C. A. “Bert” Fowler opens his primer on Asymmetric Warfare with a look at Frederick W. Lanchester, who devised some simple mathematical rules for examining symmetrical warfare — the “normal” kind of war we’re used to, where armies go head-to-head on the battlefield:
Englishman Frederick W. Lanchester (1868-1946) was a major contributor to the foundation of automotive and aeronautical engineering. He also published works on radio, acoustics, warfare, and even relativity. His equations of combat form the basis of the science of operations research. (These equations have been used to formulate business strategy in recent times.) He was the first to describe the aeronautics of lift and drag. His automobile inventions include the gas engine starter, rack-and-pinion steering, disk brakes, four-wheel drive, and fuel injection.
In his historic 1916 paper ‘Mathematics in Warfare,’ Lanchester presents two simple differential equations relating force attrition to the number of forces or weapons in opposition and to their effectiveness (see sidebar ‘Lanchester’s Equations‘). The equations’ solutions show that the effectiveness of a force is directly proportional to the effectiveness of its weapons and to the square of its numbers.
The important take-away is that the effectiveness of a force is proportional to the square of its numbers, because as you lose units, you provide fewer and fewer targets for your enemy to concentrate on:
Note that each side engages only the remaining live targets. If neither side can tell when it has killed a target, as in some artillery duels, both sides must continue to shoot at all the targets, thereby wasting part of their efforts. Lanchester analyzed this problem also and showed that the impact of numbers is a linear not square law.
That’s why damage assessment is so important.
Anyway, because numbers are so important, an outnumbered force needs to find a way to side-step the problem. Against the Soviets, the West originally relied on tactical nuclear weapons.
Then it decided to rely on improved surveillance and communication technology. Even if you’re outnumbered, you can achieve local numerical superiority, by always being in the right place at the right time. That’s how the Brits won the Battle of Britain against the German Luftwaffe. Their secret weapon? Early radar.
Alternatively, rather than simply having particularly good command, control, and communications systems, you can disrupt your enemy’s C3 systems. That’s what America’s early cruise missile and stealth bomber attacks achieved in the 1991 Persion Gulf War.
U.S. trooper weren’t 100 times as good as Iraqi troops, but intelligent tactics made them 100 times as effective. Anything that makes your forces that much more effective is what they call a force multiplier.
Naturally, other countries studied the American success, and they’ve been looking for their own force multipliers and asymmetries to apply against American forces.
Everyone has known for a long time that U.S. forces lose much of their advantage fighting in the jungle or the city. And an insurgency that can blend into the populace always has local superiority — they get to choose the time and place of every engagement.
Another issue is the U.S. dependence on nearby air bases. That hasn’t gone unnoticed;
Iran, North Korea, Syria, India, and Pakistan developed longer range, more accurate ballistic missiles that would allow them to put any nearby bases at risk and, thus, attenuate or deny U.S. capabilities.
For example, the Iranian Shahab-3 intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), with a 1-ton warhead and a range of 1200 miles, can cover the entire Arabian Peninsula and more. Such a weapon, even with a conventional warhead, could create serious problems for the United States. With a WMD warhead, the situation probably would be untenable. The Shahab-3 is a derivative of the North Korean Nodong missile. Clearly, the deterrent value of IRBMs is greatly increased if they have nuclear warheads—which probably accounts for the priority efforts by Iran and North Korea to develop such missiles.
Fowler closes with T.E. Lawrence’s Principles of Insurgency:
- A successful guerrilla movement must have an unassailable base.
- The guerrilla must have a technologically sophisticated enemy.
- The enemy must be sufficiently weak in numbers so as to be unable to occupy the disputed territory in depth with a system of interlocking fortified posts.
- The guerrilla must have at least the passive support of the populace, if not its full involvement.
- The irregular force must have the fundamental qualities of speed, endurance, presence, and logistical independence.
- The irregular must be sufficiently advanced in weaponry to strike at the enemy’s logistics and signals vulnerabilities.
As Fowler says, “On reading the rules, one can’t help but wish someone in authority had studied them prior to the invasion decision.”