“Asymmetric Warfare”, The USS Cole, and the Intifada
On October 12, the USS Cole, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer equipped with the Aegis
battle management system and thus one of the world’s most sophisticated warships, was, as everyone knows, severely damaged by two men in a small rubber boat, killing 17 US sailors and wounding 39. A vessel designed to protect a carrier battle group against all incoming threats, equipped with powerful defenses against sea-skimming missiles and other state-of-the-art attacks, was crippled (and had to struggle to keep afloat) by an attack by two men and a bomb.
On October 20, Israeli helicopter gunships attacked Fatah
headquarters in the West Bank and Gaza, in response to attacks on Israeli police and civilians in the Jerusalem area. That attack — a conventional military strike against organizational infrastructure in retaliation for attacks by unknown persons — was in a long tradition of Israeli response, but it was also a reminder of the problems Israeli forces face in confronting the Palestinian uprising. No one doubts Israel’s military superiority over the lightly armed Palestinians, but neither in the
intifada of 1987-93 nor in the current uprising has Israel found an effective way of ending (as opposed to containing) the violence. The new intifada
and the attack on the Cole both serve, in different ways, as object lessons of what military theorists call “asymmetric warfare”, the use of unconventional tactics to counter the overwhelming conventional military superiority of an adversary. The concept has mostly been refined by US strategists, working within the debate on the “revolution in military affairs” (RMA): the US has an overwhelming technological superiority over the conventional military forces of virtually any conceivable adversary, but remains vulnerable to certain types of unconventional response: terrorist attacks, weapons of mass destruction, or unpredictable actions in unpredictable places, like the attack on the
Cole
in Aden. Depending on one’s definition, asymmetric warfare includes conventional terrorism, classic guerrilla war and the use of weapons of mass destruction, but also such innovative approaches as cyber-attacks and information warfare.
Israel faces somewhat parallel challenges. Though the Israel Defense Forces do not enjoy the sort of technological supremacy that the US military does, a fundamental principle of Israel’s strategic thinking for
decades has been the maintenance of a qualitative edge over its neighbors, using this edge to overcome quantitative imbalances. Israeli technology is superior to those of its neighbors and it uses more sophisticated weaponry; it
also has its nuclear deterrent as an ultimate defense. On a state-to-state basis, in the Arab-Israeli wars, this approach proved successful, especially when combined with pre-emptive surprise, as in 1956 and 1967. Against non-state
players, it has been less successful. Its occupation of South Lebanon was a disaster, bleeding the IDF while creating a new generation of enemies. The challenges of the first intifada
helped force Yitzhak Rabin into direct negotiations with Yasir ‘Arafat. And Israel still seems to be groping for a response to the new intifada: “separation”, the much-discussed isolation of the Palestinian Authority, would
amount to a sort of siege of the Palestinian cities, but would not render Israel immune to danger. This Dossier offers some reflections on asymmetric warfare, the new intifada and the military options
available to both sides, and the attack on the Cole and its implications. Mao Zedong’s famous dictum that the guerrilla “swims like a fish in the sea of the people” ranks as one of the 20th century’s best-known
military aphorisms, and one of the most illuminating. It recognizes the difficulty of combating a genuinely popular guerrilla or partisan war. The old observation that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom-fighter is
also appropriate, for unconventional tactics which one denounces as terrorism when used against one’s friends may be applauded when used against an adversary, say by the Afghan mujahidin
against the Soviets or by the Chechens against the Russians. There are few national independence movements which never used “terrorist” tactics at some point in their evolution, and many of those accused of terrorism went on to become national leaders (including, of course, Menahem Begin of Israel’s Irgun and Yitzhak Shamir of its Lehi, or “Stern Gang”).
Even weapons of mass destruction, the use of which against civilian populations is routinely deplored, are seen by some as the “poor man’s nuke”, the only way to counter a nuclear-armed power. And Third Worlders are usually
quick to remind us that chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons were all developed in the West, and first used in Western conflicts. The concept of “asymmetric warfare”, as developed in the US and as applicable,
perhaps, in the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation as well, is a rather broad one, but embraces all these considerations and others, in which a potential opponent — a state, a “transnational” group (such as an international
terrorist organization or a drug cartel), or various other types of player — seeks to counter the superior technology or firepower of a superpower or regional power with unconventional, “asymmetric” means. A classic definition by
the US National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies in their 1998 Strategic Assessment (available online at “Put simply, asymmetric threats or
techniques are a version of not ‘fighting fair,’ which can include the use of surprise in all its operational and strategic dimensions and the use of weapons in ways unplanned by the United States. Not fighting fair also includes
the prospect of an opponent designing a strategy that fundamentally alters the terrain on which a conflict is fought.” That same report cited such historical examples of asymmetry as NATO’s doctrine of first use of nuclear
weapons to compensate for the conventional superiority of Soviet forces in Europe, Bosnian Serbs’ taking of UN personnel hostage to deter military escalation in Bosnia, the Soviet deployment of missile to Cuba or the use by North
Korea and North Vietnam of nuclear-armed allies (China and the USSR) to limit US options in the Korean and Vietnam wars, as well as terrorism by proxy against US interests. It suggested that four broad options for future asymmetric
response to US military power would be 1) acquisition of weapons of mass destruction; 2) selective acquisition of high-technology capability, the strategy of “the niche player”; 3) the exploitation of cyber-weapons; and 4) choosing
environments, such as large cities or jungles, that degrade US capacity to strike. Guerrilla warfare is, obviously, a form of asymmetric warfare; so is terrorism. In the Middle Eastern region numerous historical
examples present themselves: the campaign of the mujahidin against the Soviets in Afghanistan, the use by Iranian Revolutionary Guards of small Zodiac-style boats against tanker traffic in the Gulf in 1988, Hizbullah’s
war of attrition against Israel in South Lebanon, the car-bomb attacks on the US Embassy and Marine barracks in Lebanon, against installations in Riyadh and al-Khobar in Saudi Arabia, and so on. The tactics and even the
strategic goals differ, but what these approaches hold in common is the use of such tactics, whether what is denounced as terrorism, or more conventional guerrilla operations, or something else entirely, to offset the advantage of
a militarily superior opponent, to level the playing field. In that sense, the American Minutemen firing on General Gage’s column returning to Boston after Lexington and Concord were engaged in a form of asymmetric warfare. The Attack on the Cole In this context, the attack on the USS Cole
needs little explication: it is already being cited by the experts on asymmetry as a classic case. Here is a highly sophisticated vessel, capable of shooting down incoming sea-skimming missiles and plotting complex battle scenarios in its combat information center, brought low by a bomb on a raft. Its only apparent defenses against the latter form of attack seems to have been armed guards on deck. In their testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, both former US Central Command Commander-in-Chief General Anthony Zinni and his successor, Gen. Tommy Franks, noted that among the threats long anticipated by CENTCOM against its vessels were both frogman attacks and small boat attacks, but defense against either in a crowded harbor (where opening fire on any approaching craft could create a delicate incident) will never be absolutely secure.
In terms of the cost to the US not only in lives but also in the severe damage to a very expensive warship, the attack on the Cole
clearly saw an advantage to the plotters, whoever they prove to have been, though of course the two men in the small boat carried out a suicide mission. Since the NATO campaign over Kosovo, it has also become clear to many
groups that the US, in particular, has domestic political sensitivities about casualties. Even with an all-volunteer force, US Presidents are reluctant to engage in actions which incur significant numbers of American dead; hence
the retreat from Somalia, where the US was not even up against state players but against warlords with armed jeeps. The decision to use bombing exclusively in Kosovo without a ground campaign was another sign of US political
reluctance to incur casualties. Actions which inflict significant American casualties, even at cost to the attacker, may thus be seen as a sort of force multiplier. “Lebanonization” in Palestine The
theorists of asymmetric warfare talk mainly about the United States, which is after all the last superpower. But the advantages of asymmetric warfare apply not only to global but to regional powers, to any country or institution
which, for good or ill, seeks to impose even limited hegemony through its military superiority. In one sense, the struggle between Palestinians and Israel has always
been asymmetric, since Palestinians have never had a state of their own and, at least since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, have not had allied conventional armies at their side, either. As noted earlier, the military doctrine of the IDF has always depended upon qualitative technological superiority, pre-emption, and mobility. Pre-emption is rendered difficult against unconventional tactics, and the other principles are also more difficult to apply. Israel has long sought to do so through covert action.
By 1980, the IDF had a reputation as one of the world’s best fighting forces. In 1948, 1956, 1967, the 1970 war of attrition and 1973 it won battlefield victories against Arab armies, though in 1973 the Arab world was able to
convert a tactical setback into a strategic gain by bringing about disengagement agreements which forced Israeli withdrawals. But those were conventional wars, except for the war of attrition, and it was waged between conventional
forces across the Suez Canal, with some special operations elsewhere. The invasion of Lebanon in 1982 was another story altogether. And once Israel withdrew into its own self-proclaimed “security zone” in the south, it
became a new type of war of attrition, with Hizbullah regularly attacking Israeli troops and their surrogate force, the South Lebanon Army. By the late 1990s Israel had become as politically sensitized as the US in Kosovo
towards casualty counts, and when Israel withdrew earlier this year, Hizbullah proclaimed victory. Israelis would dispute that, but it is they who left the field. Almost immediately after the collapse of the
South Lebanon Army and the Israeli withdrawal, some radical Palestinian voices called for a “Lebanonization” of the Palestinian struggle. Indeed, the one other major failure in the Israeli military record was its inability to
eradicate the Palestinian intifada
of 1987; instead, it inaugurated the process which led to the Oslo accords of 1993. “Lebanonization” as a slogan underestimates the difference between Israeli attitudes towards Lebanon and the West Bank, but it does recognize the fact that Israel has not found a way to successfully cope with urban insurrection.
Its response to the new round, the so-called “al-Aqsa Intifada”, suggests a similar problem. In response to the killing of Israeli reservists in Ramallah, and again in response to attacks in Jerusalem, it used
helicopter gunships against official or semi-official Palestinian buildings, police stations in the first instance and Fatah
headquarters in the second. While this is within the longstanding Israeli tradition of retaliation by hitting at headquarters (the long-range attack on PLO headquarters in Tunis in 1985 being the most famous), it neither punishes the actual perpetrators nor, apparently, deters the operatives making the actual attacks. It is a conventional response to an unconventional challenge, and is, at least in that sense, asymmetrical.
What Would “War” Mean? The present conflict differs primarily from the original intifada
in that there is a Palestinian Authority in being, not quite a state, but an entity with many of the infrastructure aspects of a state. In the first intifada,
Israeli retaliation had to be directed against individuals or, sometimes, collective punishment of whole villages or neighborhoods; other than covert operations against known leaders, there was no obvious authority at which to strike back. The attacks on Palestinian police stations and
Fatah offices are a reminder that there now is a visible infrastructure. At the same time, that infrastructure includes the armed Palestinian security services (See the When Israelis
talk darkly of “war” with the Palestinian Authority and Palestinians insist they have not yet resorted to their “military option” (both statements have been repeated by various spokesmen in recent days), the immediate reaction of
most outsiders is that the military calculus is exclusively on Israel’s side. The Palestinians have no armed aircraft, no armor, no anti-aircraft artillery, at best a few shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles (alleged by
Israel, anyway), and no anti-armor capability more sophisticated than RPG-type weapons. That is true. And Vo Nguyen Giap had no B-52s. Using its air and armor, Israel could
reconquer the West Bank and Gaza. But when it conquered them the last time (from Jordan and Egypt in 1967), their populaces were unarmed. Today that is not the case, and it seems reasonably clear that no serious Israeli military planner
wants to reoccupy the Palestinian cities. Disengagement from Palestinian population centers such as Nablus and Ramallah was one of the main goals
of Israel in the Oslo process. (Hebron, perhaps the most explosive Palestinian city of all, is still complicated by the Jewish settler presence there.) A simple reconquest and reoccupation, a return to June 1967 as it were, would be bloody and leave the Israelis with the same problem they have had from the beginning. Even Israeli hardliners are not threatening to take Nablus back: they don’t want it. Instead, they talk about “separation”.
“Separation” or Siege? Talk of “separation” really began with the late Yitzhak Rabin, and has been echoed by his protegé, Ehud Barak. Rather than the vision of close cooperation and a regional shared economy
painted by Shimon Peres, the Rabin-Barak view is of a darker scenario, one in which the two sides cannot live side-by-side without fences between them. The anti-sniper wall now going up between the Jewish settlement/suburb of Gilo
and the Palestinian town of Bait Jala is the photographic shorthand for the much-discussed “separation”. Barak has previously indicated that he would move for unilateral “separation” if Yasir ‘Arafat declares a state unilaterally.
For the moment, the Palestinians seem to have set their statehood declaration on the back burner, pursuing other approaches, but such an exchange of pre-emptive unilateral moves is not out of the question, even within the month of
November, which includes the anniversary of the 1988 declaration of Palestinian statehood. But “separation”, however innocuous it sounds when so called, would amount to a siege of the Palestinian territories. One reason the
Palestinians actually opposed the Camp David Summit, preferring further interim withdrawals, was the nonviability of Palestinian-controlled territories as currently constituted. If Israel isolates Gaza from the West Bank, and the
areas north of Jerusalem from the areas to the south of it (Samaria and Judea, in Israeli terms) from each other, it would destroy the Palestinian economy, which has actually been deteriorating through the 1990s anyway. It would
create a state of siege. It is true that it would also deprive Israel of cheap Palestinian labor, but some substitution has been taking place anyway, with Asian workers. The involvement of Israeli Arabs within Israel proper
(“green line” Israel) in the recent troubles also adds a complicating factor. At somewhere between 15% and 20% of the population, Israeli Arabs play a significant, if not always highly visible, role in Israeli society, and have
long considered themselves treated as second-class citizens. They are another wild card. Asymmetric Options In short, Israel is faced with a challenge in which it does not wish to reconquer
the Palestinian cities, but rather to isolate them. But that could create a situation in which Palestinian anger, already at a high boil, explodes completely. The Palestinians cannot “win” in conventional combat, but the Israelis
cannot “conquer” conventionally either. The prophets of asymmetric warfare (and especially the Jeremiahs) may be well-advised to watch carefully what may become a prime laboratory for studying their subject.
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