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How the Weak Win Wars: a Theory of Asymmetric Conflict

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How the Weak Win Wars: a Theory of Asymmetric Conflict 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 Championship ght of October30, 1974. Foreman, none of whoseopponents 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 ght,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 movinginto the ring tomeet Foreman,Ali appeared tocoweragainst the ropes.Foreman, now condent 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 of the forceof Foreman’s blows,it looked as if Ali wouldsurely fall.By the fth round,how- ever, Foremanwas worn out. And in roundeight, asstunned commentators anda deliriouscrowd looked on, Muhammad Ali knocked George Foremanto the canvas,and the ght wasover. The outcomeof thatnow-famous “ rumble in the jungle”was completely un- expected. The two ghterswere equally motivatedto win: Both had boasted of victory,andboth had enormous egos. Y et in the end, aght thatshould have been overin three roundswent eight, andForeman’ s prodigiouspunches proveduseless against Ali’ s rope-a-dope strategy. This 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 of Chicago,partici- pantsin the 1999–2000 National Security Seminarat the JohnM. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies atHarvardUniversity ,andthree anonymousreviewers for their helpful comments. Healsograte- fully acknowledges support fromthe Institute forthe Studyof World Politics andthe Smith Rich- 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 power implies 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 which weakactors win warsis im- portantfor two reasons. First, if there aredynamics unique toasymmetric conicts— or if their analysisprovides fresh insightsinto symmetrical conicts— 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 ghtingagainst rebels. “Conicts” in this analysisare restricted to wars(1,000 battle deathsper yearon average), although again, similar dynamicsmay apply in conicts thatare not wars(e.g., terrorism, tradewars, and labor disputes). Because this analysisfocuses onexplaining asymmetric conicts, it excludes those few wars in which the ratio of forces changeddramatically (toward symmetry)between the conict’ s beginningand end. 2.In this article Ifollow established practice byintroducing animperfect but quantiable proxy for power. 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 andquanti 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 Conicts: War Initiationby Weaker Powers (New York:Cambridge Univer- sity Press, 1994),p. 4. Paul’ s analysisfocuses onwhy weak states initiate wars againststronger ones.His threshold of analysisfor asymmetry is apower ratio of 1:2,where power is measuredin traditional—that is, material—terms. OnPaul’ s denition 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 Conict,” 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 conict 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 of somecon 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 aconict predicts con ict outcomes better thando competing ex- planations. 7 The rstsection 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 andbene 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 of strategyand 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 ghtas well asauthori- tarianactors, and (2) an increase in strong-actorfailures in asymmetric conicts correlates with an increase in the total numberof asymmetric conicts involving democratic strongactors, actor re- gime type explains asymmetric conict 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 caused the costs of con- quest oroccupation to rise sufciently to offset expected benets. Onoffense-defense theoryin general,see SeanM. Lynn-Jones,“ Offense-Defense Theoryand Its Critics,” SecurityStudies, Vol. 4, No.4
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