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The original version of this page appears to have been one of 24's rants. I've trimmed down the more obvious bias and nonsense, but like much of 24's stuff, there is some good material too. |
The original version of this page appears to have been one of 24's rants. I've trimmed down the more obvious bias and nonsense, but like much of 24's stuff, there is some good material too. |
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Having read the article as well as the talk below, it strikes me there is an inconsistency in the article. Quoting from it:
Hence, the final section -the one on Al-Qaeda- seems grossly misplaced and an example contradicting to the definition of the subject matter. Mikademus 10:56, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have edited the Al-Qaeda section. It was terribly written anyway, and, because of the nature of Al-Qaeda and similar groups, it is entirely opinion whether or not they were responsible for any given act of terrorism. I did wonder if this section ought to simply be deleted but, on further consideration, I think it makes a useful point about how conventional warfare, asymmetric warfare and terrorism seem to be melding together in the modern world. Hopefully this is clearer and less opinionated. I also added a section addressing the above concern somewhat. Josh Bayes 01:46, 31.03.06
"The multi-national presence of Al-Qaida, accused of carrying out the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States"
You mean it hasn't been proven?
The original version of this page appears to have been one of 24's rants. I've trimmed down the more obvious bias and nonsense, but like much of 24's stuff, there is some good material too.
This article needs careful review for bias and editing for NPOV.
Why are the "anarchist assassains'" "political motive[s]... obscure or incomprehensible"? --Daniel C. Boyer
This article is mostly a POV advocacy piece, mixing a kitchen sink of ideas.
Clearly we need to bridge this topic. C-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y-! ;) Specifically, where is the line drawn? When does carpet bombing become war crime or state terrorism? When does a pipe bomb go from a valid weapon against a legitimate enemy to a criminal act of terror against civilians? I think we need to clarify these things as best we can, as this info is sorely needed these days. Sam Spade 09:46, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
It seems to me the distinction being made between asymmetric warfare and terrorism by Sam Spade is entirely relative. Many 'terrorist' groups have causes just as worthy as any fought by the states they oppose, however, since they are independant of any particular nation they will be labelled as terrorists by those they oppose no matter how 'fair' they fight. Why is what happened in London so much worse than what happened with the 'shock and awe' campaign.
I'm fretting over the article Asymmetric warfare. The original author seems to be making a sincere effort to put forward what he/she thinks the subject is about, but it amounts to an extensive POV, mixing incomparable elements, personal musings and attempting to reach a conclusion.
I know something about the subject, having taught related subjects in the US Army, and the subject is worthy of discussion, but I'm not comfortable essentially throwing out someone else's work and writing the article new.
This is not the only such article. I'm tempted to simply leave them alone, but it makes wikipedia very un-encyclopedic, if someone were actually researching a subject.
Opinions? About this and the issue of near totally POV articles in general? Cecropia 14:46, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Well, you guys are encouraging me. It's a complex subject and might be more controversial if more people really knew what it was. I'll see if I can upgrade it modularly. Cecropia 23:14, 29 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Shouldn't the links to Khobar Towers and Cole bombing be removed from this article? They are just examples of minor terrorist action. Pavel Vozenilek 17:11, 19 Dec 2004
at the beginning of the "War By Proxy" section, it reads "This conclusion is contraversial". what conclusion is it referring to?
How to tie up lots of the enemy at little cost to your own side by using Guerrillas or in Churchill's words "To set Europe Ablaze"
This is classic example of the difference between guerrilla warfare from the tactical level where it may not be Asymmetric warfare, while remaining so at the strategic level, it was for the Western allies in WWII.
The section War by proxy does not mention these examples and the last thing anyone wanted to do was deny that they were taking place. It helped to deny the German assertions that the Occupied Countries' populations were happy with occupation! Philip Baird Shearer 02:25, 25 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
The provisional IRA were secretly supported by the Irish Government at the start of the recent troubles, because they are based in the North and it gutted the Official IRA which was the problem South of the boarder. Two members of the Irish Government were later charged and cleared on gun-running. Once that limited objective had been achived, (and the British Army had been deployed stopping what is now called ethnic cleansing,) the support ended. The last sentence but the disassociation is intended to blunt the lesser charge that the government is not controlling a hostile group within its borders is not true. The IRA lost the Irish Civil War against the Irish Free State. The Irish Government is the descendant of the winning side. It never supported taking the North with force, that is one of the things the Irish Civil War was fought over. The IRA are banned because they are a threat to the Irish State! 'Nothing is as simple as the statements in the page when it comes to the IRA, NI and Anglo-Irish politics! [1]
I would suggest removing it as an example because it is too complicated and controversial a subject to use as an example in a page like this. Philip Baird Shearer 02:25, 25 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
No answer after 6 months so I removed:
--Philip Baird Shearer 22:08, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Theses are notes on a thread which I think needs adding to this page:
The Peninsular War the origin of the word Guerrilla, The Spanish guerrillas tying down 10 of thousands of French troops; and British self-serving aid to help them do it cost Britain much less than it would have done to equip British soldiers to face the French troops in conventional warfare.
In my opinion there is a whole chapter on Asymmetric warfare missing at the moment. Theses are notes on a section which needs adding to this page. This is not meant to be a specifically British section it is just that I know more about it so I am using the UK armed forcesas an example.
The Second Boer War and the way that less than 20,000 Bores kept 450,000 British Empire tied up in knots after the conventional war was over. The number of Empire troops during the conventional phase of the war was much smaller. Of particular interest are the deep cammando raids into the Cape Province lead by Jan Smuts. The best narrative on this is 'Commando by Deneys Reitz
Winston Churchill and the formation of the British Commando as he had been on the receiving end in SA. The Green Berets link between the British Commandos and the American special forces e.g. U.S. Army Rangers
The WWII Desert War and the development of the SAS who's NATO job is deep penetration of enemy lines. Not the same as the Commandos which use standard army units, the SAS use and operate in smaller units.
The WWII Burma War under General Slim and the Chindits. The ideas of the of bases set up in enemy territory and supplied by air and then launching offencive operations.
All these ideas were bought together in the last two chapters of a book called called Commando Extraordinary Otto Skorzeny by Charles Foley published in 1954. Whilst not calling the the ideas Asymmetric warfare he called it a "Strategic Assault Corps" it has all the ideas.
Sir Robert Thompson, the counter-insurgency expert, who served with the Chindits, Malaya, Borneo, and Head of British Advisory Mission in Vietnam, wrote extensively about this subject. His Auto Biography Make For the Hills, shows that the best example to date where the British have used Asymmetric Warfare successfully was the Indonesian Confrontation 1962-66. The SAS found Indonesian troop formations and the Gurkhas dispatched or persuaded them to stay on their side of the boarder. Philip Baird Shearer 02:25, 25 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Removed some text that seemed irrelevant and incoherent Roadrunner 22:30, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Cecropia:"terrorism is not the same as AW; terrorism is primarily a political description, not a military one." I dont disagree with the rewrite, but these days its a bit hard to go along with the party line, regarding how the military defines its methods, when some "assymetric" elements within the military can be so (FLOABT) "political." The only thing I suggest is that the term be qualified as a military one, so "Assymetric warfare is a military term..." -Stevertigo
copied text from Urban Warfare?
A lot of the text in the "urban warfare" section seems to be copied from the urban warfare article. --NeuronExMachina 04:36, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)
The statement "asymmetric warfare tends to take place inside densely populated urban terrain" is nonsense.
"The guerrillas must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea." - Mao Tse-Tung. If the sea is predominantly urban, then an asymmetric war can be fought there. But other terrain is also used and mountains swamps, and jungle/forest can be utilised effectively by the weaker party. Here is a brief, none exclusive, list of post 1945 asymmetric conflicts which were not fought in cities
Philip Baird Shearer 12:01, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Nonetheless, large scale conflicts remain the province of tightly organized armies, as evidenced most recently, in the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
However, the 2003 invasion of Iraq campaign has now moved into an asymmetric warfare phase as US alliance and coalition forces battle an insurgency by Iraqi and foreign militants. See 2003 Occupation of Iraq
I am about to save a large rearrangement of the text. Nothing will be deleted in the move and one paragraph will be duplicate so that it can be split into two after the move. I think that these changes will bring some structure to the subject. I've used the Guerrilla page as a crude templates for these changes because I think that they are better structured articles.
I will make one simple copy edit after the first change and then leave it a lone for 24 hours so that if a number of people register their complains to the new format it will be easy to revert and I will not of spent too much time on it. Philip Baird Shearer 18:27, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
It seems to me that the article is looking a lot better than it did; a lot of POV stuff cleaned up, some pretty good edits in the last month or two. I'd say it's at least as good as a lot of other articles that don't have the "this needs to be cleaned up" message on them. Considering what a big subject it is, and that it's very current, there are certainly going to be more edits as time goes by, but I wouldn't say it's a sloppy article and we could probably lose the caveat. It's been over six months since anyone has had a complaint about the content. What does everyone else think? Kafziel 9 July 2005 16:27 (UCT)
The theory that longbows were largely ineffective at the Battle of Agincourt is far from being conclusively proven. The time frame is not a prehistoric period; short of definitive contradictory evidence (which, for all intents and purposes, will never arise, since the battle cannot be exactly reproduced), there is no reason to assume that the historical record of the last 600 years is incorrect based simply on a test made for entertaining television.
The advantage of high ground would be meaningless without ranged weapons capable of slowing an advance; if arrows from the longbow were unable to peirce their armor, the French would have quickly closed the gap, and all the English could have done is wait for them. In reality, it is much easier to make a flawless steel arrowhead than it is to make flawless steel armor plating. Even today, with our technology, very few portable armor systems could stop a direct shot from a steel-tipped longbow arrow.
The fact is, people are always more likely to readily accept theories that are completely contradictory to tradition or even common sense. Ironically, a statement tends to have a ring of truth to it when it opposes everything we already know. We assume that scholars must know something we don't. But if we push aside the theories, and look only at the facts, we see two things:
1. The English WERE outnumbered, by at least 3-2. This is not contested by archaeological evidence. If that doesn't sound like a lot, I suggest bringing 8,000 men to fight 12,000 men hand-to-hand, and see who has the advantage. 4,000 men is a big difference, and very difficult to overcome on an open field without archers.
2. The English DID win. As I said, the shape of the battlefield is not an advantage without effective ranged weapons. By taking advantage of superior technology, the English were able to exploit the terrain to win the battle.
The theory that archers played a minor role at Agincourt should be discussed on the page for the Battle of Agincourt, not here. In the context of asymmetric warfare, Agincourt remains a classic example of exploiting certain advantages to overcome larger numbers. I am removing El Caudillo's revision because it is not relevant to the discussion, and it is self-contradictory (in terms of high ground vs. ranged weapons). Kafziel
Great article, thanks for writing it !!
After an initial phase, which was fought by both sides as a conventional war, the British captured Johannesburg the Boer's largest city the capitals of the two Boer Republics. [sic]
Sentence needs work by someone who knows the history. - Leonard G. 02:57, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I changed when Saddam Hussein's regime was removed from power in 2003, the Iraq campaign moved into an asymmetric warfare phase as alliance and coalition forces met continued opposition from Iraqi and foreign insurgents.towhen Saddam Hussein's regime was removed from power in 2003, the Iraq campaign moved into an asymmetric warfare phase as US-alliance and coalition forces met continued opposition from Iraqi and a smattering of foreign resistance fighters
I consider this to be a reasonable edit because at the time there was no legitimate government in Iraq (in the sense of in any way reflecting the will of the populace), and therefore the term "insurgent" was inappropriate because it implies an uprising against a stable, legitimate government. Fighting an army of occupation, however morally defensible the occupation may be, is an act of resistance, not insurgency.
I changed
alliance and coalition forces met continued opposition from Iraqi and foreign insurgents
to
alliance and coalition forces met continued opposition from Iraqi and a smattering of foreign resistance fighters
I consider this to be a reasonable edit because at the time there was no legitimate government in Iraq (in the sense of in any way reflecting the will of the populace), and therefore the term "insurgent" was inappropriate because it implies an uprising against a stable, legitimate government. Fighting an army of occupation, however morally defensible the occupation may be, is an act of resistance, not insurgency. Furthermore, it has been shown that the vast majority of fighting against Coalition forces has been by Iraqis, with only a relatively small number of foreigners involved.
I'm presenting this here in order to explain, not to justify, my edit, and will be entirely unsurprised to see my edits edited...
--Bruce: You're not kidding. The old version reads better, and you're drawing too fine a line with your definition.
Septegram 19:49, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
What pray were they resisting against? An insergency can be against an army of occupation just as easily as against a "legitimate [civilian] government". I refer you to Military occupation and the laws of war. --Philip Baird Shearer 21:42, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
To resist an occupation is not illegal indeed the Fourth Geneva Convention gives protection to the civilian population against an occupying army as does the earlier 1907 IV Hague Convention. But if resistance involves armed resistance then there laws of war which have to be observed if the insurgent is to be a lawful combatant. If the insurgent uses methods which are not lawful for combatants, then when captured and after they have been in front of a competent tribunal, they do not have the protection of being POWs and can be tried as a civilian for committing a murder if they kill a soldier belonging to the occupying force. If on the other hand they are lawful combatants then killing a soldier is not an unlawful act and they can not be found guilty of murder. Many countries including the UK (but not the US) have signed up to the additional protocols to the Geneva Conventions which for international conflicts is Protocol I. It is worth reading [3] which is footnote 2 the Wikipedia "Protocol I" article as it expands on what the British think Article 44 means.
So to reiterate I think insurgency is a better word to use than resistance Philip Baird Shearer 00:00, 6 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
"The state of Pakistan, which refuses to allow US troops inside its territory, is a practical case in point." Pakistan does allow US troops inside its territory, see e.g. http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/central/04/28/pakistan.troops/
Here's how the main body of the text now begins:
Garbage. This article is desperately in need of inline citations and adult supervision. Sigh. --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 19:41, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, I have reverted it to an earlier version. But as you point out, the reverted version it does not have inline citations either --Philip Baird Shearer 20:44, 19 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe you should specify for wikipedia what is garbage about the paragraph.
I don't know if it's relevant, but North Korea in its standoff with South Korea and the US seems to have devoted considerable effort to minimizing US military advantages. As I understand it, they technically have the largest special forces in the world, elaborate underground tunnel systems, and there's a fair amount of espionage and commando activity into South Korea and even Japan. -- KarlHallowell 05:37, 29 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There is an aspect of asymmetric warfare that should be linked to Total War. Asymmetric warfare makes use of all available networks - political, economic, social and military. As a consequence, the line between civilian and military targets has blurred. At the same time, the exponential increase in the use of non-conventional troops to combat/respond to asymmetric threats has similarly made the distinction between civilian and military disappear.--Milbuff101 15:39, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Here are a few issues I think should be covered in this article.
Types of Asymmetrical warfare
"Guerrilla warfare can be classified into two main categories: urban guerrilla warfare and rural guerrilla warfare." I think this is incorrect, or at least a confusion.
The Urban and Rural breakdown, which is tied to the terrain (often called "difficult terrain" by scholars) isn't a breakdown at all really. I think that the territorial breakdown of this type of war is irrelavant, because the use of urban landscape still utilizes the same principles as rural landscape. Both are "difficult" in their own ways. Rural based on the geological layout (desert, mountain, jungle etc.), and Urban based on architectural and public support to hide their where-abouts. As well, so-called "rural guerilla's" still require outside (read:population) support for their supplies. Both rely on a means of supplying themselves and escaping during hit and run tactics, and so neither is very different. I think the more appropriate breakdown is this:
Asymmetric warfare can also be broken down into two other types of warfare: Ideological and Territorial. Often the two mix as well, with groups beginning with a territorial motivation and using it to promote a ideological/political shift, or vice-versa.
Territorial is often an uprising to fend off a foreign or precieved foreign power. It often involves the natives of one country against the army of another. This is a replacement for conventional warfare. The 2nd Boer war is an example of this type of asymmetic war.
The Ideological form is often a form of civil war, where the fight is against the government of the insurgents' own country. China's revolution is a perfect example of this.
Shift to Conventional Warfare
Another issue I wish to see addressed is the shift that often occures to bring about conventional warfare. This is almost always neccessary for a geurilla force, and is what often causes the confusion about Vietnam. NOTE: Vietnam is only an asymmetrical war Pre-United States involvement. Once the battles began it became a conventional war, with armies. This is mentioned in the Tactical Relevance secion, and is misleading.
Asymmetrical refers not only to the superior numbers, but the tactics mainly. Asymmetical wars often become conventional wars as they grow in support and numbers. Asym. war is typified by its tactics, which are only useful given the conditions of smaller numbers and available difficult terrain. Larger numbers cannot utilise tactics which take advantage of the weaknesses of conventional armies (ie: their size and relative immobility), and so take on the tactics of conventional armies.
Counter-Insurgency
Some mention of the tactics for counter-insurgency might be benificial.
--Andrew winter 20:22, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, the more I look at it, the more I wonder whether this should be merged in some way with the Guerillia Warfare article. Since that's what this article has ended up talking about anyways. Asymmetrical war is the circumstance, guerillia war is the tactics. Can anyone think of an Asymmetrical war that was NOT a Guerilla war? --Andrew winter 21:25, 1 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
