Re:Asymmetric warfare is a bad idea (Score 1)

Respectfully, I couldn't disagree more. Strategy and, to some degree, tactics have not changed fundamentally since Alexander. Technology has altered the way that strategy is applied, and changed how tactics are implemented, but the fundamentals remain the same. Military doctrine, if by that you mean a sort of understanding of the role of various elements of the military and their proper application, tends to change as technology alters capability. Even so, it doesn't change that much.

Consider the role of armored cavalry (by which I mean everything from mounted knights to modern tanks). It has always played the traditional role of cavalry. It screens moving columns, light cavalry scouts ahead of a main army, heavier cavalry breaks defensive lines. Whether you're talking about lancers or tanks, the role is basically the same. It is as true today as it was four hundred years ago that cavalry is only effective when it support infantry. Equally true is that infantry is the basic unit of warfare. You've gotta have boots on the ground to occupy territory, and you have to occupy territory to control it. If you call asymmetrical warfare by it's more traditional name, i.e. guerrilla warfare, you will see that it hasn't changed much, either. Whether you're talking about American revolutionaries harassing British troops during the Revolutionary War, or insurgents in Iraq detonating IEDs, asymmetrical warfare is the only way a smaller, weaker combatant can fight against a stronger, larger combatant. And even then, the goal isn't to defeat the enemy, but to make occupation more trouble than it's worth.

The only real thing that changed after WWII was the geopolitical structure of the world, and even that wasn't something completely alien in the history of international relations. To claim that the only warfare left is asymmetric warfare is to propose that all future conflicts will be between a state and a non-state actor, or between two dramatically mismatched states. I think that such a viewpoint ignores the potential for interstate conflict between rivals in the near and distant futures.

I agree with this.