The U.S. fight against Iraq's militants: An asymmetric war

Lina A. Alexandra, Jakarta

After 14 months under U.S. occupation, sovereignty finally was handed over to an interim Iraqi government on June 28. That occasion marked a new era of independence for the Iraqi people.

But many are still horrified by acts of violence committed by Iraqi guerrilla movements against the foreign occupation. Many foreigners and Iraqi people seen as U.S. collaborators are being kidnapped and then sadistically killed by the militants. This unbalanced war was happening before the handover of sovereignty and will continue to pose a threat in the coming days In Iraq.

This threat is a problem for the U.S. government as almost 140,000 coalition troops and large numbers of foreign civilians are still in Iraq. The big question is how to find a solution to handle these anti-U.S. guerrilla attacks.

A report by CNN said U.S. military strategy planners hoped to send an additional 15,000 troops to Iraq in response to recent simultaneous attacks in five cities in Iraq, which left almost 100 people dead.

Cruelties carried out by militants in Iraq against civilians, both foreigners and Iraqis, have been reported by the television media. The militants groups were fully aware that their acts would provoke strong reactions from the U.S. and alliance countries. Deeper analysis shows that these actions are part of a strategy on the part of a weaker party to confront a stronger enemy with greater power and military capabilities.

War between coalition forces and guerrilla attackers in Iraq can be categorized as an asymmetric war (Ivan Arreguin-Toft, International Security, 2001). In general, there are two strategy choices that can be made by both the stronger and weaker parties.

The first is a direct strategy and the second an indirect strategy. Direct strategy means an attack is directly targeted at paralyzing the enemy's military capabilities so it will not be able to mount attacks. On the other side, an indirect strategy is targeted at non-military capabilities in order to minimize an enemy's desire to attack its adversary.

The combination between the two parties involved and the two choices of strategy creates a matrix with four columns of probabilities about how the war will be conducted. In the first column, both sides use a direct strategy (direct-direct). In the second columns, the stronger side uses a direct strategy and the weaker side an indirect strategy (direct-indirect). In the third column, the stronger side uses an indirect strategy and the weaker side chooses a direct strategy (indirect-direct). And in the last column, both sides uses the indirect strategy (indirect- indirect).

Toft, in his research, found that in an asymmetric war when two sides with different capabilities used the same strategy, direct or indirect, the stronger side tended to win the war. But if the two sides used different strategies, direct-indirect or indirect-direct, surprisingly the weaker side tended to win.

There is a logical explanation for these findings. If the direct-direct strategy is used, the weaker side obviously will most often be defeated since its military capabilities are beneath those of the enemy.

Implementation of the indirect-indirect strategy also tends to favor the stronger party because its ability to defend is also better than the weaker side. In interstate conflicts, this result can be seen in the case of the economic embargoes against Iraq and North Korea, which eventually succeeded in pushing the two governments to give weapons inspectors access to their countries.

However, when different strategies are adopted the weaker party tends to emerge victorious. In almost every situation, the weaker side is positioned to choose an indirect strategy since its capabilities are below those of the stronger side.

This is what has happened in Iraq recently. Iraqi militants are not using a direct strategy to conduct war with the coalitions forces, which have an enormous advantage in terms of high-tech weapons. They are using an indirect strategy of sporadic bombings, kidnappings, shootings and torture of foreign troops and civilians, including Iraqis, their own people, in order to damage the enemy's mental state. The enemy is expected to show a strong reaction and mobilize an all-out effort to chase them down wherever they attack.

So far, this strategy has been quite successful in provoking the U.S. and its alliance, resulting in the decision to send more troops to Iraq without any significant results in stopping the violence. On the contrary, the huge military mobilization has been met by more intense attacks, mostly against civilians.

Over a long period, a direct strategy implementation by the U.S. would boomerang on the U.S. government and its coalition allies. Eventually, the U.S. and its allies would run out of energy to fight the guerrilla attackers in Iraq. The number of deaths, which is increasing from day to day, will lead to increased protests by the public back in the U.S. In the longer term, the U.S. could be forced to reimplement the military draft, which would only increase public protest.

Finally, the only choice for the U.S. to win the war, though not in a short time, is an indirect strategy. Using this strategy, the U.S. must convince the Iraqi people that the presence of coalition troops is meant to guarantee domestic security in Iraq and to assist in the post-war reconstruction process, not to invade the country.

Adding to troop numbers in a reactive manner would be seen as the U.S. being unwilling to hand over true sovereignty to Iraq to determine its own destiny.

If the U.S. applies an indirect strategy wisely, then Iraqi support for guerrilla attacks could be reduced significantly. Victory may not be achieved instantly, but an effective strategy is desperately needed to end the continuing violence in Iraq.

The writer is a researcher in the Department of International Relations at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).