innocent.

The character of asymmetric warfare has changed since international terrorists have gotten involved with it. In the past, it was always possible to ascertain the motivations, or the why, behind the irregular act. Connecting personalities to targets was a relatively easy analytical task. Today, the how is far more important, as motivations and mindsets increasingly exceed the capacity of rational understanding, at least from a Western point of view. Some modern adversaries may be undeterrable. To make matters worse, modern terrorists have a wide range of asymmetric options and capabilities. They can target symbolic icons, critical infrastructure, environmental heath, political leaders, intelligence services, and cherished or honored institutions. They can also kill a lot of innocent civilians for no reason at all, just because they happen to be in a vulnerable place at the wrong time (the Achilles heel problem). Potential victims of asymmetric warfare need to learn how to protect themselves, and this begins by thinking in unconventional ways, like the terrorists do.

Traditionally, terrorists have had a limited repertoire, involving the common tactics of bombing, assassination, armed assault, kidnapping, hijacking, and embassy seizure. How nice it would be if we could just redefine terrorism out of existence and call it bombing again. Unfortunately, innovation in tactics is a characteristic of asymmetric warfare, and modern terrorists innovate more than imitate. As Jenkins (2003) points out, their ability to switch tactics and shift their sights on alternative targets are key reasons why terrorism is so hard to defend against. The situation is asymmetrical, says Jenkins (2003), because unlike regular soldiers, terrorists do not have to attack at a certain time and place. Governments, however, because they prefer not to become garrison states, cannot protect everything, everywhere, all the time. This asymmetry means an inequality of effort exists between attackers and defenders. Even a small number of terrorist attackers would need a large number of government defenders. Terrorism becomes a cheap way to fight and a costly threat to defend against. Terrorism, in short, evolves into a variety of "nasty tactics."

Terrorism also embeds itself into a variety of forms, some types of it being like war, and other types of it being less noble and more like crime. Still other types of it may appear as mental illness or disease. As terrorism transmutes and transforms, it may become unrecognizable as terrorism. It may turn into organized transnational crime or it may turn into protest and dissent or any number of other social problems that open societies concede or come to tolerate. This creates a situation where the next generation of terrorists have to be even more innovative than the last generation because the old generation will be seen as having been co-opted. The danger of asymmetric warfare is that a line has been crossed, a genie has been let out of the bottle, and it's far too hard to go back to the old way of doing things again.

No one has yet come up with a successful way to defend against asymmetric warfare. There is no shortage of ideas, nonetheless. Let's take a look at two approaches, the first using common sense and the second following a more academic perspective. First, Major Mike (2005) says there are four factors that might defeat asymmetric tactics: adaptability, flexibility, tenacity, and will. These factors require a great deal of time to take effect. Eventually, much of a nation's resources and population capacities must be brought to bear over the long run in order to wear down terrorist opponents so that they run out of maneuver room. Adaptability means taking the offense. One will perpetually lose in a "hunker down" posture which continually takes the defense. Flexibility means nimbleness, such as letting unit commanders make more operational decisions. Tenacity means being tough mentally so that troop morale and ferocity remain intact. Will means self-righteousness. It is important to be convinced that the fight for peace and freedom is righteously occurring. Hammes (2004), in a way, supports these long-term ideas which might be called the "Darwinian" perspective since the winner is whomever outlasts the evolutionary struggle.

A more academic approach can be found in Gurr (2003) who points out there are three ways to defeat terrorism: backlash, reform, and deterrence. Backlash entails acts of disruption or violence which have the opposite effect of what the terrorists intended. It usually results in the withdrawal of group support for terrorism. Backlash makes it difficult for the terrorists to attract new recruits, get material resources, find sympathizers, or to avoid informants. Overly dramatic acts of violence against totally innocent victims are likely to produce backlash, if that line hasn't been crossed and the terrorism is still functioning. If so, the only option is to wait until public sentiment swings. Reform entails a policy of concession to at least some of the grievances that terrorists have. Reform often involves making use of "ex-terrorists" who have voluntarily exited. The reasoning here is that once it becomes evident a dominant power is willing to accommodate some demands, terrorism becomes a less attractive strategy. It is also just as possible that terrorism would be encouraged, especially among the more intellectual in the bunch. Deterrence entails killing and imprisoning terrorists, or at least enough to put the rest in their place. The problem here is that deterrence is extremely difficult to measure and to implement.

Clearly, terrorism as asymmetric warfare presents numerous challenges, and smart minds are needed to help figure out solutions to those challenges. One final, and hopeful, point is that terrorism may NOT be all that asymmetric. In many ways, terrorists are not smart enough for it, and many terrorist groups are still more imitative than innovative. This means that their patterns and trends should be easily analyzable using standard intelligence-led cycles. Yet, with the new face of terrorism, not only will changes be needed in the way intelligence analysis is done, but asymmetry prompts changes in the ways society needs to get things done. As an example of the former, let's look at a new model of counterterrorism going around intelligence community circles since 2006. It's called the "Ziggurat of Zealotry" and can be briefly explained as below:

Can there be a "just" asymmetric war? Or, is such fighting so complex, so inherently unfair, that the matter calls for something like a new set of Geneva Conventions? These questions cannot be answered because there are too many conflicting theories about the forms of war (gang war, range war, class war, resource war, civil war, limited war, small war, guerrilla war, total war, fourth generation war, network-centric war). Just as it is unlikely the world would come together for agreement on a new set of Geneva Conventions, it is unlikely that any acceptable theory of war would tolerate a clash of civilizations thesis like that proposed by the likes of Huntington (1996), Barber (1996), Friedman (2000), Fukuyama (1992), and Zakaria (2003). Like it or not, terrorism plays by its own rules, and in this sense, the world is captive to the ethics of terrorists. The question then becomes: Do they have any ethics?

Let's examine jihadist ethics for a moment. Islam prohibits all kinds of warfare except in the form of jihad, and martyrdom in the name of jihad is the only sure-fire, foolproof way of getting into Paradise for a Muslim believer. Khadduri (1984) provides a neat little description of the Islamic approach as follows:

Islamic Conceptions of Just (Jihad) and Unjust War

1. Just wars are wars in the defense of cities against foreign attacks
2. Just wars assert valid claims against a foreign people who fail to honor a city's (or community of believers) rights
3. Just wars are against foreign people who refuse to accept a public order considered to be the best and most suitable for them
4. Just wars are against a foreign people whose place in the world is considered to be that of servitude as the best and most suitable for them

1. Unjust wars are motivated by the Ruler's personal advantage such as lust for power, honor, or glory
2. Unjust wars are wars of conquest waged by the Ruler for the subordination of peoples other than the people of the city (or community) over which he presides
3. Unjust wars seek retribution, the object of which can be achieved by means other than force
4. Unjust wars lead to the killing of innocent men for no reason other than the Ruler's propensity or pleasure for killing

No belief system is without its ethics, and it appears from the above that even jihadism has its ethics. Revolutionary terrorists back in the 1970s would often issue warnings or pronouncements ahead of time, and jihadists also seem to go to the trouble of obtaining fatwas and/or issuing warnings. A strong sense of proportionality also runs thru Islamic ethics. Proportionality is a part of Western ethics, as can be seen from the following set of Western principles on just war:

Jus ad bellum Restraints (resort, justifiability)

Jus in bello Restraints (scale, permissibility)

1. Last resort -- war must not be entered into with undue haste or unseemly enthusiasm, but only after all other means of resolution have been tried
2. Legitimate authority -- the decision to go to war cannot be made by disgruntled individuals or self-appointed groups; it must come from a duly constituted authority
3. Just cause -- war is unacceptable if motivated by aggression or revenge; it must be consistent with the principles of self-defense, charity, or the defense of others
4. Chance of success -- only when there is a reasonable chance of an acceptable outcome is war justifiable; futile fighting cannot be justified
5. Goal of peace -- it must be possible, looking ahead, to envision a peace that is preferable to the situation that would prevail if the war was not fought
6. Peaceful intention -- the motives for war are important for various reasons according to Aquinas and Augustine, and to Grotius, presumably to avoid the pathologies of war and the problem of simultaneous justice (both sides being equally right)
7. Formal declaration -- a statement of charges should be made, presumably to assure full accountability

1. Proportionality -- the same as conditions 3-5 of the jus ad bellum restraints as a cost-benefit principle sometimes phrased as the principle of proportionate response as action limited to what is reasonably necessary to accomplish lawful objectives, but not exactly equally symmetrical, but approximate
2. Double effect -- a specific application of the proportionality principle which says that the "good" effects of war (bringing it to an end) must be maximized, and the "bad" effects of war (like collateral damage) must be minimized
3. Discrimination -- synonymous with "noncombatant immunity" which states that civilians must not be directly or intentionally targeted, although it is condoned that some "indirect" targeting will be inadvertent or for strategic purposes like destroying manufacturing capability or defeating the other side's morale; sometimes called the principle of "military proportionality" when under dire circumstances, civilians are killed and the principle of double effect is violated or overridden
4. Treatment of prisoners -- there should be some restraint in dealing with prisoners, and for Grotius, only those guilty of grave or serious offenses in the line of duty ought to be punished

Clearly, more laws of war are violated by terrorists than those obeyed. If one was being charitable, one could say that, with the possible addition of proportionality, there is more agreement on the Jus ad bellum side than the Jus in bello side. However, terrorists kill innocent civilians without remorse, and no stretching of the proportionality principle or a "necessity defense" are going to provide cover for this. What asymmetric warriors do stretch out is the world finally coming to complete agreement on the customary law and the concept of jus cogens in international law.

INTERNET RESOURCES
Air War College List of Resources for Asymmetric Warfare
Asymmetry and U.S. Military Strategy (pdf)
Asymmetric Warfare and the Evolution/Devolution of Terrorism
Lecture on Laws of War and Just War
Major Mike (2005) Blog on Winning Asymmetric War
Military Response to 4thGen Warfare in Afghanistan
Preparing for Asymmetry as Seen Through Joint Vision 2020 (pdf)
RMA Debate Page of Asymmetric Warfare Resources
Rough Draft of Cordesman's Book on Terror Threats (pdf)
White House National Security Homepage
Wikipedia Entry for Asymmetric Warfare
Wikipedia Entry for Attrition Warfare
Wikipedia Entry for Fabian Strategy
Wikipedia Entry for Shock and Awe

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Last updated: July 31, 2008
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