Fighting Asymmetric Conflicts: Politics and Public Opinion in the post-Heroic

Western World and in Militant Societies

NATO Rapid Deployable Corps - Italy

Prof. Dr. Massimo de LeonardisUniversità Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

28th January 2010

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Subjects

I. The pre-eminence of cultural asymmetry:1. Definitions2. The ascendancy of irregular conflicts3. Total and limited wars

II. Post-heroic Western world and militant Islam:1. American and European attitudes towards war2. The “Powell Doctrine”3. Christianity, Islam and war

III. Looking for public support to the war in Afghanistan1. No easy solutions since our problem has deep historical roots2. Stress the strategic reality without raising unreal expectations3. Stability, democracy and military force

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American definition of asymmetric war

A conflict is asymmetric when belligerents «do not fight fair», using weapons in a non conventional way. One side aims to break the political and psychological cohesion of the Western society; the other relies on technological superiority and tries to avoid the employment of troops which is politically risky.

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French definitions

• Dyssimétrie is described as a disequilibrium between antagonists pertaining to the level of the stakes and the performance of means, but not so much to the type of these means and to the behaviour of belligerents.

• Asymmétrie exists when the behaviour, morals, modes of action and instruments employed by belligerents are radically different.

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Irregular conflicts

• Irregular conflicts always existed, even if they were a minority until the Second World War. In the XVII century we had the «small wars» that local militias of peasants fought against armies which had defeated the professional troops and invaded the territory. Insurgencies against French invaders motivated by political and religious feelings established a pattern of guerrilla warfare which re-emerged in the anti-Nazi partisan resistance during the Second World War.

• After the Second World War the situation changed: the Cold War was symmetric, but real, hot wars were asymmetric and in most cases Western armies lost against guerrillas.

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The War in Vietnam

Americans didn’t loose major battles, simply abandoned the fight for the reason explained by General Giap: «The enemy will be caught in a dilemma: he must continue the war for a long time in order to obtain victory, but he doesn’t have the psychological and political means to fight a long war». Americans lost for political and media reasons.

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1st February 1968: General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing on the spot a Vietcong officer

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8 June 1972: Kim Phúc running down a road near Trang Bang after a napalm attack

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Changing Western attitudes towards war

• In the past, Western rulers accepted the necessity of being harsh while fighting in Third World scenarios.

• Nowadays that kind of behaviour is unacceptable and the gap of asymmetry widens: Western armies must adhere to strict rules, which mean nothing for their enemies.

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Cultures and war

«War embraces much more than politics: ... it is always an expression of culture, often a determinant of cultural forms, in some societies the culture itself», writes British military historian John Keegan, who poses the problem of a possible «inutility of the “Western way of warfare” when confronted by an opponent who refuses the share its cultural assumption».

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Limited and total wars

• Stasis, war among adversaries separated by matters of interest, though within an institutional framework and having common values.• Polemos, war between enemies, divided by opposite conceptions of the world. It’s a “total war”. • Civil wars are polemos, since they are «the most ‘real’ war of wars ... the most ‘total’ war, during which there are no limits to aggressiveness, nor are there any humanitarian rules». The “total war” «exceeds the distinction between combatants and non-combatants». • The different attitude towards “war” is today one of the most striking examples of the diversity between Western civilization and Islam.

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The post-heroic Western world

• Before 1914 war was almost universally considered an acceptable, perhaps an inevitable and for many people a desirable way of settling international differences.

• Two world wars changed radically the attitude of the West towards war and brought to what Edward Luttwak in the mid-Nineties called the «post-heroic warfare».

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American and European attitudes towards war

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No more combat troops in Afghanistan

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The «Powell Doctrine»

• The «Powell Doctrine», prescribed to start a conflict only if some conditions existed:

• certitude of victory;• public opinion’s support in front of a clear threat to national

interest;• employment of massive means to leave no hope to the

enemy;• possibility of a rapid victory before the popular consensus

faints;• possibility to determine the beginning, all the phases and the

end of hostilities.

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The suicidal terrorist

Osama Bin Laden is the personification of the «industrial partisan» described in 1963 by Carl Schmitt; in the name of a «moral obligation» he kills using modern technology. Islam brings the only real new thing: the suicidal terrorist. Neither Christians nor Communists and other atheists ever dared to kill themselves to kill others: neither of them has the seventy young virgins waiting for him in Paradise.

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Christianity, Islam and war

• «An army ready to die in order to obey God is invincible». Allah has never been a pacifist, while today many Christians are at least very reluctant to use military force.

• Large sectors of Muslim public opinion extol terrorists, while in the West we call for the respect of strict legal procedures and express indignation for the “collateral damages” against civilians.

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Looking for public support to the war in Afghanistan

• Democracies are reluctant to go to war, need strong idealistic reasons for that, but look for an “exit strategy” when results are slow and body bags return home.

• It’s always better to describe reality as it is. About Afghanistan the issue is perfectly clear: «The security of the Duomo lies in Kabul». If we don’t win there, they will come here.

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Imposing democracy?

• Do not talk of introducing democracy. It is a wrong aim in itself. It alienates Muslim public opinion since it smacks of cultural imperialism. Large sectors of Western public opinion think the game not worth the candle and unrealistic.

• Let’s talk instead of fostering a representative government respectful of local traditions and basic human rights.

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Combat and reconstruction

• The task of fighting the Talibans and the terrorists cannot be separated from that of fostering the country’s reconstruction.

• It’s an escape from reality to say we should provide more aid but send no more troops. The employment of more troops, in a more “aggressive” way would allow reducing air attacks and avoiding civilian casualties.

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Politically correct language

•NATO Strategic Concept of 1999 says that «The Alliance’s forces must therefore be able ... - in case of conflict - to terminate war rapidly by making an aggressor reconsider his decision, cease his attack and withdraw» [§ 47], avoiding to say directly that NATO must defeat the enemy and win the war.

•Admiral Ellis, CINCSOUTH and VI Fleet Commander, on Navy day of Oct. 1999: «America will continue to need a navy that can go anywhere, fight when it must and win unequivocally when called to action».

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The importance of the Church attitude

Cardinal Ruini at the funerals of the soldiers fallen at Nassiriya referring to the terrorists said: «We will not run away in front of them, on the contrary we shall confront them with all the courage, the energy and the determination we can muster».

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Conclusion

American Secretary of Defense Robert Gates about Afghanistan said: «[If] an alliance of the world’s greatest democracies cannot summon the will to get the job done in a mission that we agree is morally just and vital to our security, then our citizens may begin to question ... the utility of the 60-year-old transatlantic security project itself’». The issue is at the same time less and more serious. NATO would survive a “strategic retreat” in Afghanistan. Bur this would cast serious doubts on the possibility of the West to maintain the predominance enjoyed in the last centuries.

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Conclusion

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