Low Intensity Conflict 101

Excerpts from the "Definition" section of US FM 100-20,
Military Operations in Low Intensity Conflict:

Low intensity conflict is a political-military confrontation between contending states or groups below conventional war and above the routine, peaceful competition among states. It frequently involves protracted struggles of competing principles and ideologies. Low intensity conflict ranges from subversion to the use of armed force. It is waged by a combination of means, employing political, economic, informational, and military instruments. Low intensity conflicts are often localized, generally in the Third World, but contain regional and global security implications.

Nuclear parity, the dynamics of modern revolutionary warfare, and economic interdependence have significantly reshaped the international arena over the last four decades. In this environment, LIC poses complex challenges to US global interests. Unfavorable outcomes of LIC may gradually isolate the United States, its allies, and its global trading partners from each other and from the world community. Unfavorable outcomes of LIC may also cause:

• The loss of US access to strategic energy reserves and other natural resources.
• The loss of US military basing, transit, and access rights.
• The movement of US friends and allies to positions of accommodation with hostile groups.
• The gain of long-term advantages for US adversaries.

Conversely, successful LIC operations, consistent with US interests and laws, can advance US international goals such as the growth of freedom, democratic institutions, and free market economies.

US policy recognizes that indirect, rather than direct, applications of US military power are the most appropriate and cost-effective ways to achieve national goals in a LIC environment. The principal US military instrument in LIC is security assistance in the form of training, equipment, services and combat support. When LIC threatens friends and allies, the aim of security assistance is to ensure that their military institutions can provide security for their citizens and government.

Asymmetric Warfare 101

"Asymmetric Warfare" is war between belligerents whose relative military powers, strategy or tactics differ significantly.  It can describe a conflict in which the resources of two belligerents differ in essence, and in the struggle, interact and attempt to exploit each other's inherent weaknesses. Such struggles often involve strategies and tactics of unconventional warfare, the "weaker" combatants attempting to use strategy to offset deficiencies in quantity or quality.  Such strategies may not necessarily be militarized.  This is in contrast to "Symmetric Warfare", where two powers have similar military power and resources and rely on tactics that are similar overall, differing only in details and execution.  The term is frequently used to describe what is also called "guerrilla warfare", "insurgency", "terrorism", "counter-insurgency", and "counter-terrorism", essentially violent conflicts between formal military organizations and informal, poorly-equipped, but resilient forces. (Wikipedia)