Fearful Asymmetry

In Christopher Torchia's AP roundup of the day's violence in Iraq, U.S. Maj. Gen. Martin Dempsey offers the following observation:

It is far easier to fight an enemy who fights you conventionally and who fights you in some similar fashion to the way you fight him, than it is to fight an enemy who uses the tools of terror.

Military leaders talking to reporters often remind me of that advice from Bull Durham: "Learn your cliches. … They're your friends."

But as Willoughby reminded us yesterday in comments to this post, Dempsey's restatement of the obvious was actually the main lesson of the massive war game that U.S. officials conducted before the invasion of Iraq:

The Army Times reported that, as commander of a low-tech, third-world army, Gen. Van Riper appeared to have repeatedly outwitted US forces.

He sent orders with motorcycle couriers to evade sophisticated electronic eavesdropping equipment. When the US fleet sailed into the Gulf, he instructed his small boats and planes to move around in apparently aimless circles before launching a surprise attack which sank a substantial part of the US Navy. The war game had to be stopped and the American ships "refloated" so that the US forces stood a chance.

For more on that war-game exercise, dubbed "Millennium Challenge," see this Julian Borger interview with retired Marine Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper.

All of this discussion of "asymmetrical" warfare reminded me of a passage I recently read in Sven Lindqvist's magnificent book "Exterminate All the Brutes". Lindqvist quotes at length from a young Winston Churchill's account of the Battle of Omdurman in the Sudan (in his 1898 book The River War). In that battle, the British army encountered "an enemy who fights you conventionally and who fights you in some similar fashion to the way you fight him." Except of course that the British army possessed vastly superior weaponry and technology.

Here is Churchill's account:

The white flags were nearly over the crest. In another minute they would become visible to the batteries. Did they realise what would come to meet them? They were in a dense mass, 2,800 yards from the 32nd Field Battery and the gunboats. The ranges were known. It was a matter of machinery. …

The mind was fascinated by the impending horror. I could see it coming. In a few seconds swift destruction would rush on these brave men. They topped the crest and drew out in full view of the whole army. Their white banners made them conspicuous above all. As they saw the camp of their enemies, they discharged their rifles with a great roar of musketry and quickened their pace. … For a moment the white flags advanced in regular order, and the whole division crossed the crest and were exposed.

About 20 shells struck them in the first minute. Some burst high in the air, others exactly in their faces. Others, again, plunged into the sand, and, exploding, dashed clouds of red dust, splinters, and bullets amid the ranks. The white flags toppled over in all directions. Yet they rose again immediately, as other men pressed forward to die for the Mahdis' sacred cause and in defence of the successor of the True Prophet of the Only God. It was a terrible sight, for as yet they had not hurt us at all, and it seemed an unfair advantage to strike thus cruelly when they could not reply.

Here, Lindqvist interjects, noting: "The outmoded character of this description is particularly evident in the last sentence. An old-fashioned concept of honor and fair play, an admiration for such pointless bravery, had still not been superseded by the modern understanding that technical superiority provides a natural right to annihilate the enemy even when he is defenseless."

"Churchill's empathy with the opponents' situation," Lindqvist writes, "… concerned a still attacking enemy who, if not stopped, in a short while would have shown themselves to be superior. The Caliph had put 15,000 men into this frontal assault. Churchill finds the plan of attack wise and well thought-out except on one vital point; it was based on a fatal underestimation of the effectiveness of modern weapons."

Here, again, is Churchill:

Meanwhile the great Dervish army, which had advanced at sunrise in hope and courage, fled in utter rout, pursued by the 21st Lancers, and leaving more than 9,000 warriors dead and even greater numbers of wounded behind them.

Thus ended the battle of Omdurman — the most signal triumph ever gained by the arms of science over barbarians. Within the space of five hours, the strongest and best-armed savage army yet arrayed against a modern European Power had been destroyed and dispersed, with hardly any difficulty, comparatively small risk and insignificant loss to the victors.

In the 106 years since Churchill wrote that passage the "arms of science" have become increasingly sophisticated and increasingly lethal, able to strike from vast distances with even less difficulty and risk. But over that same century Churchill's "barbarians" have also learned a great lesson — never again to underestimate the effectiveness of modern weapons.

Lt. Gen. Van Riper, possessing a measure of "Churchill's empathy with the opponents' situation," defeated the technologically superior power by refusing to fight them "conventionally … in some similar fashion" to the way they fought him.

That was only an exercise of course. But it would be reckless not to learn from it.