Posted by zeugma on June 12, 2006, at 18:50:50
The notion of 'asymmetrical warfare,' popular in Pentagon circles (apologies for the oxymoron) as an explanation for failures in Vietnam and Iraq to wipe out insurgents that are on paper grossly inferior to U.S. troops, has always struck me as a poor one. Isn't war meant to be 'asymmetrical'? (Perfectly symmetrical warfare- perhaps WWI trench stalemates that wiped out a generation of the best of Europe, and led directly to such 'asymmetrical' innovations as the German blitzkrieg and the American A-bomb? In any case I feel military minds explain their failures of creativity by appealing to 'asymmetry.' Or perhaps, they are engaged in warfare-as in Vietnam- for a set of reasons, none good enough for the American public to accept 'asymmetrical' innovations such as the nuclear bombing of Cambodia, which in 1969 President Nixon briefly contemplated, recently declassified papers show. So we got a 'symmetrical' war, in other words stalemate- Saigon would never have fallen if the U.S. had been willing to prop it up forever. Of course the political conditions at the time were not right for such resolve.)
It is interesting to see the latest application of 'asymmetry' by a military professional. The camp commander of Guantanomo bay, Rear Adm. Harry Harris, is on record as saying, of three detainees' recent suicides there:
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"I believe this was not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetric warfare against us," Harris said.>>
Is an American commander not safe, not even in the super-secret precincts of Gunatanomo (not even the Red Cross are allowed there, we know what inflammatory and indeed 'asymmetrical' types Red Cross people can be, they are asymmetrical to the core, they even bend their shape to the Red Crescent in Muslim lands)from such acts of asymmetry?
The U.S. Naval Academy ought to start teaching Riemannian geometry in addition to the usual tactics. It is clear that in the face of so much asymmetry, non-Euclidean geometries are the only recourse. Or, perhaps we had better have wars in which the U.S. public is more well disposed to our own asymmetrical innovations. Necessary wars, not wars of choice.
-z
poster:zeugma
thread:656104
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20060610/msgs/656104.html