Asymmetrical Warfare:
The Centrality of the Political to the Strategic
January 14–15, 2017
New York, NY

Unconventional, nontraditional, or more precisely asymmetrical warfare has become the pervasive reality for the modern world. All realistic prognoses compellingly suggest it will remain so throughout the twenty-first century. The recent terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernadino were no temporary aberration, or incidents of domestic political violence, but part of an increasingly normative pattern of asymmetrical warfare against the West. These events are inextricably related to the unconventional warfare and terrorism characterized by the conflicts extending from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria to Africa. Isis, al-Qaeda, and Boko Haram have become the common coinage of political discourse and news cycles. The controversy over the very terminology of the “War on Terror,” like that over the Obama Administration’s determination to close Guantanamo, illustrate the domestic as well as foreign policy implications of such developments. Meanwhile, Europe likewise faces both overt actions and indirect consequences of asymmetrical warfare. Russia’s proxy war in Ukraine and annexation of the Crimea, together with the massive Middle Eastern refugee influx, has thrust Europe into its own highly divisive disputes over its very cultural essence, political will, and future unity.

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