Big Nations, Small Wars


The US in Vietnam. USSR in Afghanistan. The US again in Iraq and Afghanistan. Russia in Chechnya. What do they have in common? In each case, an overwhelmingly superior force fails to win against a guerrilla force. Why is it so?

Set aside the role of “outside” support to the guerrillas. Of course, it exists and it plays a role. But does anyone really believe that outside support, which has to be hidden, can actually equalize the two sides? And yet…

Turns out Andrew Mack, a historian did such an analysis way back in 1975 titled “Why Big Nations Lose Small Wars”. Many of its conclusions hold good today as well:
-         The deer runs for its life, the lion for dinner: The bigger country’s survival isn’t on the line; the guerrilla’s is. Bigger the stake, the harder they fight.
-         Timebound v/s eternal conflict: The bigger country almost always has a timetable as to when the conflict should end (beyond that, questions are raised domestically about the cost of the war, whether the benefits are worth the cost, and the anger over the death of their soldiers over a cause that doesn’t affect their nation’s survival). For the guerrilla, victory is worth whatever it costs.
-         Ethics v/s anything goes: Since their own survival isn’t at stake, questions are always raised in big countries about the killing of civilians, torture and other brutalities of war. The guerrilla is never asked such questions. Or as Mack wrote:
“For the insurgents, the war is ‘total’, while for the external power, it is necessarily ‘limited’”.

So does this mean that big nations will always lose against guerrillas? I don’t think so: because the guerrilla lives at the mercy of morality of the big nation. There is no guarantee that the big nation may say that the gloves are off and hit with everything they have, all the way upto nuclear weapons. Don’t believe it can happen? Didn’t the US use napalm in Vietnam? Didn’t Saddam use chemical weapons against Kurds?

While unlikely, those options are always on the table for the big nation. And all the outside support cannot save the guerrillas from that…

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