Challenges in Fighting a Global Insurgency

"War is . . . an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will."

- Carl von Clausewitz1

The strategic nature of war has changed, and our military and government are striving to adapt to fight and win in this new environment. Today we are engaged in a global counterinsurgency, an unprecedented challenge which requires a level of original strategic thought and depth of understanding perhaps comparable only to that of the Cold War. Our ongoing political-military actions to achieve success in Iraq and Afghanistan are simply subordinate efforts of this larger, complex world war.

Our enemies today clearly understand the value of asymmetrical approaches when dealing with the overwhelming conventional combat power of the United States military. Unfortunately, our unmatched conventional capability has slowed the US response to the changing, asymmetrical nature of modern war.2We as a military are at risk of failing to understand the nature of the war we are fighting-a war which has been characterized as "a war of intelligence and a war of perceptions."3 We must confront this dilemma and take our thinking to a new strategic level in this era to understand the tools and strategic approaches required to create victory in this very different 21st-century environment.

Fourth Generation Warfare: Global Insurgency

Retired Marine Colonel T. X. Hammes, in his recent book The Sling and the Stone, outlines an innovative construct to better understand the evolution of warfare.4 The book's striking cover photo epitomizes the paradox in today's warfare of "weak against strong": it shows a young Palestinian boy, arm upraised, about to hurl a rock at a huge, US-made Israeli M60 tank. The shades of meaning are rich. In his insightful work, Hammes describes four evolutions o...

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