Asymmetric Warfare: The costs of limited war

Question 1

What is asymmetric warfare?

Answer 1

Wars with lopsided power

-one power has lots of resources, other has few resources

Question 2

what are some traditional asymmetric wars?

Answer 2

-colonial wars; countries like Britain, Netherlands, France, Portugal, and USA could refuse to grant some colonies independence

Question 3

What strategy did anti-colonizers use?

Answer 3

guerrilla forces

Question 4

What was strange about asymmetric warfare?

Answer 4

Despite less resources, guerrilla forces could sometimes win

Question 5

For large powers were asymmetric wars considered high or low intensity?

Answer 5

low

Question 6

According to Mack, what did the Vietnam war ‘prove’ about conventional military power?

Answer 6

the prevalent assumption that conventional military superiority necessarily prevails in war has been destroyd

Question 7

Why did greater powers lose wars against Third World opponents?

Answer 7

they lost the “political capability to wage war”

Question 8

When can insurgents win a political victory?

Answer 8

-if they have fought to a standstill or even have lost the military fight

Question 9

Other than the battlefield, where is asymmetric warfare fought?

Answer 9

polity and social institutions of the external power

Question 10

In what way do guerilla forces have an advantage over external powers?

Answer 10

-have a total commitment to the fight that external powers do not

Question 11

When was South Vietnam created?

Answer 11

1956, with elections that place US puppet Ngo Dinh Diem in power, hardline vs. North Vietnam was adopted

Question 12

What battle against the French was influential and why?

Answer 12

• defeated at Dien Bien Phu in 1954
• Vietminh victory “had the effect of destroying the political capability of the French government to mobilize troops and to continue the struggle”

Question 13

What scholar wrote about the Vietnam war as an asymmetric conflict?

Answer 13

Mack

Question 14

The french defeat at Dien Bien Phu led to Eisenhower coining what analogy about communism?

Answer 14

domino effect

Question 15

______ wars were the battlefield of the cold war because _________ prohibited all out war

Answer 15

proxy, nuclear age

Question 16

Who was the US defense Secretary dyring the Vietnam war

Answer 16

McNamara

Question 17

according to McNamara, the Vietnam war was “developing an abilitiy in the US to fight _____ without ______”

Answer 17

fight a limited war without arousing the public ire

Question 18

in the Vietnam War, the US nedded to fight hard enoug hto win, but without _______

Answer 18

triggering Soviet or Chinese intervention

-during the Korean war, US pushed behind Chinese red line and caused intervention

Question 19

What weakness did the Vietnamese exploit with the US?

Answer 19

they knew the US couldn’t cause domestic unrest or trigger intervention

Question 20

When does the guerrilla win

Answer 20

“if it does not lose” - Henry Kissinger

Question 21

Guerrillas set out to wage ______ war because it resonates among the population of the external power

Answer 21

protracted war

Question 22

What caused much of the resonation of the Vietnam war in the US population?

Answer 22

the media

Question 23

What did Guerrillas need to do to be able to win?

Answer 23

must be able to inflict a steady stream of losses, seldom can achieve total battlefield victory

Question 24

What in asymmetric warfare is the “end”?

Answer 24

Indirect costs of psychological and political costs must be inflicted

Question 25

Mao Zedong argued that democracies could not win Asymmetric warfare because ______________

Answer 25

because they could not withstand the financial or psychological costs of fighting guerrillas

Question 26

What was the beginning of the communist victory?

Answer 26

The Tet offensive in 1968
-even though it was a loss for North vietnam, they infliceted massive casualties on US and caused the anti-war movement to grow

Question 27

What was the effect of US bombing in Vietnam?

Answer 27

the more US bombed, the more control Viet Cong had-

Question 28

What scholars discuss aerial bombing in Vietnam?

Answer 28

Kocher et al

Question 29

Why is victimizing civilians likely to backfire?

Answer 29

Because counterinsurgent forces need civilians to collaborate with them in order to defeat insurgents
-aerial bombing can also victimize non-participants and therefore makes some people join war who might not have otherwise because chances of death are the same

Question 30

Where else did US bomb?

Answer 30

Cambodia and Laos