Source: French to English Tester Published on: 2026-04-21
Source: The Conversation – France in French (3)– By Barthélémy Courmont, Director of the Master’s in History — International Relations, Catholic Institute of Lille (ICL)
This article, which is the continuation of an initial reflection recently published and entitled“Asymmetric war”: a recent term for a millennia-old phenomenon, presents the two main opposing views on the concept of “asymmetric warfare.” One sees it as an effort by the weaker party to equal the stronger; the other, as an attempt to weaken it. A debate that, in any case, requires rethinking warfare.
As soon as asymmetric warfare no longer boils down to the mere fact that the balance of power between two belligerents is unbalanced, but involves circumvention strategies, it establishes itself as aconceptemployed by general staffs, by governments, and by observers. But not everyone defines this concept in the same way, far from it. Washington’s setbacks in the Middle East since the end of February remind us of this. Two radically different major definitions have in fact become established in the debate.
Both start from the premise that asymmetric warfare is a strategy from the weak to the strong. The first, however, tends to consider that it represents an attempt by the weak to increase its level of nuisance to match that of the strong. The second, for its part, believes that one should speak of asymmetric warfare when the weak seeks to widen the gap that separates it from the strong in order to gain an advantage. The interest of these two approaches is that they draw almost opposite conclusions from their perception of a conflict opposing the strong and the weak.
Two distinct approaches
In strategic circles in the United States, asymmetry is generally considered an effort by the weak to increase their disruptive capacity at lower cost, to the point of positioning themselves as the equal of the powerful. Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the hands of weak states, or possibly non-state armed groups, are thus perceived as an asymmetric component of the arsenal available to these states, since they allow them to reach a level of threat they could not achieve by relying solely on conventional means.
This approach to asymmetric warfare, described in numerous works that take us back to the famousRogue statesand to“The Axis of Evil”designated by Washington at the beginning of the 2000s, developed alongside concerns about the risks related to the proliferation of WMDs and applies perfectly to states like North Korea, which have very limited resources but seek, by acquiring nuclear capabilities, to increase their power level disproportionately. In the case of non-state actors, the scenario of terrorism involving WMDs is most often mentioned to illustrate this risk. In this case, asymmetric warfare would be expressed by an effort by the weaker party to bring itself up to the level of the stronger and to balance upward the capabilities it possesses.
Opposite to this reflection is the idea that theasymmetry, in whatever form it takes, is theprivilege of the weak, who seeks to defeat the most powerful by bypassing the means that ensure his superiority.
According toSteven Metz and Douglas Johnson, asymmetric actors “act, organize, and think differently in order to maximize their own advantages, exploit the weaknesses of the adversary, hold the initiative, or gain greater freedom of action. Asymmetry may include methods, technologies, values, organizational modes, different timelines, or a combination of these.”
Faced with powers that cannot overstep a set of moral rules and international commitments that they have endorsed and which, in a certain way, prohibit certain practices, weak states and, even more so, non-state armed groups enjoy greater freedom of action. What is not permitted to democracies is permitted to dictatorships, and what organized armed forces cannot do, dispersed groups allow themselves without scruples. Thus, in the case of the conflict in Iran, the leaders of the United States cannot afford to ignore the growing hostility of their public opinion towards the war, while their Iranian counterparts do not care about the opinions of their own citizens.
This margin of maneuver for the weak, more or less significant, defines the gap in which they can deploy their bypass strategy. This strategy, which relies on a multitude of tactics, consists of preventing the strong from using their power or rendering that power ineffective. The systematic use of decoys, urban warfare, surprise attacks, or the impossible identification of armed forces (for example, by sowing confusion between military and civilians) are all asymmetric warfare techniques that allow the weak to optimize their chances of success both by sowing confusion among the strong and by minimizing the latter’s ability to respond.
This approach to asymmetric warfare also finds resonance in the works oncyberwarfareand the possibility for the weak to paralyze the strong using limited means. Here, asymmetric warfare thus translates into an effort to weaken the strong, and therefore to balance the power relationship from below.
Although they are completely different in approach, these two methods of asymmetric warfare can be conducted jointly, which is often the case. Thus, there is a tendency on the part of the weaker party to want to become more powerful while simultaneously making efforts to weaken the stronger one.
Asymmetry of the weak, or pathologies of the powerful?
If asymmetry is clearly identified as a strategy of the weak against the strong, it can only develop in a particular context, an adequate situation resulting from the actions of the strong. The room for maneuver of the weak is thus closely linked to the attitude of the strong, who in certain circumstances bears a great responsibility due to poor choices and certainties challenged and exploited by the weak. It is the actions of the strong that delineate the contours of asymmetric warfare, and its mistakes that most often determine the outcome. The absence of a clearly defined strategy, as is the case in the American military campaign against Iran, provides a striking demonstration of this.
The American political scientist Christopher J. Fettweis identifies in his bookThe Pathologies of Powerfour pathologies, which, according to him, are at the origin of the beliefs that lead the leaders of the great powers (his study is devoted to the United States) to make irrational decisions: fear, honor, glory, and hubris.
Inscribed in the lineage ofwork on perception by Robert Jervis, these pathologies blind the great powers in their assessment of security issues. Hubris, which is a manifestation of arrogance, is for Fettweis both the most predictable and the most important pathology of the strong.
At different periods in the history of the United States, in-depth studies on the arrogance of power were published as a warning against the risk of unilateralism, an excess of sometimes inappropriate confidence, and a messianism that Barry Buzan described in 2004 inThe United States and the Great Powersof the “Middle Kingdom syndrome”. Fettweis considers the hubris worrying, because it “can impose itself in the face of what seem to be the most obvious signs.” It is also not tied to any particular school of thought, and threatens all those who believe in messianism.
The arrogance of the powerful is fueled by their past successes and by a sense of superiority granted by technical means and training capacities that are far superior to those of their potential adversaries. This can lead a military leader unfamiliar with hubris to believe that victory is facilitated by the imbalance of forces at play, and amounts to an “excursion.” One could add to these pathologies the difficulty for the strong to retreat once engaged in a conflict, at the risk of losing all credibility. Here again, the American case is very enlightening.
What can be the remedies for these pathologies, wonders Fettweis? First, that the patient accepts the diagnosis, because “while there is no doubt that the United States is a good country, it occasionally makes bad choices.” To acknowledge the errors of judgment, the reality of American power (and not its fantasized vision), to show patience and, like the recommendations of Hans Morgenthau inPolitics Among Nations, remember that prudence is “the supreme virtue in politics”.
Fettweis’s advice is in line with the tradition of the realist school and favors greater pragmatism. It also serves as a necessary warning against a feeling of superiority based on the material advantages that the strong have over the weak, but which should not be considered sufficient in every circumstance.
One question often overlooked in reflections on asymmetric warfare remains: is it possible, when in the position of the weaker party, to win a war against a more powerful one? If asymmetric actors are able to disrupt power to such an extent that they can be likened to “weapons of massive disruption,” given the complexity that makes their neutralization difficult, the question is whether they have the capacity to deliver a fatal blow from which the powerful could not recover.
At first glance, this hypothesis is excluded. The greatest danger for the powerful would rather come from the response to be given to the attacks of asymmetric actors, without showing arrogance, without systematically relying on the superiority of arsenals, and without forgetting the gap that distinguishes the strong from the weak in the objectives of a conflict.
If capacity imbalances are at the heart of work on asymmetric warfare, the difference between the strong and the weak in the objectives in an armed conflict must thus be taken into account to understand the gap, and to draw the necessary conclusions.
The survival of the fort being rarely at stake –all the morewhen it is opposed to the weak – the conflicts in which it is generally engaged are of low intensity, on external theaters, with relatively limited objectives, to the point that they are often referred to as operations rather than war. The weak, on their side, are confronted with their own survival, to the extent that any armed conflict becomes for them a total war.
This discrepancy in objectives is particularly enlightening for understanding the commitment of forces on both sides, societal mobilization, or even the emphasis placed on certain practices, which are sometimes without limits on the side of the weaker party. As a consequence of this discrepancy, the definition of victory varies greatly between the stronger and the weaker, as does the implementation of the means to achieve it.
Wars of yesterday, today, and tomorrow
Deeply rooted in history, asymmetric warfare offers another perspective on conflicts. Its place in contemporary wars is the direct consequence of the search for asymmetry by powers. From the moment great powers rely almost exclusively on technology and seek to gain an advantage over their adversaries even before the hostilities begin, those hostile to them have the choice between accepting defeat—by engaging in a direct confrontation from which they cannot emerge victorious—or, on the contrary, using bypass strategies to resist and thus disrupt the most powerful.
The increase in asymmetric actors in recent years can be explained both by a sense of frustration felt in most regions of the world — this feeling generally converging towards Washington and the West — and by the void left by technological innovations that are too rapid and poorly adapted to contemporary conflicts.
Today’s capabilities are the result of programs often undertaken in the 1960s, that is to say at a time when emphasizing technological capabilities was necessary in order not to be at a disadvantage compared to the power of the other. Especially since this “other” was then the mirror image, the Cold War being perhaps the most symmetrical period in terms of balance of power, fully deserving the qualification of “balance of terror” that nuclear capabilities ensured.
With the end of bipolarity, such an assumption must be corrected, as it does not offer an appropriate response to asymmetric actors, nor to the necessary call for ingenuity to compensate for the weakness of new adversaries. Notably, we see that the increasingly repeated use of drones, more rudimentary and especially much cheaper than advanced missiles, disrupts strategic plans.
In this sense, asymmetric warfare is a wake-up call for the strong, who must understand that conflicts are never won in advance. Logistical superiority only translates into victory if it can adapt to the specificities inherent in each conflict, and to the profile of actors identified as weak. Asymmetric warfare simply demands a rethinking of war, otherwise it will become the norm in future conflicts.
Barthélémy Courmont does not work for, advise, own shares in, or receive funds from any organization that might benefit from this article, and has declared no other affiliation than his research institution.
–ref. In an asymmetrical war, is the powerful doomed to lose?https://theconversation.com/in-an-asymmetric-war-is-the-powerful-condemned-to-lose-279896