Asymmetry and Randomness: Old Weapon and New Tool

The American Revolutionary War was fought and won using the guerilla tactics that evolved into today's terrorist methods. It was called an asymmetric war not only because of the great difference in size between the two militaries, but also because the tactics of the two sides necessarily differed greatly as well: Britain's large, well-armed military could march straight through a region and take it by force, while the Colonists used their small numbers, greater responsiveness and geographic incumbency to their advantage.

The smaller army often has more options available to it, as its incohate state allows it to be more protean in shape and function. It wasn't the British who were hiding in trees and ambushing the colonists in the hills of Massacheusetts, nor was it the Unified Task Force who were sniping at columns of warlords driving through the streets of Mogadishu. This institutional rigidity is a result of the need to organize a huge enterprise such as an established military. It becomes divided into specialized forces for specific tasks, and it becomes inflexible as a result.

During the Soviet-Afghan war, the United States was able to use the size and financial burden of the Soviet military against Russia itself. Once the Afghans were armed with FIM-92 Stinger Missiles, they were able to use the small, mobile, inexpensive weapon to take out large, expensive aircraft. It was soon discovered that one missile which cost the US $70k could drop a Soviet aircraft worth $20 million, and did so on 7 out of 10 launches. Based on this data, every dollar the US spent on the war cost Russia $200, which spelled an unwinnable war for the Russians absent a disruptive new tactic or technology. This demonstrates the clear advantage of being on the guerrilla side of an asymmetrical war against a large traditional military, and how important it is for large armies to develop their own strategic asymmetry to render moot the enemy's natural guerrilla advantage

Today's ongoing conflict on the Afghan-Pakistan border affords clearly defined advantages to all sides involved: the equipment, resources and manpower of the larger militaries and their specialized forces vs the stealth, agility and small numbers of the terrorists. Because of the sheer size of the American forces in Afghanistan, the terrorists will always know where their enemy is at any moment, and where to hide. The war becomes a stalemate unless the American force can either play the guerrilla game better than the terrorists, or use their existing assets to an asymmetrically disruptive strategic advantage, which brings me to the point of this post.

Because of our vast intel advantage, we know that bin Laden is hiding in a hole somewhere in Northern Waziristan, and his set of possible location points is limited by that boundary. He can move fast, but not far, and thus al Quaeda's central organizing force is limited by these same constraints. The US and its allies can move very fast, very far through the air, but are limited to known targets, which is exactly how the structurally inferior enemy has been able to elude them. In this case, a disruptive tactic is available that neither side has yet employed, and that is the property of randomness.

If a target's location is limited by an absolute set of geographic boundaries, then ideally one could wage war completely and totally on the complete area within those boundaries. Unfortunately, that is simply not possible in an area of 5,000 square miles. A well-equipped military can, however, achieve that same effect through randomness: by randomly targeting areas for bombing anywhere and everywhere within that region, the rules of play for the guerrillas are not only changed, they are eliminated completely.

They can no longer predict where the Americans will be at any moment, because the Americans are no longer chasing them, and their source of intelligence disappears completely. Their set of known possible hiding places is likewise nullified, because their enemy's strategy no longer accommodates those hiding places. Complete randomness in this case tips the advantage to the military with air capability, and it becomes a matter of time before bin Laden is killed or attempts escape through unfriendly territory.

Randomness, then, is the asymmetrical weapon that the Americans can use to frustrate and ultimately eliminate terrorists hiding in the unkind terrain of the Afghan-Pakistani border.

We should randomly bomb Northern Waziristan.