Asymmetric warfare

Successful terrorist organizations use asymmetric warfare to achieve their goals, and the only way for conventional armies to defeat terrorist organizations is through the use of asymmetric warfare. Asymmetric warfare is not just finding unconventional methods to wage war, but a…

This PhD thesis examines the status of ‘expert knowledge’ in the history of U.S. asymmetric, or ‘counterinsurgency’ (COIN), warfare during the last century. The historical rise of expert influence has so far been neglected in the study of wars within the field of International R…

This dissertation presents the U.S. Army Asymmetric Warfare Group (AWG) as an example of that service implementing successful change in wartime. It argues that creating the AWG required senior leaders to adopt a vision differing from the Army’s self-conceptualization, change bur…

Whenever military operations are non-linear, dispersed, and decentralized, swarming can be an effective tactic. Today insurgents are employing swarming as a form of asymmetric warfare against superior conventional armies from the mountains of Afghanistan to the cities of Iraq. I…

As the War in Iraq continues to rage, many in the White House, State Department, Department of Defense and outside government are left to wonder if it was possible to foresee the difficulty the United States is currently having with Sunni nationalists and Islamic extremists. Rec…