Two political scientists recently examined 250 asymmetrical conflicts, starting with the Peninsular War.
Although great powers are vastly more powerful today than in the 19th century, the analysis showed they have become far less likely to win asymmetrical wars. More surprising, the analysis showed that the odds of a powerful nation winning an asymmetrical war decrease as that nation becomes more powerful.The analysis by Jason Lyall at Princeton University and Lt. Col. Isaiah Wilson III at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point shows that the likelihood of a great power winning an asymmetrical war went from 85 percent during 1800-1850 to 21 percent during 1950-2003.
The same trend was evident when the researchers studied only asymmetrical conflicts involving the United States. The more industrialized a powerful country becomes, the more its military becomes technologically powerful, the less effective it seems to be in an asymmetrical war.
Essentially, what Lyall and Wilson are saying is that if you want to catch a mouse, you need a cat. If you hire a lion to do the job because it is bigger and stronger, the very strength and size of the lion can get in the way of getting the job done.
"A lion is built for different prey," Lyall said. "A lion is built to take down an antelope, and a cat is designed to take down a mouse. Now [in Iraq] we are a lion trying to take down a mouse.
We were lucky enough to have Colonel Wilson visit the Department of War Studies at King's College London last week to make his case, and am impressive case it was. Wilson cuts an impressive figure intellectually--and tellingly he more than held his own in the debate which followed in the pub afterward (the true test of a scholar, IMHO). I suspect and hope that we will hear very much more from him. Have a look at his website Think Beyond War which I recommend highly.
I very much buy his argument so far as I have seen it thus far. And I'd like to see more. What's the future for the 'lion'? Is it all mouse-catching from here on? If so the lion better give birth to some kittens asap. How to make that happen is something that interests me greatly.
Update: Reading it over that last sentence seems an invitation to a bunch of bad jokes. Fire away in comments.
3 comments:
Um, yes, but a lot changed between the Peninsular War and Iraq, for example CNN. How well would Wellington have done with the BBC looking over his shoulder?
The interesting war of course is Afghanistan, given that the Russians were presumably less worried about unfriendly television coverage. But one war doesn't make a trend. The USSR was broke, which likely had more to do with its lack of success than any emerging rule about proportionality of forces.
It reminds me of what we discussed some time ago (last term? last year?) when the analogy was "if you own a sledgehammer then all problems begin to look like nails".
I think the Peninsular War is a bit of a dead end as a case study, for a variety of reasons, of which the lack of BBC journos poking about is among the least.
Not sure that necessarily invalidates the rest of it.
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