To what extent is the US military ready to meet the challenges of asymmetrical warfare?
Asymmetric warfare is defined by the RAND corporation as “conflicts between nations or groups that have disparate military capabilities and strategies”. [1] The most prominent examples that the US has been involved in have been the Vietnam War and the War in Afghanistan. Throughout the history of warfare and the United States, there has been a constant to-and-fro between success that the US military has had in symmetrical warfare and the failures suffered when engaging in asymmetric warfare. Successes have been found in key conflicts throughout recent history like the First and Second World Wars and the First Gulf War. These have all been symmetrical wars, where all parties involved have been relatively similarly matched in ability and numerical power. However, when the US has found itself involved in asymmetric wars with adversaries such as the Vietcong, Insurgents in Iraq, and terror organizations in Afghanistan, they have struggled to defeat the enemy. This especially c...