Asymmetric War Quotes

The attacks in New York represent a new, privatized form of violence, which has nothing in common with the classical concept of war and is something to which we must find answers

Irregular war is far more intellectual than a bayonet charge.

This is a totally different war than any we've ever fought before.

Twenty-first century war adds new risks: more and more often there are no front lines, no central command, no rules of engagement - only a chaotic collision of politics, power, faith and bloodlust. Victims are as likely to be civilians as soldiers.

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

[Francisco Franco] said they should resort to guerrilla war. Which has a history in Spain.

There is in guerrilla warfare no such thing as a decisive battle; there is nothing comparable to the fixed, passive defense that characterizes orthodox war.

Developments in information technology and globalised media mean that the most powerful military in the history of the world can lose a war, not on the battlefield of dust and blood, but on the battlefield of world opinion.

They used to be seen as insane or unthinkable acts of madmen. But if they take place they'll be called 'war' too. And there will still be no conventional war.

War has been declared on us, where the enemy is unseen and there is no front.

Guerrilla troops, especially when supported by much of the population, [can] hold a colonial army at bay.

Guerrilla war is a kind of war waged by the few but dependent on the support of many.

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

Guerrilla warfare is used by the side which is supported by a majority but which possesses a much smaller number of arms for use in defense against oppression.

The aim of war now is not to defeat your enemy – that’s probably impossible – but to change the way he and his supporters think.

One of the things that I've learned, and I think we've all learned, is that we are not going to get the kind of decisive, permanent victories in this fight against terrorism that we would get from fighting another country. We're not going to get that MacArthur/Emperor moment, because by definition, even after decimating Al Qaeda in the Fata, even after taking out [Osama] bin Laden there's still people there who have both the interest and the capacity if we don't maintain vigilance to strike against the United States.

An insurgency is the most difficult to fight of all military activities.

The Palestinians are fighting with human suicide bombers, that's all they have. The Israelis... they've got one of the most powerful military machines in the world. The Palestinians have nothing. So who are the terrorists? I would make a case that both sides are involved in terrorism.

Insurrection by means of guerrilla bands is the true method of warfare for all nations desirous of emancipating themselves from a foreign yoke. It is invincible, indestructible.

We must carry the war into every corner the enemy happens to carry it, to his home, to his centers of entertainment: a total war. It is necessary to prevent him from having a moment of peace, a quiet moment outside his barracks or even inside; we must attack him wherever he may be, make him feel like a cornered beast wherever he may move. Then his moral fiber shall begin to decline, but we shall notice how the signs of decadence begin to disappear.

Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success.

The people are like the sea and the guerrillas are like fish swimming in that sea. Without the sea there will be no fish. We have to drain the sea.

Remember the valiant Iraqi peasant and how he shot down an American Apache with an old weapon.

A government needs 100 soldiers for every guerilla it faces.