Asymmetric Conflict Quotes

The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerilla wins if he does not lose.

Irregular war is far more intellectual than a bayonet charge.

The guerrilla wins if he does not lose. The conventional army loses if it does not win.

Guerrilla warfare is essentially a political war.

The terrorists' only rules? That there are no rules, and this gives them a major advantage.

The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea.

Who do you call a civilian in a guerilla war? I mean, it might be a farmer by day or a merchant, a housewife, and by night the housewife may be helping to make landmines and booby traps and who knows.

Giap was a master of logistics, but his reputation rests on more than that. His victories were achieved by a patient strategy that he and Ho Chi Minh were convinced would succeed - an unwavering resolve to suffer immense casualties and the near total destruction of their country to defeat any adversary, no matter how powerful.

While the nature of warfare is changing and wars are moving into cities, they are also becoming longer and their consequences more impactful.

ISIS targeting the U.S. military is like a sheep targeting a lion.

Counter-insurgency, as you know, is a roller-coaster affair.

The implied threat of using nuclear weapons to curb guerrillas was as absurd as to talk of using a sledge hammer to ward off a swarm of mosquitoes.

Don't compete with me: firstly, I have more experience, and secondly, I have chosen the weapons.

The insurgent can sow disorder anywhere, whereas the counterinsurgent—fighting on behalf of the government—has to maintain order everywhere.

Some of the generals are saying, 'We're making progress. We are clearing an area.' But you really don't defeat the Taliban by clearing an area. They move.

Anyone who has to fight, even with the most modern weapons, against an enemy in complete command of the air, fights like a savage against modern European troops, under the same handicaps and with the same chances of success.

those who attack always do so with greater fervor than those who defend.

In Afghanistan this week, outnumbered Northern Alliance rebels on horseback defeated Taliban forces armed with tanks. Experts say the victory is just like the story of David and Goliath and David's friend, the Stealth Bomber.

I don't want to directly confront great powers, which we cannot defeat on their terms. They have more money, more clout, more airtime. We cannot be effective without a mass movement, and the American people today are too comfortable to adapt to a mass movement.

Time and again, attempts by machine-age armies to impose their will on irregular forces supported by a sympathetic population failed.

Why don’t Israelis stop the tanks and fight us with rifles so the fight would be equal?

Don't start an argument with somebody who has a microphone when you don't. They'll make you look like chopped liver.

You can't talk about defeating insurgencies in the same way that you can with a conventional army.

The Afghans did not have sophisticated weapons like the Soviets did, but with their faith they defeated a superpower.

The consequences of U. S. superiority is that its opponents, both state and non-state actors, will have little choice but to resort to guerilla tactics and urban warfare because they simply cannot confront U. S. forces head on..