Challenging the United States Symmetrically and Asymmetrically: Can America be Defeated?

Edited by Colonel Lloyd J. Matthews USA Ret..

July 1998

337 Pages

Brief Synopsis

The U.S. Army War College s Ninth Annual Strategy Conference was held at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, during the period March 31-April 2, 1998. The theme of the conference was Challenging the United States Symmetrically and Asymmetrically: Can America Be Defeated? There were some 150 attendees, including active duty military personnel as well as members of academe, the U.S. Defense and service departments, think tanks, corporations, and news media.

This book is an outgrowth of that conference, though it makes no effort to present a comprehensive and literal record of events in the mold of traditional colloquium proceedings. Rather, the book is organized as an anthology of selected conference presentations, complemented by sufficient notice of roundtable and question-and-answer discussion to provide a glimpse of the vigorous interplay of ideas evoked by this most timely of topics.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preliminary Observations: Asymmetrical Warfare and the Western Mindset
Charles J. Dunlap, Jr

Part I: Symmetries & Asymmetries--A Historical Perspective
Chaired by Earl H. Tilford, Jr.

Introduction
Lloyd J. Matthews

Technology & Asymmetrics in Modern Warfare
John F. Guilmartin, Jr.

The Myth of Blitzkrieg
Robert A. Doughty

Asymmetric Response to American Air Supremacy in Vietnam
Donald J. Mrozek

Part II: Threats

Introduction
Lloyd J. Matthews

Takedown: Targets, Tools, & Technocracy
Robert D. Steele

Information Peacekeeping: The Purest Form of War
Robert D. Steele

Terrorism & Asymmetry
Stephen Sloan

Metaphors & Modern Threats: Biological, Computer, and Cognitive Viruses
Edmund M. Glabus

Our New Old Enemies
Ralph Peters

Part III: State-On-State Approaches

Introduction
Lloyd J. Matthews

How We Will Lose the War with Russia: A Critique of U.S. Military Strategy
Stephen J. Blank

Regional State Competitors: The Case of Iraq
Stephen Pelletiere

Beyond Russia and China: A Survey of Threats to U.S. Security From Lesser States
Kori Schake.

Part IV: Roundtable on Future Responses-- Robert H. Scales, Jr., Timothy A. Kinnan, and John Allen Williams
Chaired by John Hillen

Summary

Biographical Sketches

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