How the Weak Ivan Arreguín-T oft Win Wars ATheoryof Asymmetric Con ict

How the WeakWin Wars Noone hadgiven MuhammadAli achanceagainst George Foremanin the WorldHeavyweight ChampionshipŽ ght ofOctober 30, 1974. Foreman, none ofwhose opponents hadlasted more than three roundsin the ring, wasthe strongest,hardest hit- ting boxerof his generation. Ali, though notas powerful asForeman, had a slightly fasterpunch andwas lighter onhisfeet. In the weeks leading up tothe Žght,however ,Foremanhad practiced against nimble sparringpartners. He wasready .Butwhen the bell rangjust after 4:00 a.m. in Kinshasa,something completely unexpected happened. In roundtwo, instead of moving into the ring tomeet Foreman,Ali appeared tocoweragainst the ropes.Foreman, now conŽdent of victory,pounded him againand again, while Ali whispered hoarsetaunts: “ George,you’ re not hittin’,”“George,you disappoint me.” Fore- manlost his temper, andhis punches became afurious blur.Tospectators,un- awarethat the elasticring ropeswere absorbingmuch ofthe forceof Foreman’s blows,it looked as if Ali wouldsurely fall.By the Žfth round,how- ever, Foremanwas worn out. And in roundeight, asstunned commentators anda deliriouscrowd looked on, Muhammad Ali knocked George Foremanto the canvas,and the Žght wasover. The outcomeof thatnow-famous “ rumble in the jungle”was completely un- expected. The twoŽ ghterswere equally motivatedto win: Both had boasted of victory,andboth had enormous egos. Y et in the end, aŽghtthat should have been overin three roundswent eight, andForeman’ s prodigiouspunches proveduseless against Ali’ s rope-a-dope strategy. ThisŽ ghtillustrates an importantyet relativelyunexplored feature ofinter- statecon ict: how a weakactor ’sstrategycan make a strongactor ’spower ir-

IvanArreguí n-T oft is apostdoctoral fellow inthe International SecurityProgram at theBelfer Center for Scienceand International Affairs at Harvard University’s JohnF .KennedySchool of Government.

Theauthor wishes to thankStephen Biddle, David Edelstein, JohnGarafano, Charles Glaser, John Mearsheimer,Sharon Morris, Jordan Seng, Jessica Stern,W ardThomas, Monica Toft, Stephen Walt, participants in the Programon International Security Policy atthe University ofChicago, partici- pantsin the 1999–2000 National Security Seminarat the JohnM. Olin Institute forStrategic Studies atHarvardUniversity ,andthree anonymousreviewers fortheir helpful comments. Healsograte- fully acknowledges support fromthe Institute forthe Studyof W orld Politics andthe SmithRich- ardsonFoundation.

International Security, Vol.26, No. 1 (Summer 2001),pp. 93– 128 ©2001by the President and Fellows of HarvardCollege and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. International Security 26:194

relevant.1 If powerimplies victoryin war,then weakactors should almost never win againststronger opponents, especially when the gap in relative power isvery large. 2 Yet historysuggests otherwise: W eak actorssometimes do win.3 The questionis how . Understandingthe conditionsunder whichweak actors win warsis im- portantfor two reasons. First, if there aredynamics unique toasymmetric conicts— or if their analysisprovides fresh insightsinto symmetrical conicts— ageneral explanationof asymmetriccon ict outcomes is not only desirable but necessary,bothto reduce the likelihood ofunwinnable warsand toincreasethe chancesof U.S. successwhen aresortto arms is necessary .Sec- ond,because asymmetriccon icts ranging fromcatastrophic terrorism to mili- taryintervention in interstate,ethnic, and civil wars are the mostlikely threat toU.S. securityand interests, only ageneral theoryof asymmetriccon ict out- comescan guide U.S. policymakersin their effortsto build the kinds ofarmed andother forces necessary to implement aneffective U.S. strategicresponse. Thusfar ,only one scholarhas advanced a stronggeneral explanationof asymmetriccon ict outcomes. 4 In “Why Big NationsLose Small W ars,”An- drewMack argues that an actor ’srelativeresolve or interest explains success orfailure in asymmetriccon icts. 5 In essence, the actorwith the mostresolve

1.“ Actors”here meanstates orcoalitions of states,although the samedynamics would applyto governments Žghtingagainst rebels. “Conicts” in this analysisare restricted to wars(1,000 battle deathsper yearon average), although again, similar dynamicsmay apply in conicts thatare not wars(e.g., terrorism, tradewars, and labor disputes). Because this analysisfocuses onexplaining asymmetric conicts, it excludes those few warsin which the ratio of forces changeddramatically (toward symmetry)between the conict’ s beginningand end. 2.In this article Ifollow established practice byintroducing animperfect but quantiŽable proxy forpower. Astrongactor is one whose material power exceeds thatof its adversaryor adversaries byatleast ten to one.Material power is the product of agiven state’s population andarmed forces. “Strong”and “ weak”therefore havemeaning only in aparticular dyadiccontext: Italyin 1935is weakcompared with NaziGermany ,but strongcompared with Ethiopia. Foran introduction to the literature onempirical andquantiŽ able measures of relative power,see JohnJacob Nutter, “UnpackingThreat: A Conceptual andFormal Analysis,” in NormanA. Graham,ed., SeekingSecu- rityand Development: The Impact of MilitarySpending and Arms Transfers (Boulder, Colo.:Lynne Rienner, 1994),pp. 29–49. 3.T.V .Paul, Asymmetric Conicts: War Initiationby Weaker Powers (New York:Cambridge Univer- sity Press, 1994),p. 4. Paul’ s analysisfocuses onwhy weak states initiate warsagainst stronger ones.His threshold of analysisfor asymmetry is apower ratio of 1:2,where power is measuredin traditional—that is, material—terms. OnPaul’ s deŽnition of asymmetry,see ibid.,p. 20. On the problems of reducing power to material net assessments,see ibid.,p. 22; Nutter, “Unpacking Threat”; andMichael P.Fischerkeller,“David versus Goliath:Cultural Judgmentsin Asymmetric Wars,” SecurityStudies, Vol. 7,No.4 (Summer1998), pp. 1–43. 4.See Andrew J.R.Mack, “ WhyBig Nations Lose SmallW ars:The Politics of Asymmetric Conict,” WorldPolitics, Vol. 27,No. 2 (January1975), pp. 175–200. 5.Robert A.Papeconsiders Mack’s explanationas part of afamilyof balance-of-interest argu- ments,which closely approachbalance-of-resolve arguments.I agreethat they are analytically dis- How theWeak Win Wars 95

wins,regardless of materialpower resources. Mack contends that this resolve canbe derived aprioriby assessingthe structureof the conict relationship. Powerasymmetry explains interestasymmetry: The greaterthe gap inrelative power,the lessresolute and hence morepolitically vulnerable strongactors are,and the moreresolute and less politically vulnerable weakactors are. Big nationstherefore losesmall wars because frustratedpublics (in democraticre- gimes) orcountervailing elites (in authoritarianregimes) forcea withdrawal shortof militaryvictory .Thisseems true ofsome con icts, but notof others. In thisarticle I argue thatthe bestpredictor of asymmetric con ict outcomes isstrategic interaction. 6 Accordingto this thesis, the interactionof actorstrate- gies during aconict predicts con ict outcomes better thando competing ex- planations. 7 The Žrstsection lays out the puzzle ofstrong-actor defeat in asymmetriccon icts and Mack’ s interestasymmetry argument more fully .The secondsection introduces the strategicinteraction thesis, which holdsthat strongactors will loseasymmetric con icts when they use the wrongstrategy vis-à-vis their opponents’strategy .The next twosections offer quantitativeand qualitativetests of the argument.The articleconcludes by drawingout theoret- icaland policy implicationsof the strategicinteraction thesis and suggests ave- nues forfurther research. tinct, but this distinction does not matter in practice because the two motives invariablymove in the samedirection: Highinterest implies highresolve, andvice versa.I therefore use the two terms interchangeably.See Pape, Bombingto Win:Air Power andCoercion inWar (Ithaca,N.Y .:Cornell Uni- versity Press, 1996),p. 4, n.9. 6.My use of the term strategic interaction should not beconfused with its usagein formalmodels in which strategyis invoked asboth a proxyfor actor rationality (i.e.,strategic actors calculate risks andbeneŽ ts) andan attribute of states,especially greatpowers. See,for example, Curtis S. Signorino,“ Strategic Interaction andthe Statistical Analysis of InternationalCon ict,” American PoliticalScience Review, Vol. 93,No. 2 (June 1999),p. 279. On the distinction between rationalchoice treatments ofstrategy and strategy as traditionally used in strategic studies, see Pape, Bombing to Win, pp. 8–9. 7.Among these arenature of actor,arms diffusion, andrise ofnationalismarguments. The logic of the natureof actor argumentis thatbecause (1)democratic actors donot Žghtas well asauthori- tarianactors, and (2) an increase in strong-actorfailures in asymmetric conicts correlates with an increase in the total numberof asymmetric conicts involving democratic strongactors, actor re- gime type explains asymmetric conict outcomes. See Michael C.Desch, “Democracy andVictory: WhyRegime Type Does NotMatter (Much),” unpublished manuscript, University of Kentucky, September 2000.The arms diffusion argumentis astrandof offense-defense theorythat holds that the diffusion of relatively advancedsmall armsto the developing world causedthe costs of con- quest oroccupation to rise sufŽciently to offset expected beneŽts. Onoffense-defense theoryin general,see SeanM. Lynn-Jones,“ Offense-Defense Theoryand Its Critics,” SecurityStudies, Vol. 4, No.4 (Summer1995), pp. 660–691. The rise of nationalismargument holds thatafter W orld WarII, nationscame to believe thatonly through self-determination could theyprevent colonialist de- struction oftheir social fabric.In this view,the costs ofconquest andoccupation rose because na- tionalists aregenerally more stubborn,and more willing thanothers, to risk deathin pursuit of autonomy.See,for example, Eric R.Wolf, Peasant Wars of theTwentieth Century (New York:Harper andRow ,1973). International Security 26:196

ExplainingAsymmetric Con ict Outcomes

Since Thucydides, the rootprinciple ofinternationalrelations theory has been thatpower implies victoryin war. 8 Thus,in asymmetriccon icts 9 the strong actorshould almost always win. Indeed thisexpectation is on balance sup- ported(see Figure 1).Y et if one dividesthe roughly 200-yearperiod coveredin the Correlatesof War dataset, two related puzzles emerge (see Figure 2).First, weakactors were victoriousin nearly 30percent ofallasymmetric wars, which seemshigh given the ³ 5:1asymmetry represented here. Second, weakactors havewon with increasing frequency overtime. If relativepower explainsout- comes,and structure of the conict is held constantas in Figure 2,conict out- comesshould not shift over time as they have.What explains both strong-actor defeat in asymmetricwars and the trendtoward increasing weak-actor victo- riesover time? interestasymmetry ,or relativepower revisited Andrew Mack’s explanationfor how weak states win asymmetricwars com- prisesthree key elements: (1) relativepower explains relative interests; (2) rela- tiveinterests explain relativepolitical vulnerability; and(3) relativevulner- abilityexplains why strongactors lose. According to the logicof thisargument, strongactors have a lowerinterest in winning because their survivalis not at stake.W eak actors,on the otherhand, have a high interestin winning because only victoryensures their survival. 10 Mackintroduces the conceptof political vulnerability todescribe the likelihood thatan actor ’spublic (in democratic

8.Throughout this article the term international relations theoryrefers to asimple version of real- ist theorywith three keyelements: (1)there is noauthority above states thatis capableof regulat- ingtheir interactions; (2)all states havesome capacity to harmother states;and (3) states therefore seek to increase their relative power, which candeter other states fromlaunching attacks, intimi- datethem into makingconcessions, ordefeat them in war. 9.In this analysisthe threshold ofasymmetrythat matters is ³ 5:1in favorof strongactors, where power is the halved product of astrongactor ’sarmedforces andpopulation atthe startof a conict versus the simple product of the weakactor ’sarmedforces andpopulation. Halving strong-actorpower simulates the tendency ofstrong actors to havediverse security interests and commitments. Datafor this survey come primarily fromJ. David Singerand Melvin Small, Resort to Arms: International andCivil Wars, 1816–1980 (Beverly Hills, Calif.:Sage, 1992). Additional data arefrom W alter Laqueur, Guerrilla:A Historical andCritical Study (Boston:Little, Brown,1976); and John Ellis, From theBarrel of aGun:A History of Guerrilla,Revolutionary, and Counter-Insurgency War- fare, from theRomans to thePresent (London:Greenhill, 1995).Cases used in this analysisare listed in the appendix. 10.The classic work onthis point is Glenn H.Snyderand Paul Diesing. See Snyderand Diesing, Conict among Nations: Bargaining,Decision Making, and System Structure in International Crises (Princeton, N.J.:Princeton University Press, 1977),p. 190. See alsoMack, “ WhyBig Nations Lose SmallWars,” p. 181. How theWeak Win Wars 97

Figure1. Percentage of Asymmetric Conflict Victories by T ypeof Actor, 1800± 1998.

Figure2. Percentage of Asymmetric Conflict Victories by T ypeof Actor in Four Fifty- YearPeriods.

regimes) orcompeting elites (in authoritarianregimes) will forceits leaders tohalt the warshort of achieving itsinitial objectives. 11 Astrongactor ’slow interestsimply high politicalvulnerability .In contrast,a weakactor ’shigh interestsimply lowpolitical vulnerability .Mackargues that this political vulnerability explains why the stronglose to the weak: 12 Delays andreverses onthe battle-Želd will eventually encourage war-wearypublics orgreedy elites toforce the strongactor ’sleadersto abandon the Žght.Mack’ s argu- menttherefore reduces tothe claimthat relative power explainsstrong-actor defeat in asymmetricwars: Power asymmetry determines interestasym- metry(high powerequals low interest). Interest asymmetry is the key

11.Ibid., pp. 180–182. 12.Ibid., pp. 194–195. International Security 26:198

causalmechanism, and Mack’ s thesisis in thissense aninterest asymmetry argument. Mackapplies thislogic to the caseof U.S. interventionin Vietnam,where it appearsto provide astrongexplanation of thatwar ’sunexpected outcome. Accordingto Mack, the United Stateslost the warbecause ithad less at stake thandid North Vietnam. Over time the United Statesfailed tocoerce North Vietnamand was eventually forcedby anangryand frustrated American pub- licto withdraw short of achieving itsmain political objective: aviable,inde- pendent, noncommunistSouth Vietnam. Mack’s interestasymmetry thesis has at least three problems.First, relative power isa poorpredictor of relativeinterest or resolve in peace orwar. In peacetime, astrongstate may act as if itssurvival is at stakewhen itis not. A statethat imagines itself “leader ofthe free world,”for example, mightratio- nallycalculate that although the defeat ofanallyin adistantcivil war would be materiallyinsigniŽ cant, its own survival as a free-world leader depends on afavorableoutcome. These calculationsare often intensiŽed by dominologic, in whicha seriesof individually insigniŽcant interests are linked sothat their cumulativeloss constitutes a materialthreat to survival.Prior to the South Af- ricanW ar(1899– 1902), 13 forexample, GreatBritain had calculated that the fate ofitsempire hinged onprotectingIndia, which demanded thatBritain secure the sea-lanesof communicationpassing the Cape ofGoodHope. Thisin turn required controlof Cape Colony,whichmade it imperative to resistwith force the independence demandsof two tiny republics in the hinterlandsof the southernmostregion ofAfrica. Similarly ,bothidentity survivaland domino rationalesin uenced the U.S. decisionto intervene in the civilwar in Viet- nam.14 Once strongactors enter intoa conict— even one acknowledged to havebeen initiallyperipheral totheir interests—their resolveto win mayin- creasedramatically .Thiswas as true ofSoviet calculationsin Afghanistanas it wasof U.S. calculationsin Vietnam. 15 Second, the operationof politicalvulner- ability,whichMack uses to explain weak-actorsuccess, presupposes aspanof

13.The South African Waris what historians formerly called the BoerWar. The new namemore accurately reects the important role playedby black South Africans in the war,and for this reason Irefer to the BoerW aras the SouthAfrican Warthroughoutthis article. 14.See, for example, GeorgeC. Herring, America’s LongestWar: TheUnited States andVietnam, 1950–1975, 2ded.(New York:McGraw-Hill, 1986),p. 170; and Stanley Karnow , Vietnam: AHistory (New York:Viking, 1983), pp. 169–170, 377– 378, 399, 423. 15.On Soviet calculations in Afghanistan,see RalphH. Magnusand Eden Naby , Afghanistan:Mul- lah,Marx, and Mujahid (Boulder, Colo.:W estview,1998),pp. 68,122. For particularly aptexamples fromthe U.S.intervention in Vietnam,see Herring, America’s LongestWar , p. 222. How theWeak Win Wars 99

time.But nothing in the interestasymmetry thesis explains why someasym- metriccon icts end quickly,yet othersdrag on. 16 Third,if the interestasymme- trythesis is right, there shouldbe littleor no variation over time in the distributionof asymmetriccon ict outcomes when relativepower isheld con- stant.But as shown in Figure 2(in whichrelative power is held constant), weakactors are increasingly winning asymmetriccon icts. In sum,Mack’ s interestasymmetry thesis is weakest when explaining actor interestsas a function ofrelative power ,andstrongest when explaining strong- actorfailure asa consequence ofpolitical vulnerability .In the next sectionI present atheoryof asymmetric con ict outcomes that subsumes Mack’ s thesis by bracketing the conditionsunder which politicalvulnerability causesstrong actorsto lose asymmetric wars.

TheStrategic Interaction Thesis: A Theoryof AsymmetricCon ict

Thissection introduces the strategicinteraction thesis as ageneral explanation ofasymmetric con ict outcomes. It begins withdeŽ nitions of key terms,fol- lowedby anexplorationof the theory’s logic,and concludes with several de- rived hypotheses. strategy Strategy,asdeŽ ned here, refers toan actor ’splan forusing armedforces to achieve militaryor political objectives. 17 Strategiesincorporate an actor ’sun- derstanding(rarely explicit) aboutthe relativevalues of these objectives. 18 In

16.Mack recognizes this problem explicitly,bysuggestingthat guerrilla warfarestrategy explains the longer durationof asymmetric conicts. See Mack,“ WhyBig Nations Lose SmallWars,” p. 195. But this argumentsuffers fromtwo related problems: (1)weak actors donot alwaysdefend with guerrilla warfare(this limits the generalityof Mack’ s theory);and (2) some defenders usingguer- rilla warfarestrategy are defeated quickly (this limits his theory’s explanatorypower). 17.The meaning of strategyis bothcomplicated andconstantly evolving. JohnJ. Mearsheimer uses perhapsthe simplest deŽnition— ”the planof attack.”See Mearsheimer, ConventionalDeter- rence (Ithaca,N.Y .:Cornell University Press, 1983),pp. 28–29. For a discussion of strategyand its evolution, see B.H.Liddell Hart, Strategy, 2ded.(New York:Praeger, 1967), pp. 333–346; and J.P . Charnay,“Strategy,”in AndréCorvisier andJohn Childs, eds., Chris T urner,trans., ADictionaryof MilitaryHistory andthe Art of War (Cambridge,Mass.: Blackwell, 1994),pp. 768–774. 18.This lackof explicitness is animportant component of strategybecause guessingwrong about how anadversaryvalues its objectives canlead to unexpected outcomes. U.S.strategy in Vietnam, forexample, assumedthat after sustaining a certain level of casualties, NorthVietnam would no longer bewilling to support the insurgencyin the South.The search for this breakingpoint, and uncertainty over whether it would haveany political utility,bitterly divided the Johnsonadminis- tration.There may in fact havebeen a breakingpoint in Vietnam,but asU.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamaraconcluded in 1967,reaching that point would haveresulted in virtual genocide. International Security 26:1100

thissense, strategy should be distinguished fromtwo closely related terms: grandstrategy and tactics. Grand strategy refers tothe totalityof an actor’sre- sourcesdirected toward military ,political,economic, or other objectives. T ac- ticsrefers tothe artof Ž ghting battlesand of using the variousarms of the military—for example, infantry,armor,andartillery— on terrain and in posi- tionsthat are favorable to them. 19 Grandstrategy ,strategy,andtactics all de- scribe different pointson acontinuumof agiven actor’smeanstoward a single end: compelling anotherto do its will. The followingtypology of ideal-type strategiesis a useful startingpoint for analysis: Attack(strong actor) strategies: 1.direct attack 2.barbarism Defense (weak actor)strategies: 1.direct defense 2.guerrilla warfarestrategy

Thistypology includes twoassumptions: (1) strongactors initiated the asym- metriccon ict in question,and therefore “strongactor” and “ attacker”are syn- onymous;20 and(2) these ideal-type strategiesare war-winning ratherthan war-terminationstrategies. 21 directattack. Directattack means the use ofthe militaryto capture or eliminate anadversary’ s armedforces, thereby gaining controlof thatoppo- nent’s values.The maingoal is to win the warby destroyingthe adversary’s capacityto resist with armed forces. Both attrition and blitzkrieg aredirect-

See Steven Rosen,“ WarPower andthe Willingness to Suffer,”in Bruce M.Russett, ed., Peace, War, and Numbers (Beverly Hills, Calif.:Sage, 1972), pp. 167–168; John Mueller, “TheSearch for the ‘BreakingPoint’ in Vietnam:The Statistics of aDeadly Quarrel,” International StudiesQuarterly, Vol. 24,No. 4 (December 1980),pp. 497–519; Frederick Z.Brown,“ Commenton Mueller: American Misperceptions,”ibid., pp. 525–529; and Karnow , Vietnam: AHistory, pp. 454,596. 19.This deŽ nition of tactics is aparaphraseof onefrom the LittréDictionary asquoted by Charnay , “Strategy,”p.770. 20.Of course, empirically,strongactors arenot alwaysthe initiators in asymmetric conicts. Paul counts twenty weak-actor-initiated conicts from394 b.c. to 1993,of which eleven areincluded here.See Paul, Asymmetric Conicts, pp. 3–4. 21.In eight asymmetric conicts (4.1percent), the outcome wasaffected bya wartermination or conciliation strategy.Conciliation strategies include the use of bribes,offers of amnesty,power sharing,and political reforms,and do not require armedforces to implement. Examplesof asym- metric conicts thatended as the result ofaconciliation strategyinclude the Murid War(1830–59), the ThirdSeminole War(1855– 58), the Malayanemergency (1948– 57), the British-Cypriot conict (1954–59), and the Philippine-Moro conict (1972–80). How theWeak Win Wars 101

attackstrategies. 22 Some readersmay Ž nd inclusionof the blitzkrieg in this deŽnition puzzling, because itseems the very deŽnition of an indirect attack strategy.23 Butbecause armoredformations target enemy armedforces (the ad- versary’s capacity toresist)in ablitzkrieg, itcounts as anindirecttactic but adi- rectstrategy . 24 Historically,the mostcommon pattern of a direct-attackstrategy has been one in which anattacker ’sforcesadvance to capture a defender’svalues(a capitalcity ,anindustrialor communicationscenter ,orabridge) orstrategicas- sets(defensible terrainor afort)and the defender movesto thwartthat effort. Abattleor seriesof battles ensue, sometimesmarked by lulls lastingentire sea- sons,until one side admitsdefeat. barbarism. Barbarismis the systematicviolation of the lawsof warin pur- suitof amilitaryor political objective. 25 Although thisdeŽ nition includes the use ofprohibited weaponssuch as chemicaland biological agents, its most im- portantelement isdepredations against noncombatants (viz., rape, murder , andtorture). 26 Unlike otherstrategies, barbarism has been used todestroy an adversary’s will andcapacity to Ž ght.When will isthe targetin astrategic

22.Mearsheimer ’sdeŽnitions of three main-attackstrategies— blitzkrieg, attrition, andlimited aims—provide auseful startingpoint forthe variations Iintroduce here.See Mearsheimer, Conven- tional Deterrence, pp. 29–30, 33– 43, 53– 56. 23.A blitzkrieg features mobile armoredformations— tanks supported bymotorized infantry ,mo- bile artillery,andtactical airsupport— concentrating their attackagainst a narrowportion of ade- fender’s extended position (usually thoughtof asa line). Once the enemy’s line is penetrated, insteadof turningimmediately to engage ankedforces, armoredcolumns penetrate deep into the defender’srearareas, cutting communications, capturing supplies, andgenerally making it impos- sible fornow-isolated forward-deployed defenders to coordinate adefense. As aresult, “anoppo- nent canbe disarmed without numerous battles of annihilation.”See ibid.,p. 30. 24.Mearsheimer notes thata successful blitzkrieg encirclement often results in the destruction of a surroundedunit’ s will to resist. See ibid.,p. 38. Although in the case ofblitzkrieg the impact is re- stricted to the unit level (tactical), the observation supports the association between indirectness andwill proposed here. 25.The laws of warhave evolved considerablyover time. As used here theyinclude the Hague Conventions of 1899and 1907, the Genocide Convention of 1948,the FourGeneva Conventions of 1949,and the Two Additional Protocols to the GenevaConventions of 1977.On the laws ofwar andtheir historical development, see AndréCorvisier andBarry Paskins, “ Lawsof War,”in Corvisier andChilds, ADictionaryof MilitaryHistory andthe Art of War, pp. 443–453; Michael Walzer, Justand Unjust Wars: AMoral Argumentwith Historical Illustrations, 2ded. (New York:Basic Books,1992); and Michael Howard,George J. Andreopoulos, andMark R. Shulman,eds., The Laws of War: Constraints on Warfare inthe Western World (New Haven,Conn.: Y ale University Press, 1994).For a concise collection of the documents themselves, see AdamRoberts andRichard Guelff, Documents on theLaws of War, 3ded. (New York:Oxford University Press, 2000). 26.See, for example, Walzer, Justand Unjust Wars, p.151. Chemical andbiological weapons have beentraditionally included in this categorybecause theyare inherently indiscriminate. Deliberate destruction ofadefender’s naturalenvironment (throughdeforestation, drainingof swamps,etc.) is alsoa violation ofthe laws ofwarfor the samereason. See MarkPerry and Ed Miles, “Environ- International Security 26:1102

bombing campaign,for example, the strongactor seeks tocoerce its weaker opponent intochanging itsbehavior by inicting pain (destroying itsvalues). 27 When will isthe targetin acounterinsurgency (COIN) campaign,the strong actorattempts to deter would-be insurgentsthrough, for instance, a policy of reprisalsagainst noncombatants. 28 Strongactors can also target a weakactor ’s capacityto sustain an insurgency by,forexample, the use ofconcentration camps.29 Historically,the mostcommon forms of barbarism include the mur- der ofnoncombatants(e.g., prisonersof waror civiliansduring combatopera- tions);the use ofconcentration camps; 30 andsince 1939,strategic bombing againsttargets of no military value. 31

mental Warfare,”in RoyGutman and David Rieff, Crimes of War: Whatthe Public Should Know (New York:W .W.Norton,1999), pp. 132–135. 27.The classic work here is ThomasC. Schelling, Arms andIn uence (New Haven,Conn.: Yale Uni- versity Press, 1966),especially chaps.1 and4. See alsoRobert A.Pape,Jr .,“Coercive Air Power in the Vietnam War,” International Security, Vol. 15,No. 2 (Fall1990), pp. 103–146; and Pape, Bombing to Win. Intheory ,it is possible to employ strategic airpower to targetan adversary’s capacity to Žghtby using air forces to destroyor interdict supplies, demolish keycommunications points (railroadjunctions, bridges,and airŽ elds), orlevel armsfactories. Ifit were possible to doso with- out killing noncombatants,this would count asadirect-attack strategy.But in practice—even tak- inginto account advancesin precision-guided munitions—strategic airpower is too ablunt weapon,and noncombatants are killed disproportionate to the military necessity of destroyingthe targets.NATO’ s strategic aircampaign in Kosovo in 1999is acase in point. See,for example, Inde- pendent InternationalCommission on Kosovo, Kosovo Report:Con ict, International Response,Les- sons Learned (New York:Oxford University Press, 2000),pp. 92–94. 28.Such reprisals typically include executing randomlyselected civilians in retaliation forthe kill- ingof anoccupying soldier. See,for example, Robert Asprey, War inthe Shadows: The Classic History of Guerrilla Warfare from AncientPersia to thePresent (New York:Little, Brown,1994), p. 108. 29.Insurgent intelligence andsupport networks depend onthe participation ofsympathetic non- combatants,and concentration campsdisrupt these networks. See,for example, Donald W.Hamil- ton, TheArt of Insurgency:American MilitaryPolicy and the Failure of Strategyin Southeast Asia (Westport, Conn.:Praeger, 1998), p. 59; and Paula M. Krebs,“ ‘TheLast of the Gentlemen’s Wars’: Womenin the Boer WarConcentration Camp Controversy ,” History Workshop Journal, No. 33 (Spring1992), pp. 41–42. 30.The British used concentration campsas aCOINstrategy during the SouthAfrican War.Al- thoughnot intended bythe British, asmany as 28,000 Boer women andchildren died in these camps—more thanthe combined total ofcombatant casualties fromboth sides. Onthe use of con- centration campsas aCOINstrategy ,see JohnEllis, AShortHistory of Guerrilla Warfare (New York: St.Martin’ s, 1976), p. 111. On their use andconsequences in the SouthAfrican War,see Christiaan De Wet, TheThree Y ears’War (New York:Charles Scribner ’sSons,1902), pp. 192–193; Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War (New York:Random House, 1979), chap. 29 andpp. 607–608; and Krebs, “‘TheLast of the Gentlemen’s Wars.’” 31.Allied bombingof Dresden is acommonexample. See RonaldSchaffer, Wingsof Judgment: American Bombingin World War II (New York:Oxford University Press, 1985),pp. 97–99. On the subject ofstrategic bombingas coercion againstNazi Germany more generally,see Pape, Bombing to Win, pp. 260–262. In terms of Pape’s argument,strategic bombingthat targets noncombatants would count asbarbarism.When air power is used to targetenemy forces, it would count asadi- rect-attack strategy.Attacks oninfrastructure andindustry aremore problematic: Noncombatants arenot targets,but those who employ this strategyknow beforehand that noncombatants will be killed in such attacks. How theWeak Win Wars 103

directdefense. Directdefense refers tothe use ofarmed forces to thwart anadversary’s attemptto capture or destroy values such as territory ,popula- tion,and strategic resources. Like direct-attackstrategies, these strategiestar- get anopponent’ s military.The aimis to damage an adversary’ s capacityto attackby crippling itsadvancing or proximate armed forces. Examples include limitedaims strategies, static defense, forwarddefense, defense in depth, and mobile defense. 32 The inclusionhere of limitedaims strategies may seem counterintuitive. Like preemptive orpreventive attackstrategies, these strategiesbegin withan initialoffensive— say ,attackingconcentrations of enemy armedforces across aninternationalborder— but their ultimateaims are defensive. 33 Limitedaims strategiestarget an adversary’s capacityto attackby destroyingvital strategic forcesor by seizing key strategicassets (territory ,bridges, promontories,etc.). They aremost often employed by weakactors that have initiated wars against strongactors. 34 Examplesinclude Japan’s airassault on Pearl Harborin 1941 andEgypt’ s attackon Israel in 1973. guerrillawarfare. Guerrillawarfare strategy (GWS) isthe organization ofaportionof societyfor the purpose ofimposingcosts on anadversaryusing armedforces trained to avoid direct confrontation. 35 These costsinclude the lossof soldiers,supplies, infrastructure,peace of mind,and most important, time.36 Although GWSprimarilytargets opposing armedforces and their supportresources, its goal is to destroy not the capacitybut the will of the attacker.37

32.For full summarydescriptions, see Mearsheimer, ConventionalDeterrence, pp. 48–50. 33.Ibid., pp. 53–56. 34.Ibid., pp. 24–26, 168. 35.A related strategyis terrorism, which commonlyhas political objectives similar to GWS.The logic ofmost terrorism mirrors thatof coercive strategic bombing.A largelyurban phenomenon, terrorism seeks either to inict painon noncombatantsso theywill pressure their government to accede to the terrorists’political demands,or to delegitimize agovernment asameansto replace orcoerce it. Thisimplies thatthe strategywill bemost effective when citizens havea sayin their government’s policies. 36.On this point especially,see SamuelHuntington’ s remarksin StanleyHoffmann, Samuel P . Huntington,Ernest R.May,RichardN. Neustadt,and Thomas C. Schelling, “Vietnam Reap- praised,” International Security, Vol. 6,No. 1 (Summer1981), p. 7. See alsoEliot A.Cohen,“ Con- straints onAmerica’ s Conductof SmallW ars,” International Security, Vol. 9,No.2 (Fall1984), p. 157. 37.For general introductions to GWS,see Laqueur, Guerrilla; Ellis, From theBarrel of aGun; Asprey, War inthe Shadows; andAnthony James Joes, Guerrilla Warfare: AHistorical, Biographical,and Biblio- graphicalSourcebook (Westport, Conn.:Greenwood, 1996).On Chinese andCuban variations of GWS,see MaoT se-tung, OnGuerrilla Warfare, trans.Samuel B. GrifŽth (New York:Praeger, 1961); EdwardL. Katzenbachand Gene Z.Hanrahan,“ TheRevolutionary Strategyof MaoT se-Tung,” PoliticalScience Quarterly, Vol. 70,No. 3 (September 1955),pp. 321–340; Che Guevara, Guerrilla War- fare (New York:Monthly Review ,1961);and Regis Debray, Revolutionin the Revolution? (New York: Penguin,1968). International Security 26:1104

GWSrequires twoelements: (1) physicalsanctuary (e.g., swamps,moun- tains,thick forest, or jungle) orpoliticalsanctuary (e.g., weakly defended bor- der areasor border areas controlled by sympatheticstates), and (2) a supportivepopulation (to supply Žghterswith intelligence andlogistical sup- port,as well asreplacements).The methodof GWSiswell summarizedby per- hapsits most famous practitioner, Mao T se-tung: “In guerrilla warfare,select the tacticof seeming tocome from the eastand attacking from the west;avoid the solid,attack the hollow;attack; withdraw; deliver alightning blow,seek a lightning decision.When guerrillasengage astrongerenemy ,they withdraw when he advances;harass him when he stops;strike him when he isweary; pursue him when he withdraws.In guerrilla strategy,the enemy’s rear, anks, andother vulnerable spotsare his vital points, and there hemustbe harassed, attacked,dispersed, exhausted, and annihilated.” 38 GWSisnot a strategyfor obtaining a quick, decisive defeat ofinvading or occupying forces. 39 Moreover,because guerrillascannot hold or defend partic- ularareas, they donot provide securityfor their familieswhile onoperations orwhen demobilized toawait new missions.GWS istherefore astrategythat requires placing key values(e.g., farms,family ,religious orculturalsites, and towns)directly in the handsof the adversary.Logicallythen, importantcosts ofadoptinga GWSdepend onboththe purpose andthe restraintof the adver- sary.40 When invadingor occupying forcesdo not exercise restraintin the use of force,or when their purpose isthe destructionof aweakactor ’speople, GWScanbecome aprohibitively expensive defensive strategy. thelogic ofstrategic interaction Every strategyhas an idealcounterstrategy .Actorsable topredict their adver- sary’s strategycan therefore dramaticallyimprove their chancesof victory by choosingand implementing thatcounterstrategy .Mao,for example, argued that“ defeat isthe invariableoutcome where nativeforces Ž ght withinferior weaponsagainst modernized forces on thelatter’ s terms. ”41 Mao’s maximsug- geststhat when the weakŽ ght the strong,the interactionof somestrategies will favorthe weak,while otherswill favorthe strong.

38.Tse-tung, OnGuerrilla Warfare, p. 46. 39.See, for example, Hamilton, TheArt of Insurgency, p. 27. 40.In March 1900 the British captured the Žrst Boer capital, Bloemfontein. Thesurviving Boer commandersgathered to decide whether to surrender orkeep Žghting.The commanders were closely divided, but tipping the balancein favorof continued—guerrilla— resistance wasfaith in British civility.TheBoer ultimately foundtheir faithunjustiŽ ed. See De Wet, TheThree Y ears’War, pp. 192–193. 41.Quoted in Mack,“ WhyBig Nations Lose SmallW ars,”p. 176 (emphasis in original). How theWeak Win Wars 105

Building onMao’ s insight,I argue thatthe universe ofpotential strategies andcounterstrategies can be reduced totwo distinct ideal-type strategicap- proaches:direct and indirect. 42 Directapproaches target an adversary’s armed forcesin orderto destroy that adversary’ s capacityto Ž ght.Indirect ap- proachesseek todestroyan adversary’ s will toŽght:T owardthis end, aGWS targetsenemy sodiers,and barbarism targets enemy noncombatants. 43 Same- approachinteractions (direct-direct or indirect-indirect) imply defeat forweak actorsbecause there isnothing to mediate or deect a strongactor ’spowerad- vantage.These interactionswill therefore be resolvedquickly .Bycontrast,op- posite-approachinteractions (direct-indirect orindirect-direct) imply victory forweak actors because the strongactor ’spoweradvantage is de ected or dodged.44 These therefore tend tobe protracted,with time favoring the weak. 45 In asymmetriccon icts when strategicinteraction causes an unexpected de- laybetween the commitmentof armedforces and the attainmentof militaryor politicalobjectives, strong actors tend tolose for two reasons. First, although allcombatants tend tohave in ated expectations of victory, 46 strongactors in asymmetriccon icts are particularly susceptible tothis problem. 47 If power implies victory,then anoverwhelming poweradvantage implies anover- whelming—and rapid— victory .Aswar against a Lilliputian opponent drags on,however ,dramaticoverestimates of success force political and military elites in the strongstate to escalate the use offorceto meet expectations(thus increasingthe costsof aconict) or risklooking increasingly incompetent.Ei- therway ,domesticpressure toend the conict is likely toresult.And asMack highlights in hisdiscussion of political vulnerability ,the longer awardrags on, the greaterthe chancesare that the strongactor will simply abandonthe war effort,regardless of the militarystate of affairson the ground.Strong actors alsolose asymmetric wars when, in attemptingto avoid increasing costs— such asdeclaring war ,mobilizingreserves, raising taxes, or sustaining additional

42.This reduction of strategies to two mutually exclusive types is well established in the strategic studies literature. See,for example, AndréCorvisier andJohn Childs, “ Indirect Warfare,”in Corvisier andChilds, ADictionaryof MilitaryHistory andthe Art of War, p.378; and Liddell Hart, Strategy, pp. 197,361– 364. 43.For a similar deŽnition, see Pape,“ Coercive Air Power in the Vietnam War,”pp. 106–107. 44.In GWS, an attacker’ s armedforces arephysically avoided orengaged only on favorable terms. Ina blockadeor strategic bombingcampaign against a direct defense in alimited war,the strongactor ’sdestructive power is deected, because such attacksinvariably place the noncomba- tantpopulation between attackersand political elites. 45.On the importance ofconict durationas acost ofconict, see Mearsheimer, ConventionalDe- terrence, p.24; and Katzenbach and Hanrahan, “ TheRevolutionary Strategyof MaoT se-Tung,” pp. 324–326. 46.See GeoffreyBlainey , TheCauses of War, 3ded. (New York:Free Press, 1988),p. 53. 47.See, for example, Mack,“ WhyBig Nations Lose SmallW ars,”pp. 181–182. International Security 26:1106

casualties—they yield tothe temptationto employ barbarism.Barbarism con- servesfriendly forces,but even when militarilyeffective itis risky: 48 Barbarism carriesthe possibilityof domesticpolitical discovery (and opposition) as well asexternal intervention. strategicinteraction: explaining the trend. My explanationfor the trendtoward increasing strong-actor failure issuggested bothby the timingof the biggest shiftin outcomesfavoring weak actors (1950– 98) and by the logic ofKenneth Waltz’s argumentthat actors in acompetitiveinternational system “socialize”to similar policies and strategies. As Waltzargues, “ The fateof each statedepends onits responses to what other states do. The possibilitythat conict will be conductedby forceleads to competitionin the artsand the in- strumentsof force.Competition produces a tendency towardthe samenessof the competitors.”49 Thissaid, what is the appropriatespatial context for socialization? I argue thatsocialization works regionally ,andthat after W orldW arII twodifferent patternsof socialization emerged in twodifferent regionsof the world.In the blitzkrieg pattern,success was measured by the capacityto produce and deploy largemechanized and combined-armed forces designed todestroy anadversary’ s armedforces and capture its values without costly battles of annihilation.This model was imitated by the United States,its European allies, the Soviet Union,and to some extent Japan. In the guerrilla warfarepattern, successwas measured by the abilityto prosecutea protractedcon ict against atechnologicallysuperior foe. Mao’s long Žght for,and eventual conquest of,China was a modelcopied by Algerian rebels, the Vietminh, the Hukbalahap,Cuban insurgents,Malayan communists, and to a largeex- tentthe Mujahideen. 50 The blitzkrieg modelemphasizes direct strategic ap- proaches;the guerrilla warfaremodel, indirect strategic approaches. When the twointeract systematically ,strongactors should lose more often. These patternsof socializationsuggest that actors on the thresholdof armed conict are not entirely free tochoose an ideal strategy for two reasons. First, forces,equipment, andtraining— all closely integrated— are not fungible. Moreover,the development andprosecution of an actor ’sidealstrategy may

48.Mack correctly emphasizesthat barbarism is judgedin proportion to the relative power ofthe actors:W eakactors will beforgiven abusesfor which strongactors will behanged. See ibid., pp. 186–187. 49.Kenneth N.Waltz, Theoryof International Politics (New York:McGraw-Hill, 1979),p. 127. 50.On Mao’ s revolutionary guerrilla warfareas template, see Hamilton, TheArt of Insurgency, p.18; and Katzenbach and Hanrahan, “ TheRevolutionary Strategyof MaoTse-T ung,”p. 322. How theWeak Win Wars 107

be blocked by contraryorganizational interests or traditions. 51 Second, actors prioritizethreats: If the United Statesand Soviet Union,for example, identiŽed eachother as the primarythreat, and both calculated that the mostlikely area of directconfrontation would be the heartof Europe, then adoptingwar- winning strategies,forces, equipment, anddoctrines favorable to winning that sortof war would be asoundstrategy . hypotheses:strategic interaction and conflict outcomes Thissection explores the logicof four distinctstrategic interactions and ex- plainshow hypotheses derived fromeach can be reduced toasingle hypothe- sis.The expected relationshipof strategicapproach interactions to outcomesin asymmetriccon icts is summarized in Figure 3. directattack versus direct defense. In thisinteraction both actors make similarassumptions about the priorityof values over which they will Žght. Bothcan therefore be expected toagree aboutthe implicationsof acatastrophic lossin battle,the rules ofwar,or the captureof acapitalcity .Becausein thisin- teractionnothing mediatesbetween relativematerial power and outcomes, strongactors should win quickly anddecisively . Hypothesis1: When strongactors attack usinga directstrategy and weak actors de- fendusing a directstrategy, all other things being equal, strong actors shouldwin quicklyand decisively.

directattack versus indirect defense. Unlike directstrategies, which involvethe use offorces trained and equipped toŽ ght asorganized units againstother similarly trained and equipped forces,indirect defense strategies typicallyrely onirregular armed forces (i.e., forcesdifŽ cult to distinguishfrom noncombatantswhen notin actualcombat). As a result,an attacker ’sforces tend tokill orinjure noncombatantsduring operations,which tendsto stimu- lateweak-actor resistance. Most important, because indirectdefense strategies sacriŽce valuesfor time, 52 they necessarilytake longer toresolve so long as weakactors continue tohave access to sanctuary and social support. 53 In asymmetriccon icts, delay favorsthe weak.

51.See, for example, Andrew F.Krepinevich, Jr., TheArmy andVietnam (Baltimore, Md.:Johns HopkinsUniversity Press,1986); Susan L. Marquis, UnconventionalWarfare: RebuildingU.S. Special Operations Forces (Washington,D.C.: Brookings, 1997); Cohen, “ Constraintson America’ s Conduct of SmallW ars,”pp. 152–154; and Asprey , War inthe Shadows, p. 836. 52.See Katzenbachand Hanrahan, “ TheRevolutionary Strategyof MaoTse-T ung,”pp. 325–326. 53.Although aGWSrequires sanctuaryand social support, mere access to them in nowayman- datesits adoption.French forces, forexample, hadaccess to bothas they faced defeat in the International Security 26:1108

Figure3. Expected Effects of Strategic Interaction on Conflict Outcomes (expected winnersin cells).

Hypothesis2: When strongactors attack witha directstrategy and weak actors defend usingan indirectstrategy, all other things being equal, weak actors shouldwin. indirectattack versus direct defense. Becausethe overwhelming force availableto the strongactor implies successagainst a weakadversary that at- temptsa directdefense, anattacker’suse ofanindirectstrategy in thiscontext targetsthe defender’swill toresist. Prior to the adventof strategicair power andlong-range artillery(e.g., the V-1and V -2rockets in WorldW arII), block- adesand sieges were the only meansof coercingadversaries in thisway .Today strategicbombing campaigns 54 arethe mostcommon form of indirectattack againstdirect defense. Ascoercive strategies intended todestroyan adversary’ s will toresist,stra- tegic bombing campaignstend tobackŽ re, stimulating precisely the sortof re- solvethey aimto break: German bombing ofLondondid not cow the British intosurrender ,asAdolf Hitlerand Hermann Gö ring expected. Insteadit stiff- ened Britishresolve. Strong actors will losethese interactionsbecause they are time-consumingand tend towardbarbarism. 55

Franco-PrussianWar in 1870.France actively considered adoptinga GWSafterits disastrous de- featat Sedan. Y et threatenedwith the loss of Paris,France surrendered instead.See Michael Howard, TheFranco-Prussian War (New York:Methuen, 1961), pp. 249–250. 54. Pape, Bombingto Win, chap.6, hasshown thatstrategic bombingor “ punishment”strategies rarelywork (andthat they cannot work againstindirect defense strategies, such asGWS). See also MarkClodfelter , TheLimits of Air Power: TheAmerican Bombingof North Vietnam (New York:Free Press, 1989).If Pape is right andtactical airpower is highlyeffective asameansto coerce anadver- sary,then tactical airsupport thataccepts collateral damageshould become increasingly common; and“ humanshield” defense of,say ,armoredor transport columns would become anincreasingly commoncountermeasure. 55.Strategic bombingcampaigns usually startout with the intent to sparenoncombatants— often to the point ofputting pilots andtheir crews atconsiderable risk (e.g.,by yinglower orslower)— How theWeak Win Wars 109

Hypothesis3: When strongactors attack usingan indirectstrategy and weak actors defendusing a directstrategy, all other things being equal, strong actors shouldlose. indirectattack versus indirect defense. Indirectdefense strategiespre- suppose acertainlevel ofmoralrestraint on the partof attackers.When strong actorsemploy astrategythat ignores such restraint, weak actors are unlikely towin— both because there wouldbe noone left towin for,andbecause GWSdepends directlyon a networkof socialsupport for intelligence, logisti - calassistance, and replacements. 56 Barbarismworks as a COINstrategy be- causeby attackingeither orboth of the essentialelements ofa GWS— sanctuaryand social assistance— itdestroys an adversary’ s capacityto Ž ght. Forexample, in the Murid War—the Russianempire’ s struggle toconquer the Muslim tribesof the CaucasusMountains from 1830 to 1859— the Russians found thatthey couldnot make any headway against the mountainMurids because of severe attritionand supply problemsassociated with passing throughthe heavy beech forestsof Chechnya. The Muridsraided Russian fortsand settlements from mountain fortresses that were virtuallyimpreg- nable toattack except by heavy artillery.Mastersof marksmanship and hit- and-run tactics,the Chechens wouldstrike heavily armedRussian columns andthen vanishinto the forestbefore the Russianscould mount a counterat- tack.The Russiansultimately fought backby felling thousandsof trees,virtu- allydeforesting Chechnya. By 1859they were Žnally able touse their heavy artilleryto blast Murid mountainstrongholds into rubble, andresistance soon collapsed. Hypothesis4: When strongactors employbarbarism to attack weak actors defending witha GWS, allother things being equal, strong actors shouldwin. Eachof these hypotheses describesan interactionof either same-approachor opposite-approachstrategic interaction. It follows that all four maybe testedas asingle hypothesis.

but in most cases,these campaignsescalate until either noncombatantcasualties aresimply ac- cepted (aswas the case with U.S.bombing of NorthVietnam duringthe Rolling Thundercam- paign),or noncombatants become accepted targets(as in the case ofthe Žre bombingsof Dresden andTokyo and the atomic bombingof Hiroshimaand Nagasaki). A strict interpretation of the laws of warmay make a strategic aircampaign that accepts “collateral damage”(viz., death or injury to noncombatants)a warcrime. Theissue is tricky: Thelaws of warpermit collateral damageso long asthatdamage is proportional to the military value of the targetitself. But if strategic airpower hasno military utility,then collateral damagefrom strategic bombingwould constitute awar crime. 56.Mao Tse-tung once analogizedthe relationship between insurgents andcitizens in apeople’s warby likening the Žghtersto Žshand the people to the sea.Effective counterinsurgency would therefore require either altering the terrain (makingthe seatransparent) or killing, expelling, or International Security 26:1110

Hypothesis5: Strong actors aremore likelyto win same-approachinteractions andlose opposite-approachinteractions.

AFirstT est:Strategic Interaction and Asymmetric War Outcomes, 1800–1998

The aimof thissection is to determine whether astatisticallysigniŽ cant corre- lationexists between strategicinteraction and asymmetric con ict outcomes. It begins witha discussionof howcases were codedand then analyzesthree key relationships:(1) strategicinteraction and con ict outcomes, (2) strategicinter- actionand con ict duration, and (3) strategicinteraction and the trendtoward increasingstrong-actor failure overtime. coding andcases The basicmethod of codingcases was to examine the historyof eachwar in the Correlatesof War dataset. A conict was coded asymmetric if the halvedprod- uctof one actor’sarmedforces and population exceeded the simple productof itsadversary’ s armedforces and population by ³ 5:1.If the strongactor used armedforces to attempt to destroy a weakactor ’sforcesor capture values, it wascoded as adirectattack. If the weakactor used armedforces to attemptto thwartthese attacks,it was coded as a directdefense. Acodingof barbarism wasreserved forstrong actors that systematically targeted noncombatants, employed illicitweapons, or accepted collateral damage in astrategicbombing campaignafter bomb damageassessments cast considerable doubt on the efŽcacy of the campaignas awhole.A weakactor was coded as using aGWSif itsought to impose costs on the strongactor with armed force while avoiding pitched battles.Each con ict dyad was coded with one offour strategicinter- actions(direct-direct, direct-indirect, indirect-direct, or indirect-indirect), 57 be-

imprisoning the people (dryingup the sea).Both would count asbarbarism. See MaoTse-tung, “Primer onGuerrilla Warfare,”in DonaldRobinson, ed., TheDirty Wars: Guerrilla Actionsand Other Forms of UnconventionalWarfare (New York:Delacorte, 1968),p. 284. 57.Most asymmetric warscontain asingle strategic interaction fromstart to Žnish,but afew— such asthe SouthAfrican Warandthe U.S.intervention in Vietnam—contain multiple-sequential ormultiple-simultaneous interactions, respectively.Inmultiple-sequential interaction conicts, strategies change,but in temporal sequence: One side’s strategic shift is quickly followed byan- other’s. Multiple-simultaneous interaction conicts arethose in which asingle actor,or an actor andits allies, pursue different strategies againstthe sameadversary within asingle theater ofop- erations.The empirical distribution ofcon ict types is asfollows: single, 134(77.5 percent), multi- ple- sequential, 29(16.8 percent), andmultiple-simultaneous, 10(5.8 percent). Inthis analysis, conict outcomes areexplained bystrategic interaction outcomes. How theWeak Win Wars 111

fore being reduced toone oftwointeraction types (sameapproach or opposite approach).58 The key variableof analysis is strategicinteraction (STRA TINT) ascompared tocon ict outcome (OUTCOME). If strategicinteraction causes change in conict outcome, then ashiftin the value ofstrategic interaction across the caseuniverse shouldbe matchedby acorrespondingshift in outcome.The STRATINTvariable was coded 0 if the strategicinteraction was same approach (direct-director indirect-indirect), and1 if itwas opposite approach (direct- indirector indirect-direct).The OUTCOMEvariable was coded 0 if the strong actorlost, and 1 if itwon. 59 strategicinteraction and conflict outcomes Running correlationsestablished both that strategic interaction and asymmet- riccon ict outcomes are associated, and that the relationshipis statistically signiŽcant (see Figure 4). 60 The resultsthus support hypothesis 5. 61 Strong ac- torswon 76 percent ofallsame-approach interactions, and weak actors won 63 percent ofall opposite-approach interactions. strategicinteraction and conflict duration The key causalmechanism of the strategicinteraction thesis is time: Same- approachinteractions should be overquickly ,whereasopposite-approach in- teractionsshould be protracted(with weakactors tending towin drawn-out wars).An analysisof the averageduration of same-approachand opposite-

58.The relatively few warswith multiple interactions were reduced to single interactions. Inmul- tiple-sequential conicts, the Žnalinteraction was used to represent the overall conict: TheSouth African Warwas coded sameapproach because it endedwith anindirect-indirect interaction. In multiple-simultaneous conicts, interactions were averaged:U.S. intervention in Vietnam was coded opposite approachbecause althoughsome interactions were sameapproach, on balance, the contest was decided bya direct-indirect interaction. Thechief consequence of these reductions is a toughertest forthe strategic interaction thesis, because collapsing interactions increases the impact ofrelative material power onoutcomes. Because strongactors havea greatermaterial capacity to adaptto failure thando weakactors, collapsing interactions hides strong-actorrather than weak- actor failures. 59.Stalemates and ongoing con icts were coded losses forthe strongactor . 60.Pearson chi-squared (1), 14.56, p < .001. 61.An analysisof the relationship between strategic interaction andinteraction outcomes (asop- posed to waroutcomes) produces aneven more striking Žnding:W eakactors win 23.1percent of same-approachand 78.4 percent of opposite-approach interactions. Thisrelationship is statistically signiŽcant: Pearson chi-squared (1), 40.95, p .001.An analysisof the impact of external noncombatsupport forweak actors did not refute the strategic interaction thesis: Even when weak actors received nosupport, theywere still three times more likely to win opposite-approach inter- actions thanthey were same-approachinteractions: Pearsonchi-squared (1), 11.38, p .001. International Security 26:1112

Figure4. Strategic Interaction and Asymmetric Conflict Outcomes, 1800± 1998.

approachinteractions supports this claim: Same-approach interactions lasted 2.69years on average(2.98 years was the overallmean); opposite-approach in- teractionslasted an average of 4.86 years. strategicinteraction and long-term trends Bothopposite-approach interactions and strong-actor failures haveincreased overtime: From 1800 to 1849, 5.9 percent ofinteractions in thirty-fourasym- metriccon icts were oppositeapproach. From 1850 to 1899, 10.1 percent of interactionsin sixty-nine asymmetriccon icts were oppositeapproach. From1900 to 1949,16.1 percent ofthirty-oneasymmetric con icts were oppo- site,and from 1950 to 1998, 22.2 percent ofthirty-sixasymmetric con icts were opposite. In sum,the dataanalysis supports three key hypotheses relatingstrategic in- teractionto asymmetric con ict outcomes. First, strong actors are more likely toloseopposite-approach strategic interactions. Second, opposite-approachin- teractioncon icts take longer toresolve than do same-approach interactions. Third,the frequency ofopposite-approach interactions has increased in pro- portionto strong-actor failure overtime. The analysisis limited,however, because somedata are missing: Many civil andcolonial wars recorded neither the quantityof forces committed nor the strategiesemployed. Although these defects arebalanced by statisticalcon- trols,even aperfect dataset would support only acorrelationbetween vari- ables,not causation. Thus, although the dataanalysis might have refuted the strategicinteraction thesis, only in combinationwith a careful comparisonof historicalcases could the thesisbe conŽrmed. 62

62.See IvanArreguí n-Toft, “ Arts of Darkness:Guerrilla Warfareand Barbarism in Asymmetric Conicts,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago,1998. How theWeak Win Wars 113

U.S.Interventionin theV ietnamWar

In thissection I present asynopticcase study of U.S. interventionin Vietnam (March1965 to January1973) as apreliminary testof the causallogic of the in- terestasymmetry and strategic interaction theses. The VietnamW arrepresents the strongestcase study for Mack’ s interestasymmetry thesis. If strategicinter- actioncan explain the war’soutcomebetter thancan interest asymmetry ,then allother things being equal, itshould be considereda better theory. background U.S. militaryintervention in Vietnambegan soonafter the defeat ofFranceat Dien Bien Phu in 1954.The commitmentof U.S. combattroops, however, did notoccur until eleven yearslater. In 1965the U.S. populationwas about 194 million,while NorthVietnam’ s stoodat approximately 19 million. 63 U.S. and NorthVietnamese armedforces totaled about 2.5 million and 256,000, respec- tively.Adding in alliesthat contributed combat troops (negligible), multiply- ing populationand armed forces, and dividing the strongactor ’stotalby two resultsin arelativeforce ratio of about53:1. Even allowingfor the fact thatthe United Statesdid not actually devote half ofits armed forces and half ofits population to the conict, 64 there isno question that (1) thiswas anasymmetriccon ict, and (2) the United Statesand its allies were the strong actor.65 u.s.military intervention, 1965–73 U.S. militaryintervention involved four distinctstrategic interactions: (1) bar- barism(Rolling Thunder) againsta directdefense, (2) adirectattack against a directdefense (the main-forceunits war), (3) directattacks against a GWS(the guerrilla warin the South I), and(4) barbarismagainst GWS (the guerrilla war in the South II). interaction 1:rollingthunder, 1965–68. The Žrststrategic interaction of the warbegan in March1965 with a U.S. strategicbombing campaign,later

63.These Ž guresare taken from Singer and Small, Correlates of War, warnumber 163. 64.The logic of the relative power estimate does not require calculating how much of agiven actor’s power resources were applied to the Žght.What matters is the resources thatan actor could haveapplied to win the war.On this point, see Schelling, Arms andIn uence, pp. 142–143, 172. 65.Even if we assume,for the sakeof simplicity,thatthe contest was between onlythe United Statesand North Vietnam, the ratio shifts to 49:1in favorof the United States. International Security 26:1114

namedRolling Thunder. 66 Itsmain goal was to destroy the willingness of NorthV ietnamto support the guerrilla warcampaign in the South,and as its nameimplied, the campaignwas expected totake time: “ Insteadof acoordi- natedair campaign . ..whichwould destroy the enemy’s abilityto wage war andbreak their will toresist, air operations over the Northwere designed asa diplomatic‘ slowsqueeze’ signaling device. AsSecretary of Defense RobertS. McNamarasaid on February 3,1966, ‘ U.S. objectives arenot to destroy or to overthrowthe Communistgovernment of NorthVietnam. They arelimited to the destructionof the insurrectionand aggression directed by NorthV ietnam againstthe politicalinstitutions of South Vietnam.’” 67 The United Stateswanted to inict enough pain onNorthVietnam to com- pel itto stop supporting the GWSin the South.North Vietnam’ s defense againstRolling Thunder wasdirect: It sought to thwartU.S. militaryattacks on itsinfrastructure and forces by meansof Ž ghter aircraftand an increasingly dense radarand surface-to-air missile defense network. U.S. Air Forcegenerals andcivilian leaders shared a theoryabout the gen- eraleffectiveness ofstrategic bombing. Strategicbombing shouldhave both hampered NorthVietnam’ s wareffort andcoerced its leadership intogiving up. When neither expectationwas realized, military and civilian elites faceda starkchoice: either reject the theoryor blame failure onsome  awin imple- mentation.The Air Forcechose to emphasize aws,while the Johnsonadmin- istrationwas increasingly split:Some agreed thatthe United Stateswas hitting the wrongtargets— or nothitting the righttargets hard enough. Others,includ- ing eventually Defense SecretaryMcNamara, concluded thatagainst North Vietnamstrategic bombing couldnot work. McNamara’ s reportsindicated thatthe militaryvalue of RollingThunder ’sdestroyedtargets was zero. 68

66.On the origins of the Rolling Thundercampaign and its purpose, see Karnow, Vietnam: AHis- tory, p.397. On collateral damageto noncombatantsin Rolling Thunder,see ibid.,p. 458. On rela- tive U.S.moral restraint in Rolling Thunder,see ibid.,p. 653. For a dedicated analysisof Rolling Thunderand its failure, see JamesClay Thompson, RollingThunder: Understanding Policy and Pro- gram Failure (ChapelHill: University of NorthCarolina Press, 1980);for a theoretical treatment that anticipates the strategic interaction thesis, see Pape, Bombingto Win, especially chap.6. Pape ar- guesthat when airpower is used to targetan adversary’ s armedforces, it generallywins, and when used to targetan adversary’ s values (including infrastructure), it generallyfails. Inother words, punishment anddenial represent indirect anddirect strategic approaches,respectively; Pape’s argument,as Mearsheimer’sbefore it andmine after,therefore constitutes anargument for the independent causalimpact ofstrategyon con ict outcomes. 67.Quoted in HarryG. Summers,Jr., Historical Atlas of theVietnam War (New York:Houghton Mifin, 1995), p. 96. 68.Its political utility was less thanzero: It increased international anddomestic opposition to the U.S.war effort, andalthoughthe NorthVietnamese fearedand hated the bombing,they never con- sidered altering their waraims as aresult of the painit inicted. How theWeak Win Wars 115

Bombing thataccepted collateral damage subsequent tothis recognition was therefore awarcrime: barbarism. RollingThunder continued until aweek before the November 1968U.S. presidentialelection. It was an interactionin whicha strongactor (the United States)employed anindirectstrategy against a weakactor (North Vietnam) us- ing adirectstrategy ,andlost. 69 interaction 2:themain-force unitswar , 1965–69. Thisphase ofthe war featured aseriesof pitched battlesbetween NorthVietnamese regular units andthose of the United Statesand the South Vietnamese Army(ARVN). In a sequence of engagements thatlasted throughout the war,U.S. forcesproved overwhelmingly successfulat destroyingNorth V ietnameseArmy (NV A)and Vietcong (VC) main-forceunits. Examplesof thisinteraction, in whicha strong-actordirect-indirect opposed aweak-actordirect strategy ,include OperationStarlite (August 1965),the Bat- tle of IaDrang (October– November 1965),Masher/ White Wing (January– March1966), and Phase II ofOperationAttleboro (October– November 1966). 70 Asthe ground warcontinued into1968, the frequency of these interactions dwindled, andU.S. forcesin the South focused increasingly onthe problem of counterinsurgency. Partof the decreasingfrequency ofthisdirect-direct interaction re ected ac- torlearning: NorthVietnam’ s leadership analyzedmain-force unit engage- mentscarefully andconcluded thatU.S. forceswere soadept at combining maneuver andŽ repower that,unless the encounter tookplace between dra- maticallymismatched forces (as at LZ Albany in November 1965),NV Aand VCmain-forceunits would invariably be destroyed.In the contextof Mao’ s warningabove, native forces were Žghting withinferior weaponson U.S. terms;and as predicted, they lost. Asthe loserin thisinteraction, the Northbegan toinnovate tactically and strategically.In tacticalterms, NV Aunitsattempted to “ cling tothe belt”of U.S. andARVN forces, 71 getting socloseso quickly thatallied forcescould not

69.No one involved in the campaignon the U.S.side considers Rolling Thundera success, al- thoughit is fairto saythat the reasonsproposed to explain the campaign’s failure havebeen nu- merous andcontroversial. Fromthe military perspective, the consensus is thatthe campaignfailed because it misapplied military meansto achieve apolitical end.For a more thoroughdiscussion andanalysis of Rolling Thunder’s targetand impact, see, forexample, Thompson, RollingThunder , Herring, America’s LongestWar , p.147; Clodfelter , TheLimits of Air Power; andPape, “ Coercive Air Power in the Vietnam War.” 70.These examples aredrawn from Summers, Historical Atlas of theVietnam War; and Marc Leepson,ed., Webster’s New WorldDictionary of theV ietnam War (New York:Simon and Schuster , 1999). 71.See Karnow, Vietnam: AHistory, p. 463. International Security 26:1116

beneŽt fromclose air or artillerysupport. In strategicterms, the Northshifted moreof its resources into the guerrilla campaignin the South. interaction 3:theguerrilla war in thesouth i, 1965–73. Guerrillasin the South wagedtheir campaign with considera ble skilland were counteredwitha bewildering mixof professi onalism,passion, sadism, and incompet ence. In thisdi- mensionof the conict more than any other ,U.S. effortswere heavily Žltered through,and constrain ed by,the United States’South Vietnameseallies. 72 In U.S. Armyareas of responsibility ,the Žrstattempts to defeat the VCinsur- gency involvedsearch and destroy missions. In thistype of mission,regular armyunits, acting on intelligence thathad located enemy unit concetrations, wouldseek tomake contact with these concentrationsand destroy them. Large-scaleexamples of this type ofinteraction include PhaseI ofOperation Attleboro(September– October 1965), Operation Cedar Falls (January 1967), andOperation Junction City(February– May 1967); but these interactionsre- peated themselveson asmallerscale throughout the war.Forceswere killed on bothsides, but the strategicbalance slowly shifted tofavorthe VC, largely be- causeU.S. forcesrelied heavily onindirect Ž repower—tactical air and artillery support—aconsequence of whichwas considerable death or injury tonon- combatants. 73 Notall U.S. COINefforts failed outrightor succeeded throughbarbarism. U.S. Marine Corpsforces in the mountainousnorthernmost area of South Viet- nam,for example, pursued aCOINstrategy combining localand highly moti- vated(but poorlytrained and equipped) villagerswith direct support from U.S. Marine combatplatoons. These combined actionplatoons (or CAPs) oper- atedon an “ inkblot”principle: Secure avillage orhamlet, then patrolout in widening circlesuntil intersectingwith another CAP’ s secured area.The strat- egy hadtwo major disadvantages, however .First,although it protected South Vietnamese citizensfrom immediate danger ofterrorattacks by VCguerrillas, itcould achieve successonly in the long term—and time favored the VC. 74 Sec- ond,although militarily effective, CAPsuccessonly highlighted the inability of the South Vietnamese governmentto protect its own citizens. Ultimately,the United Stateslost this interaction. Its combat forces had been trainedand equipped toŽ ght auniformed regular adversaryusing massive

72.The record of performance byARVN units is mixed. Someunits andtheir commandersare ex- tolled fortheir bravery,skill, andloyalty ,while manyare remembered onlyfor their cowardice, in- competence, andvenality .See,for example, Karnow, Vietnam: AHistory, p.441; and Summers, Historical Atlas of theVietnam War, p. 80. 73.See Asprey, War inthe Shadows, p. 881. 74.See ibid.,p. 848. How theWeak Win Wars 117

Žrepower,not an invisible enemy thatrefused tomeet itin battle. 75 The indis- criminateimpact of the U.S. Army’s heavy reliance onartilleryand air support progressivelyalienated potential allies among South Vietnam’s people. Aslos- ers,however ,U.S. forceswere notslow to innovate a strategicresponse. interaction 4:theguerrilla war in thesouth ii, 1965–73. U.S. strategic innovationsthat aimed at seriously undermining the VCguerrilla campaignin the South tooktwo forms. The Žrstwas the StrategicHamlets program, and the secondwas the Phoenix program. 76 The U.S. StrategicHamlets program was modeled aftera French programin whichSouth Vietnamese villagerswere forcedfrom their homesand relocated tofortiŽ ed hamlets. 77 Where implemented effectively,the U.S. programhad the militarybeneŽ t of severely damagingVC intelligence andsupply net- works,but italsoextracted a signiŽcant political cost: As nightly newsbroad- casts ashedimages of moreand more wailing peasants being forcedto leave their villages,U.S. public opinion began toturnagainst the war.The program, however,was rarely implemented effectively.In mostcases, corrupt ofŽ cials failed todeliver weaponsand embezzled funds andsupplies intended toturn the hamletsinto functioning communities. 78 Asaresult,the programalienated the people whosegood will the United Statesand South Vietnamneeded to win the war:Forced to leave their homesand then abandoned,many South Vietnamese turned againsttheir governmentand became activesupporters of the VC. By decreasingthe program’s COINbeneŽ ts andincreasing its political costs,the South Vietnamese government’s corruptionand incompetence even- tuallyrendered the StrategicHamlets program a disaster. The secondU.S. innovationwas the Phoenix program,whose aims and legit- imacycontinue toprovoke sharp debate. 79 The overallmilitary view isthat Phoenix wasessentially a legitimatemilitary operation. It relied onspecial in- telligence totarget and destroy VC leadership, andit proved to be the single mostsuccessful strategic initiative pursued by U.S. forcesduring the war. 80

75.This is the central thesis in Krepinevich, TheArmy andVietnam, p. 4. 76.“ Phoenix”was the code namefor a U.S.assassination program that targeted VC leadership. 77.On the Strategic Hamletsprogram in Vietnam,its logic, andits successes andfailures, see Karnow, Vietnam: AHistory, pp. 255–257; and Herring, America’s LongestWar, pp. 85–86, 88– 90. 78. Karnow, Vietnam: AHistory, p. 257. 79. Asprey, War inthe Shadows, pp. 910–911. 80.There is little question thatPhoenix effectively disrupted the capacity of the VCto continue their GWSin the South.Even the NorthVietnamese admitthis: “NguyenCo Thach,Vietnam’ s for- eign minister from1975, admitted thatthe Phoenix effort ‘wiped out manyof our bases’in South Vietnam,compelling numbersof North Vietnamese andViet Congtroops to retreat to sanctuaries in Cambodia.”See Summers, Historical Atlas of theVietnam War, p.148. See alsoKarnow , Vietnam: A History, p.534; and Herring, America’s LongestWar , p. 232. International Security 26:1118

Tomostobservers, participants, and historians, however ,the sustainedeffort tokill noncombatantsraised troubling questionsabout the program’s legiti- macyas an extension of U.S. policy,oras a COINstrategy ,regardlessof its effectiveness. Overall,the United Stateswon this interaction. The StrategicHamlets pro- gramwas never implemented properly,soits contribution to U.S. successin thisinteraction was negative. By contrast,the Phoenix program,which eviscer- atedthe VCcommandinfrastructure in the South,may have even provoked the Northinto its premature and disastrous direct confrontation with U.S. reg- ularforces during the 1968T et Offensive. Becauseboth strategies systemati- callyand deliberately targetednoncombatants, both must be countedas barbarism—albeit barbarismat the mildestend ofthe violationsspectrum. politics Twopolitical aspects of the wardeserve specialattention. First, why did the United Statesthink itnecessary to send combattroops into South Vietnam? WasVietnam a vitalor peripheral U.S. interest?Second, why didthe United Stateswithdraw? W asit fought toa stalemateon the battleŽeld orforced to abandonthe warby U.S. domesticopposition? The United Statesnever entirely decided whether Vietnamwas a vitalor pe- ripheral interest.If there isa consensusview amonghistorians, it is that the United Statesgot into Vietnam incrementally ,conŽdent thatafter just one more escalationU.S. forcescould “ stabilize”South Vietnamand exit. Eventually the fateof South Vietnambecame inextricablylinked withperceptions ofthe United States’own credibility ,andin thatsense constituteda vitalinterest. The United Stateswithdrew from Vietnam when andhow it did because U.S. public opinion hadshifted againstthe war.The United Statesdid not Ž ght aseffectively asitcould have. But even given the limitationsof placing aforce trainedand equipped toŽ ght andwin alandbattle in Europe in the moun- tains,jungles, andmarshy river deltas of Indochina,the United Statesproved remarkablysuccessful at innovating tactical and strategic responses to North Vietnam’s strategicinitiatives. As a result,by 1969U.S. forceshad achieved the militarydefeat ofthe North.Nevertheless, the wardragged onforanother four years. The U.S. withdrawalfrom Vietnam in 1973was a consequence oftwo unre- latedproblems. First, successive U.S. administrationsincorrectly assumed that the defeat ofNorth V ietnam’s militaryforces would lead the Northto accede toU.S. demands.George Herring characterizesthis problem well: “Nixon’s se- cretdiplomacy and implied militarythreats failed towrench anyconcessions How theWeak Win Wars 119

fromHanoi. . ..Still hurting fromthose losses suffered in the Tet Offensive but by nomeansready to quit the Žght,Hanoi in 1969shifted toadefensive, pro- tractedwar strategy ,sharplycurtailing the level ofmilitary activity in the southand withdrawing some of itstroops back across the demilitarizedzone. Certainthat American public opinion wouldeventually forceNixon to with- drawfrom Vietnam, the NorthVietnamese were prepared towaithim out,no matterwhat additional suffering itmight entail.” 81 Second, the militarydefeat ofNorthV ietnamand the VCinsurgency in the South tooktoo long toaccomplish. 82 The Americanpublic hadbeen led tobe- lieve thatvictory would come quickly— not only because the United States Želded the mostpowerful andtechnologically advanced armed force on earth, but because asin pastwars, Americans believed itscause to be just.Political andmilitary elites in the Kennedy,Johnson,and Nixon administrations did lit- tle totemper thisexpectation, and in mostcases encouraged it. 83 summary Thissynoptic presentation describes the VietnamW arin termsof four roughly simultaneousstrategic interactions. 84 These interactionsand their contribu- tionsto the outcomeof the warare summarized in Table 1. In Vietnam,the weakactor had two entirely distinctmilitaries ready to op- poseU.S. forces:one trainedand equipped toŽ ght anindirect war ,the other trainedand equipped toŽ ghta directwar .Thusthe Northcould be farmore nimble thanthe United Statesin shifting itsstrategic approach. As Andrew Krepinevich, DonaldHamilton, and others have argued, with the possible ex- ception ofthe U.S. Marine Corps—which had considerable operational experi- ence withCOIN operations—the U.S. militarycould never reconcile itself to

81.Herring, America’s LongestWar, p. 226. 82.On this point, see Karnow, Vietnam: AHistory, pp. 464,480; and Herring, America’s LongestWar , p. 200. 83.This encouragement culminated in the infamousprediction byU.S. Comdr. William Westmoreland—just prior to Tet—that “ the enemy’s hopes arebankrupt.” See Karnow, Vietnam: A History, p. 539. 84.Lewis Sorleyargues that the warhad yet anothercrucial phaseafter T et, in which U.S.forces shifted strategies undertheir new commander,Gen. Creighton W. Abrams. In terms ofthe strate- gic interaction thesis, this would count as“Phase5: Guerrilla WarIII/indirect-indirect/U.S.wins: abandonsVietnam/ warends.” The difŽ culty with Sorley’s argumentis in measuringthe effective- ness of Abrams’s talented leadership in the context of aVCrecently devastatedby Phoenix and Tet, anda similarly routed NVA.If,as many assert, the Northhad retreated to lick its wounds after Tet, then U.S.military effectiveness would appearhigh regardless of its strategy.Forthis reason, andbecause its inclusion would addlittle in the wayof a test ofcompeting explanations,I donot include the interaction in this analysis.See Lewis Sorley, ABetter War: TheUnexamined V ictories and FinalT ragedyof America’s Last Years inVietnam (New York:Harcourt Brace, 1999). International Security 26:1120

Table1. Summary of Strategic Interactions and Effects in U.S. Interventionin Vietnam, 1965± 73.

Strategic Duration Interaction InnovationEffect Effect RollingThunder indirect-direct UnitedStates loses; lengthenswar abandonsstrategy Main-ForceUnits War direct-direct North loses;withdraws, shortenswar thenescalates (T et) GuerrillaWar I direct-indirect UnitedStates loses; lengthenswar switchesto barbarism (Phoenix)

GuerrillaWar II indirect-indirect North loses;escalates, shortenswar thenwithdraws the demandsof a COINwar. 85 These demandsdo not imply the necessityof creatinga forcecapable of barbarism:As the CAPsdemonstrated, it was possi- ble toŽght aGWSin the South withinthe frameworkof the lawsof war.What itwas manifestly not possible todo was defeat apeople in armsquickly . Thusthe CAPexample only underscoresthe importanceof the key causal mechanismof the strategicinteraction thesis: When the power relationshipim- plies aspeedy victory,andthe interactionimplies adelay,the wayis clear for the operationof whatMack calls political vulnerability .Thatis, even anideal COINstrategy— one thatdestroys enemy forceswithout destroying enemy values—takes time. If suchstrategies are to become amodelfor future COIN operations,this implies acounterintuitivepolicy: Strong-actor political and militaryelites mustprepare their publics forlong-delayed victoriesagainst even very weakadversaries when thoseadversaries employ indirectdefense strategies. explainingvietnam: interest asymmetry and strategic interaction Strategicinteraction provides a powerful wayto explain asymmetriccon ict outcomes—not only individual warsbut the observedtrend toward increasing strong-actorfailures overtime. But the interestasymmetry thesis has the same goal,and it too appears to explain U.S. failure in the VietnamW ar.Although the United Statesultimately quit Vietnambecause ofdomestic political pres- sure,as Mack’ s thesissuggests, the strategicinteraction thesis offers twoim- portantqualiŽ cations of his explanation of the war’soutcome.

85.See Krepinevich, TheArmy andV ietnam; andHamilton, TheArt of Insurgency, p. 155. How theWeak Win Wars 121

First,Mack argues that theoretically ,atleast, actor resolve can be derived fromrelative power: That is, relative power and political vulnerability varydi- rectly.In Vietnam,however ,U.S. resolvehad nothing to do with relative power.In fact,U.S. interestsin the securityand stability of South Vietnamwere far greater86 thanthose predicted by the interestasymmetry thesis. Vietnam wasa “limited”war not because South Vietnam’s fatewas a peripheral U.S. in- terest,but because U.S. politicalelites believed thatthe use offorcein propor- tionto U.S. interestsmight provoke Chinese militaryintervention and lead to a thirdworld war .In the caseof North Vietnam, its legendary resolvewas not a consequence ofitsbeing aweakactor Ž ghting forsurvival. As many commen- tatorshave since observed,the true sourcesof North Vietnam’ s resolvewere nationalism 87 andrevenge forthe suffering causedby the U.S. strategicbomb- ing campaignagainst the NorthVietnamese people. Accordingto Stanley Karnow,“Asa practicalstrategy ,however,the bombing backŽred. American planners hadpredicted thatit would drive the enemy tocapitulation, yet not only didthe NorthVietnamese acceptthe sacriŽces, but the raidsrekindled their nationalisticzeal, so that many who may have disliked Communistrule joined the resistanceto alien attack.”88 Second, Mackis rightthat the United Stateswas politically vulnerable, and thatthis vulnerability ultimatelydrove it from V ietnamin defeat.But his thesis assumesthat political vulnerability will generally affectthe abilityof strongac- torsto defeat weakactors. The strategicinteraction thesis brackets the condi- tionsunder which politicalvulnerability operates:It does so only when there is anunanticipateddelay between the commitmentof armedforces and victory .

Conclusions

Strongactors lose asymmetric con icts when they adoptthe wrongstrategy vis-à-vis their weaker adversaries.Same-approach interactions— whether di- rect-director indirect-indirect—favor strong actors because they imply shared values,aims, and victory conditions. Because nothing therefore intervenes be- tween rawpower and goals, strong actors will win same-approachinteractions

86. Karnow, Vietnam: AHistory, pp. 377–378. 87.This is not to suggestthat North Vietnam’ s wasa monolithic nationalism.South Vietnamese communists hada nationalidentity separatefrom that of Northerners.What united them strongly duringthe warwas the presence of foreigners onVietnamese soil. See WalkerConnor, “ Ethnology andthe Peace of SouthAsia,” WorldPolitics, Vol. 22,No. 1 (October 1969),pp. 51–86; Karnow , Viet- nam: AHistory, pp. 462,534; and Herring, America’s LongestWar, p. 271. 88. Karnow, Vietnam: AHistory, p. 458. International Security 26:1122

in proportionto their advantagein relativepower. Opposite-approach interac- tions—whether direct-indirector indirect-direct— favor weak actors because they sacriŽce valuesfor time. This results in asigniŽcant delay between the commitmentof armed forces and the attainmentof objectives. Time then be- comesthe permissivecondition for the operationof the politicalvulnerability thatMack and others rightly identify asattachingto strongactors in asymmet- riccon icts. theoryand policy implications The strategicinteraction thesis simultaneously supports, and in key waysme- diates,the importanceof relativematerial power in explaining conict out- comes.As has often been observed,material power is useful fortheory building because itis quantiŽ able andmeasurable in awaythat courage, lead- ership, anddumb luck arenot. This study has demonstrated empirically that onbalance, relative material power ismore than simply amethodologically useful concept;taken alone, it explains a majorityof con ict outcomes since 1800.The strategicinteraction thesis makes clear, however ,the limitationsof relativematerial power by highlighting the conditionsunder whichit matters moreor less. Thisanalysis suggests key policy implicationsfor both weak and strong ac- tors.For weak actors, successful defense againststrong actors depends onan indirectstrategy .Becauseindirect strategies such as GWS rely onsocial sup- port,weak actors must work tirelessly to gain and maintain the sympathyor acquiescence ofa majorityof the populationin question.Given the risksin- volvedin either aidingor taking part in aguerrilla resistance,this in itself isno meanfeat. Additionally ,weakactors must have or gain access to the physical orpolitical sanctuary necessary to make an indirect strategy a viable choice. Forstrong actors, the strategicinteraction thesis suggests that weak adversar- ies employing anindirectdefense will be difŽcult to defeat. Of course,not all oreven mostasymmetric con icts need followthis pattern, but when they do, andwhen aresortto arms is the only viable option,how should a strongactor suchas the United Statesreact? One responsemight be aresortto barbarism,which appears to beaneffec- tivestrategy for defeating anindirect defense. 89 Buteven acursoryreview of

89.This appears equally true of counterterrorism andterrorism. LauraK. Donohue analyzesthe impact ofBritish counterterrorist legislation in NorthernIreland and concludes thatBritain’ s nu- merous “temporary”and “ emergency”measures— which were never temporary,andwhich vio- lated civil rights anddue process—proved highlyeffective in the short term. Heranalysis How theWeak Win Wars 123

postwarhistories reveals that at bestbarbarism can be effective only asamili- tarystrategy: If the desired objective islong-term politicalcontrol, barbarism invariablybackŽ res. The French, forexample, used tortureto quickly defeat Algerian insurgentsin the Battleof Algiers in1957.But when French military brutalitybecame public knowledge, itcatalyzed political opposition to the war in Franceand stimulated renewed andintensiŽ ed resistanceby the non-French populationof Algeria. 90 Within four years,France abandoned its claims in Al- geriaeven though ithad “ won”the war.Barbarism thus sacriŽ ces victory in peace forvictory in war—apoor policy atbest. 91 An ideal U.S. strategicresponse in anasymmetric con ict therefore demands twocentral elements: (1) preparationof public expectationsfor a long warde- spite U.S. technologicaland material advantages, and (2) the development and deployment ofarmed forces speciŽ cally equipped andtrained for COIN oper- ations.92 Withouta nationalconsensus and realistic expectations, the United Stateswould be politicallyvulnerable in anasymmetriccon ict. Without more specialoperations forces— the self-reliant anddiscriminate armed forces neces- saryto implement anideal COIN strategy—what begins asa militaryopera- tionagainst an isolatedviolent minority will tend toescalate into a waragainst anentire people. 93 The United Statesmust be prepared toŽght andwin bothconventional and asymmetricor “ small”wars. The strategicinteraction thesis shows why the twomissions demand two kinds ofarmed forces: one todefend U.S. interests in conventionalwars, and one todefend themin asymmetricwars. If the United States,in otherwords, is towin future “boxing matches”against light- weight opponentswho use their ownversion of the rope-a-dope, itwill need Žghterswith more initiative than discipline, andmore endurance thanpunch- ing power. suggests,however, thatinsurgents alwaysfound a wayaround such measures,eventually prompting yet anotherround of “emergency”restrictions. See Donohue, Counter-terrorist Law and EmergencyPowers inthe United Kingdom, 1922– 2000 (Portland,Or.: Irish Academic Press, 2001), pp. 322–323. 90.See Mack,“ WhyBig Nations Lose SmallW ars,”p. 180; and Asprey , War inthe Shadows, pp. 669–671. 91.See Liddell Hart, Strategy, p. 370. 92.See, for example, Ernest Mayin Hoffmannet al.,“ Vietnam Reappraised,”pp. 8,9; Hoffmann, ibid.,p. 10; and Cohen, “ Constraintson America’ s Conductof SmallW ars,”pp. 166–167. 93.See Walzer, Justand Unjust Wars, p. 187. International Security 26:1124

How the WeakWin Wars Appendix1: Cases andKey V ariables

War Name Start End OUTCOME1 STRATINT2 Spain-Peru 1809 1816 1 0 Russo-Georgian 1816 1825 1 0 Pindaro War 1817 1818 1 0 Kandyan Rebellion 1817 1818 1 0 Greek WarofIndependence 1821 1828 0 1 First Anglo-Burmese 1823 1826 1 0 First Ashanti 1824 1826 1 0 Javanese 1825 1830 1 0 Bharatpuran 1825 1826 1 0 Russo-Circassian 1829 1840 1 0 Albanian 1830 1831 1 0 Belgian Independence 1830 1831 1 0 Murid War 1830 1859 1 0 First Polish 1831 1831 1 0 First Syrian 1831 1832 0 0 Texan 1835 1836 0 0 Second Seminole War 1835 1842 1 0 First Zulu 1838 1840 1 0 First British-Afghan 1838 1842 0 1 Franco-Algerian 1839 1847 1 0 Bosnian-Turkish 1841 1841 1 0 Baluchi-British 1843 1843 1 0 First Maori 1843 1848 1 0 Franco-Moroccan 1844 1844 1 0 First British-Sikh 1845 1846 1 0 First KafŽr War 1846 1847 1 0 CracowRevolt 1846 1846 1 0 Austro-Sardinian 1848 1849 1 0 First Schleswig-Holstein 1848 1849 1 0 Hungarian 1848 1849 1 0 Second British-Sikh 1848 1849 1 0 Roman Republic 1849 1849 1 0 Second KafŽr 1850 1853 1 0 La Plata 1851 1852 1 0 Second Anglo-Burmese 1852 1853 1 0 First Turko-Montenegran 1852 1853 0 0 Third Seminole War 1855 1858 1 0 Yakima War 1855 1858 0 1 Anglo-Persian 1856 1857 1 0 Second OpiumW ar 1856 1860 0 0 KabyliaUprising 1856 1857 1 . Tukulor-French War 1857 1857 1 0 How theWeak Win Wars 125

War Name Start End OUTCOME1 STRATINT2 French-Indochinese 1858 1863 1 0 Second Turko-Montenegran 1858 1859 0 0 Spanish-Moroccan 1859 1860 1 0 Italo-Roman 1860 1860 1 0 Second Maori 1860 1870 1 0 Apacheand NavahoW ar 1860 1865 1 0 Taiping Rebellion 1860 1864 1 0 Nien Rebellion 1860 1868 1 0 Franco-Mexican 1862 1867 0 0 First SiouxW ar 1862 1864 1 0 Second Polish 1863 1864 1 0 Spanish-SantoDominican 1863 1865 0 . Second Schleswig-Holstein 1864 1864 1 0 Lopez War 1864 1870 1 1 Spanish-Chilean 1865 1866 1 0 British-Bhutanese 1865 1865 1 0 Second SiouxW ar 1865 1868 0 1 First Cretan 1866 1867 1 1 Ten Years’W ar 1868 1878 1 0 Algerian 1871 1872 1 . Second ApacheW ar 1871 1873 1 0 Second Ashanti 1873 1874 1 0 Tonkin 1873 1885 1 0 Dutch-Achinese 1873 1878 1 0 Red River Indian War 1874 1875 1 0 Balkan 1875 1877 1 1 Third ApacheW ar 1876 1886 1 1 Third SiouxW ar 1876 1877 1 0 Ninth KafŽr 1877 1878 1 0 Russo-Turkoman 1878 1881 1 0 Second British-Afghan 1878 1880 1 0 British-Zulu 1879 1879 1 0 Gun War 1880 1881 1 0 First Boer War 1880 1880 0 0 Tunisian 1881 1882 1 . Franco-Indochinese 1882 1884 1 0 Mahdist 1882 1885 0 0 First Franco-Madagascan 1883 1885 1 0 Sino-French 1884 1885 0 0 Russo-Afghan 1885 1885 1 0 Third Anglo-Burmese 1885 1886 1 0 First Mandigo-French War 1885 1885 1 0 First Italo-Ethiopian 1887 1887 0 0 International Security 26:1126

War Name Start End OUTCOME1 STRATINT2 Second Cretan 1888 1889 1 . Dehomey 1889 1892 1 0 Second Senegalese 1890 1891 1 0 Messiah War 1890 1891 1 0 Congo Arabs 1892 1892 1 . Franco-Thai 1893 1893 1 . Third Ashanti 1893 1894 1 0 Matabele-British War 1893 1893 1 0 Sino-Japanese 1894 1895 0 0 Franco-Madagascan 1894 1895 1 0 Balian 1894 1894 1 . Cuban 1895 1898 1 0 Italo-Ethiopian 1895 1896 0 0 Fourth Ashanti 1895 1896 1 0 Third Cretan 1896 1897 0 0 Druze-Turkish 1896 1896 1 . First Philippine 1896 1898 0 1 Sudanese War 1896 1899 1 0 Greco-Turkish 1897 1897 1 0 Indian Muslim 1897 1898 1 0 Nigerian 1897 1897 1 0 Hut Tax 1898 1898 1 0 Second Philippine 1899 1902 1 0 Second Boer War 1899 1902 1 0 SomaliRebellion 1899 1905 1 0 Russo-Manchurian 1900 1900 0 0 Ilinden 1903 1903 1 0 Russo-JapaneseW ar 1904 1905 0 0 SouthW est African Revolt 1904 1905 1 1 Maji-MajiRevolt 1905 1906 1 1 Second ZuluW ar 1906 1906 1 0 Spanish-Moroccan 1909 1910 1 0 First Moroccan 1911 1912 1 0 First Balkan War 1912 1913 0 0 Tibetan WarofIndependence 1912 1913 0 0 Second Moroccan 1916 1917 1 . Arab Revolt 1916 1918 0 1 Irish Troubles 1916 1921 0 1 Yunnan 1917 1918 1 . First Sino-Tibetan 1918 1918 0 . Russo-Polish 1919 1920 0 0 Lithuanian-Polish 1919 1920 1 0 Hungarian-Allies 1919 1919 1 0 How theWeak Win Wars 127

War Name Start End OUTCOME1 STRATINT2 Franco-Turkish 1919 1922 0 0 Third Afghan 1919 1919 1 0 Franco-Syrian 1920 1920 1 . Iraqi-British 1920 1921 1 . Sanusi 1920 1932 1 0 RifŽan 1921 1926 1 . Druze Rebellion 1925 1927 1 0 U.S.-Nicaraguan 1927 1933 1 1 Chinese Muslims 1928 1928 1 . Chinese Civil War 1930 1935 1 0 Manchurian 1931 1933 0 . Soviet-Turkestani 1931 1934 1 . Italo-Ethiopian 1935 1936 1 0 Sino-Japanese 1937 1941 1 0 Chankufeng 1938 1938 0 0 Winter War 1939 1940 1 0 Franco-Thai 1940 1941 0 . Indonesian Independence 1945 1946 0 0 Indochinese 1945 1954 0 0 Madagascan 1947 1948 1 . First Kashmir 1947 1949 1 0 Palestine 1948 1949 0 0 MalayanRebellion 1948 1957 1 0 Hyderabad 1948 1948 1 . Korean Conict 1950 1953 0 0 Sino-Tibetan 1950 1951 1 0 Philippines 1950 1952 1 0 Kenya 1952 1956 1 0 Tunisian Independence 1952 1954 0 . MoroccanIndependence 1953 1956 0 . Algerian 1954 1962 0 0 British-Cypriot 1954 1959 0 0 Cameroon 1955 1960 0 . Russo-Hungarian 1956 1956 1 0 Sinai 1956 1956 1 0 Tibetan 1956 1959 1 1 Cuba 1958 1959 0 1 SouthVietnam 1960 1965 0 1 Congo 1960 1965 1 0 Kurdish 1961 1963 1 . Angola-Portugal 1961 1975 0 . Sino-Indian 1962 1962 1 0 Portugal-GuineaBissau 1962 1974 0 1 Mozambique 1964 1975 0 1 International Security 26:1128

War Name Start End OUTCOME1 STRATINT2 Vietnam 1965 1975 0 0 Second Kashmir 1965 1965 0 0 Six-Day War 1967 1967 0 0 Israeli-Egyptian 1969 1970 0 0 Bangladesh 1971 1971 1 0 Philippine-Moro 1972 1980 1 0 Yom KippurW ar 1973 1973 0 0 Turko-Cypriot 1974 1974 1 0 Eritrean 1974 1991 0 0 Kurdish Autonomy 1974 1975 1 0 East Timor 1974 1975 0 1 Vietnamese-Cambodian 1975 1979 1 0 Western Sahara 1975 1983 1 . Chadian Civil War 1975 1988 1 0 Ethiopian-Somalian 1977 1978 1 0 Afghanistan 1978 1989 0 0 Sino-Vietnamese 1979 1979 1 0 Peruvian Civil War 1982 1992 1 0 Tamil Rebellion 1983 1990 0 1 Sino-Vietnamese 1985 1987 0 0 Gulf War 1990 1991 1 0 Iraq-Kuwait 1990 1990 1 0 Kurdish Rebellion 1991 . . 0 SerbianRebellion 1991 1996 0 1 Russo-Chechen 1994 1996 0 0 Number ofcases = 197

Avalue of .indicates missing data. 1 OUTCOMEis the variable label forthe conict outcome. Avalue of 1meansthat the strongactor won. Avalue of 0meansthat the weakactor won, the warwas astalemate,or thatit is ongoing. 2 STRATINTis the variable label forstrategic interaction. Avalue of 0meansthat it was asame- approachinteraction (direct-direct orindirect-indirect). Avalue of1meansthat it wasan oppo- site-approach interaction (indirect-direct ordirect-indirect).