Asymmetric Threats and Implications for the U.S.-ROK Alliance

Asymmetric Threats and Implications for the U.S.-ROK Alliance
By Stephen Bradner
For Presentation to the Council on Korea-U.S. Security Studies
14 October 2002, Seoul

Perhaps the three most controversial terms in strategic political discourse as we move through the first decade of the new millennium are "terrorism," "rogue state," and "asymmetric." The first is defined by Encyclopedia Britannica as "the systematic use of terror (such as bombings, killings, and kidnappings) as a means of forcing some political objective. When used by a government, it may signal efforts to stifle dissent; used by insurrectionists or guerrillas, it may be part of an overall effort to effect political change." This sounds rather adequate even if it does not cover every aspect of the subject, but since the term is used pejoratively, the way we are apt to apply it seems to depend on which side we are on, so much so that Reuters news agency considers the term “terrorism” too subjective to use. One man's terrorist seems to be another's freedom fighter. To the English, figures like William Wallace, Sam Adams, and John Hancock were outlaws -- today they would call them “terrorists” -- while to the Scots and colonial Americans they were patriots. Israel came into existence when terrorism made it too costly for Britain to continue its mandate, and contemporary Israelis are both the victims of terrorist bombers and, in the Palestinian view, practitioners of terrorism when they stage aerial strikes or dynamite houses. The term "rogue state" is similar in that it is used pejoratively. The U.S. government has referred to countries like North Korea and Iraq as rogue states, while in Noam Chomsky's eyes, the U.S. is the perfect example of such a state.[1] The task of defining "asymmetric" seems at first a bit easier. The Joint Forces Command website Glossary defines asymmetric warfare as "the waging of unbalanced or un-proportioned armed or unarmed war against the enemy." This will do for a start, although, as we shall see, when we look further, the problem becomes more complex.

Strange and unusual weapons have always been around. In a primitive effort at biological warfare in earlier centuries, siege machines would hurl the bodies of dead animals over fortress walls. The capability to strike from a distance was always a critical factor. Knights who were at risk from flights of arrows may not have used the term asymmetric, but they certainly considered the weapon an unfair one, as witness their inclination to chop up archers captured on the battlefield. Combatants have always sought an edge. Sometimes it may consist in weaponry. Sometimes it's in a concept or doctrine. We should remember that two opponents are hardly ever similar in every respect. In the Peloponnesian Wars, Athens and Sparta were asymmetrical in the sense that, by experience and tradition, Athens was prepared to fight on the sea, Sparta on land. A huge advantage would go to the side first able to master the specialty of the other. Ultimately, to oversimplify somewhat, the Athenians exhausted the funds needed to maintain their fleet while, in Lysander, Sparta finally found a capable naval commander and won the war.

We may consider North Korea's 150 tanks in June 1950 asymmetric, because the ROK had none. But the same cannot be said for German tanks in 1940. Observers generally agree that in 1940, the French had plenty of tanks and their SOMUA 35 was arguably the best tank on the battlefield. The French deficiency was not so much in weaponry as in concept. They still thought of the tank as an infantry support weapon and did not mass them in large formations. Like the British, they appreciated the importance of maneuver to outflank and engage a strong point, but, unlike the Germans, they did not see maneuver as a means of bypassing strong points in order to achieve deep penetration. The point, then, is that weapons per se are not asymmetric. Asymmetry occurs when one side has a device or an idea which the other side has not anticipated and when that device or idea does in fact make a difference on the battlefield.

If unusual military methods have always been with us, then what makes asymmetric threats so fascinating and troublesome at this point in history? There are both general and specific answers to this question. Lets start with some generalizations. Policy makers and commanders are accustomed to thinking in symmetric terms. The whole subject of asymmetric threats is apt to be embarrassing to them because it usually forces them to acknowledge that there are problems they should have addressed but haven't. Large bureaucracies resist change in modus operandi and are inclined to find reasons to dismiss the significance of potential threats that might require such change. Moreover the intelligence "take" on asymmetric threats is, in the beginning at least, often inadequate or controversial. The practical difficulties of adjusting to new threats as well as resource constraints can often be so formidable as to force decision makers back into conventional thinking and conventional solutions. Finally, the practitioners of asymmetric warfare may also have asymmetric objectives, i.e., extreme and "unreasonable" objectives that their more conventional adversaries are unable to grasp or reluctant to acknowledge.

In any case, the average television viewer or newspaper reader presently is apt to think of asymmetric weapons in terms of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, in particular, chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons delivered by missiles or other means. (North Korea’s nuclear weapons can be considered asymmetric in the north-south context, but not in the context of hostilities between the north and the U.S.) In this respect, what does North Korea have that should worry us?

Until the mid-1990s, North Korea had only Scud Missiles. In 1995 North Korea tested a 1300-km range Nodong missile. About 600 have been deployed.[2] On 31 August 1998, North Korea launched a three-stage Taepodong-1 missile, which it described as a small satellite. Although it only flew about 1,300 kms, it demonstrated a step forward in technologies needed for an ICBM, including stage separation. Although North Korea has undertaken to observe a self-imposed moratorium on missile testing until 2003, their efforts continue to improve range, accuracy, lethality, and survivability of these weapons. In a two-stage configuration, the Taepodong-2, on which the north is working, could deliver a several hundred-kilogram payload up to 10,000 kms. A three-stage Taepodong ICBM could deliver a payload of several hundred kilograms anywhere in the U.S.[3]

It is estimated that North Korea has stockpiled as much as 5,000 metric tons of chemical weapons, to include nerve, choking, and blister agents[4] and that the north has at least twenty different plants dedicated to chemical or biological weapons production. These poisons include VX, a highly potent nerve agent, toxic on contact or if inhaled. About ten mg., or one drop, is deadly for humans. Another is sarin, a nerve agent developed in Germany in 1938, which kills by suffocation.[5] According to Newsweek in 1999, the ROK military then estimated that 50 missiles carrying nerve gas might kill up to 38% of Seoul's 12 million inhabitants. A Ministry of National Defense (MND) White Paper in October 1999 acknowledged that the North Korean chemical and biological threat had been underestimated by a huge margin and warned that the north could employ as many as ten different toxic agents in a future war on the peninsula.[6]

There is no cheerful news on the biological weapons front either. The U.S. believes North Korea has one of the most robust biological weapons programs on earth, a dedicated national-level effort, and that the north has developed, produced, and possibly weaponized BW agents in violation of the BW Convention.[7] How serious is the CBW threat? In July 1995, top U.S. military and intelligence officials convened at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, to conduct an exercise called Global 95. As described in chapter 31 of The Plague Wars by Mangold and Goldberg, the scenarios included a North Korean assault mounted from stealth speedboats just off shore and by Special Forces infiltrating through tunnels under the DMZ.[8] The conclusions briefly summarized:

- Due to surprise and the use of biological and chemical agents, the defense fell apart very quickly once the attackers breached the DMZ and seized or put out of action the BIDS (Biological Integrated Detection Systems) detector vehicles. There were not enough detectors to go around, nor did the defending forces know where to put the ones they had.

- When, under the circumstances, the officer in charge of the defense ordered a full retreat, he found there were not enough vehicles available and he could not organize enough firepower to cover the retreat.

- One of the most serious threats to defense is the use of well-trained North Korean Special Forces carrying portable aerosol sprayers in a silent night attack on U.S. bases. Depending on the agent used, no one might be sick for two or three days, and by then it would be too late.

- Air bases and ports are particularly vulnerable to biological attack because the civilian work force are unprotected and untrained in bio warfare defense. Without workers to unload ships and maintain planes, the result would be impairment of sortie generation and logistical paralysis.

As the authors explain, a second exercise Coral Breeze was held at a U.S. base in Korea with the full participation of host country representatives to test the effectiveness of corrective measures taken subsequent to Global 95. This second exercise raised questions as to whether South Korean reserve forces would have sufficient protective equipment to respond effectively. Further steps have since been taken to improve CBW training and equipment for ROK forces, but the chem-bio option for North Korea remains a significant threat.

North Korea's weapons programs are normally secret, and bio-weapons programs are particularly difficult for intelligence agencies to detect, but Mangold and Goldberg state that North Korea is believed to be working on anthrax, botulinum, plague, smallpox, cholera, typhoid fever, hemorrhagic fever, and yellow fever.

What has the ROK done to prepare for the North Korean chem-bio threat? Something, to be sure, but some would say not enough. Maintaining large CB reserve materiel stocks is a very expensive proposition that has not been a priority for the ROK government due to budgetary constraints. The ROK MND on 1 February 2002 established the CBR Defense Command with the mission to provide command and control and assets to respond to CB attacks and terrorist events in war and peace. ROK Army units at brigade and higher have organic chemical units to conduct reconnaissance and decontamination. Each ROK Air Force main operating base and collocated base has reconnaissance and decontamination assets to mitigate the effect of CB attacks. ROK government defensive measures at the dong (district) level include:

- A civilian CB squad to conduct chemical decontamination in response to CB incidents.

- Protective mask stocks for civilians residing in high-threat and critical areas.

Numerous local governments have CB-incident response teams that are often integrated into military exercises. And numerous hospitals have CB decontamination and treatment facilities, especially in the Seoul area. Significant deficiencies remain in the military and civilian sectors. South Korea’s preparations do not yet approximate those of Israel, where everyone has a protective mask, and virtually every house has a sealed room. Indicative of the gap between north and south is that while the ROK has foresworn the use of chemical weapons, the north regards them as conventional warfare and is prepared to operate both offensively and defensively in the chemical environment.

If protective gear and training can mitigate the impact of chemical and biological weapons, the same, of course, cannot be said for the nuclear threat. What about North Korea's nuclear weapons capability? The 1994 Agreed Framework supposedly froze North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Did it really? Supporters of the agreement have argued that it shut down North Korea's nuclear weapons program, and that it essentially resolved the most serious national security issue facing the U.S. as the Clinton administration came into office. It may not have been perfect, they say, but it was the best that could be achieved, and continuing to implement the KEDO project and building light water-moderated reactors to compensate the north for energy lost in foregoing the graphite-moderated reactors is the best way to insure against another nuclear weapons crisis on the peninsula. Opponents argue that the Yongbyon project was never designed to provide energy, and that the Agreed Framework did not provide the transparency we had been seeking and did nothing to preclude continuation of the quest for a nuclear weapon somewhere outside of Yongbyon. The KEDO project has its own set of proponents and critics, but let us focus here on the simple proposition that, whatever its merits, the Agreed Framework has not halted the north's nuclear weapons program.[9] This does not mean that the agreement is useless, as it did stop ongoing work at Yongbyon, but the Perry Report released in October 1999 acknowledged that the Agreed Framework was not designed to freeze nuclear activities outside the Yongbyon complex.[10] Here is an account of suspected activity elsewhere from a senior official of the KWP:

There is a big mountain, 2,500 meters above sea level, called Kwanmo-bong, located about 100 li (40 kms) west of Onchon, Chuul, Kyongsang County, North Hamgyong Province. The people call the mountain Komtok-kol. About ten years ago, North Korea constructed in that mountain a tunnel complex larger than the one at Yongbyon. There is no vehicular road there, and people go there over long distances only at night in order to avoid detection by satellite. The huge amount of earth that was excavated was carried out on workers' backs at night and spread along river banks and along the seashore several dozen li away from the construction sight. I understand that we are moving most of our nuclear development facilities to that location now in order to avoid international inspections. [11]

The critical requirement for a weapons program is to gain possession of plutonium or uranium. The Yongbyon project was related to production of weapons grade plutonium. But the north also reportedly has mines containing some four million tons of high-quality uranium as well as uranium mining, milling, and fabrication facilities, and evidence that North Korea has been trying to obtain uranium enrichment technology points to a violation not of the Agreed Framework but of the 1992 Joint N-S Declaration on Non-Nuclearization.[12] One of the most indicative signs of a continuing North Korean nuclear weapons program is the evidence of high explosive lens testing. A nuclear bomb has three layers. A plutonium core is surrounded by an implosion layer, which is in turn surrounded by high explosives. Chain reactions require high pressure and temperatures of 2000 degrees or more. The high explosives must be shaped in a way that will achieve the critical temperature as well as pressure uniformly directed at the core of the bomb.[13] Numerous media items have reported such tests. The renowned investigative reporter and author Don Oberdorfer referred to them in an interview with Yonhap News Agency in January 2000.[14] A 10 December 2001 ROK MND Handbook on NBC Weapons and Missiles concludes that “North Korea’s nuclear technology is in the early stage of manufacturing finished high-explosive devices and the beginning stage of high-explosive testing.” One might expect that an MND assessment on such a sensitive subject would be cautious in view of the “sunshine” policy of the current ROK administration, but the question remains, if the north has stopped its nuclear weapons program, why is it doing any high-explosive lens testing?

We note that Kim Myong Chol, director of the Center for a Korean-American Peace located in Tokyo and one of the leading propagandists for the Kim Chong Il regime, takes North Korea’s nuclear weapons capability not only as a fact, but as the centerpiece of Kim’s strategy to force the U.S. off the Korean peninsula. In his 22 October 1999 Nautilus Institute article on NAPSNET, he talks about nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles targeted at U.S. cities and observes that “Kim Chong Il has already built up a lethal war machine capable of wreaking unprecedented havoc on the U.S. mainland at a moment’s notice.... It would take the Korean People’s Army as few as several minutes to wipe off the world map the whole of South Korea and the entire Japanese archipelago.” Kim Myong Chol, of course, is not an expert on North Korea’s actual capabilities, but we can safely presume that, like the celebrated defector Hwang Chang Yop, he is familiar with the mindset and the intent prevailing in Pyongyang.

As Kim Myong Chol’s article suggests, we must see Pyongyang’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability in the context of Kim Chong Il’s larger strategic design. In December 2000, Tokyo’s Bungei Shunju published extracts from speeches given by Kim Chong Il in 1999 to leading officials of various departments of the Korean Workers’ Party Central Committee. In a 4 February 1999 speech, Kim noted that “We have yet to get the nation unified,” and went on to stress the need to strengthen the party and the armed forces. “While doing that, we will have to go on with the further construction of Kumchang-ni. It is impossible to carry out the great tasks of socialism and to build up the military further without stepping up the construction of Kumchang-ni. We must concentrate on the stepped up construction of Kumchang-ni.” (Kumchang-ni, in North Pyongan Province about 100 kms north of Pyongyang, is suspected to hold large underground nuclear facilities. In May 1999, a U.S. inspection of one facility at Kumchang-ni, which the north accepted after lengthy negotiations, turned out negative.) In a 20 June 1999 speech, Kim Chong Il continued to boast about North Korea’s launch of the Taepodong missile and went on to say, “But we must not stop at creating Kwangmyongsong (Taepodong) No. 1. We must go on to produce No.2, No.3, and No.4…more perfectly and more powerfully for the final victory of socialism and for the unification of the fatherland. Only when that is done, can Chuche-Korea grow into the strongest country in the world.”

Although an inspection of one facility at Kumchang-ni in May 1999 was negative, a speech by Kim on 3 October 1999 indicates the importance he still attached to the complex: “Construction projects in Chagang Province constitute the basic engine in the national defense construction programs of this nation including those for Kumchang-ni. We must solidify the missile base in Sinpo City and Mayang-do. We must resolve by ourselves all the problems relating to the unification of the fatherland or the problems pointed out by the party with regard to military construction projects.” What seems significant here is not only that Kim Chong Il had no intention of stopping his nuclear and missile programs, but also that he saw these programs as fundamentally linked to solution of the unification problem.

North Korea has some 11,000 artillery pieces positioned forward close to the DMZ. Some of these are capable of reaching Seoul and together they can fire somewhere between 300,000 to 500,000 rounds per hour at defensive positions in the invasion corridors during the initial stages of combat. This capability can itself be considered a weapon of mass destruction, and if launched, such a barrage would be the largest in the history of warfare.

North Korea's 100,000-man special operations force is the largest in the world. While only a few thousand could be infiltrated by AN2 light aircraft and coastal submarines at the start of hostilities, even this number could strike at air bases and communications nodes and create significant disruption in the rear.

North Korea's asymmetric weapons, fearsome as they are, may not be the foremost threat to the alliance. Equally worrisome threats relate to alliance maintenance and a reluctance to accurately read Kim Chong Il's intent.

At this conference a year ago, Georgetown University's Victor Cha, in a paper which probably deserves more attention than it has received, raised the question of whether the alliance could survive the end of the North Korean threat. In his paper, however, he pointed out problems that raise a more immediate question -- whether the alliance can survive until the end of the North Korean threat. Prof. Cha pointed out that the alliance had no a priori shared identity, but was formed around two utilitarian goals: 1) deterring a second North Korean invasion, and 2) safeguarding Japan. He noted what most of us know -- that Korea does not register in the average American mindset. He observed that in a 1995 survey, Americans rated Korea below neutral, at 48 on a scale of 100, only two points above China. He further asserted that the inability of Americans to "identify" with Korea could, in a moment of crisis, make the alliance a hollow shell, and urged a proactive effort to root the alliance more firmly in a sense of common values. Former Minister of Foreign Affairs Kong No Myong made essentially the same point in an interview with the Monthly Choson in June this year.[15]

Some are disposed to believe that the U.S. is stuck in Korea because of its own interest and cannot leave even if South Koreans are indifferent to alliance maintenance. Like those who prefer to believe that North Korea has embarked upon fundamental change, such people could be in for a shock at some point in the future. President Jimmy Carter came close to pulling out U.S. ground forces in the late 1970s even though there were neither ostensible signs of improvement in north-south relations nor any significant agitation against USFK within the ROK at the time. What if we were to have another president so inclined and, in the context of apparent indifference on the part of the ROK elite to rising manifestations of anti-USFK sentiment, a consensus between the American left and right, each for their own reasons, that we should leave South Korea to fend for itself, and all against the background of a simulacrum of north-south reconciliation, but without a reduction in North Korea's military capabilities or a real change of intent in Pyongyang? It may be unlikely, but in this rapidly changing world, it is certainly thinkable.

Accurate reading of Kim Chong Il's intent is critical to sound policy formulation in Seoul and Washington and, ultimately, to alliance maintenance. The intent when the north attacked in 1950 was clearly to gain control of the entire peninsula. When it failed, there followed from 1954 an announced policy of "peaceful unification." In practice, it featured not only efforts at subversion but also armed penetration of the DMZ, repeated coastal infiltrations, to include large-scale landings on the east coast in the late 1960s in an apparent effort to test the feasibility of establishing a guerrilla infrastructure, and, from 1968 to 1983, five operations designed to kill South Korea’s president. If the strategy has changed since the 1980s, the change would seem to reflect adaptation to new circumstances created by the collapse of the economy and the end of the Communist bloc rather than a change of intent. The end of the cold war and the bloc accelerated the economic crash dive by depriving North Korea of concessionary trade relationships, which amounted to subsidies, and, into the bargain, virtually deprived the north of its two principal allies. In this new environment, North Korea could hardly ignore its enemies as a source of desperately needed assistance. The advent of the nuclear weapons issue enabled Pyongyang to leverage assistance from both the ROK and the U.S., and assistance from the ROK was increased with the "sunshine" policy of the current administration. The question is whether this shift in strategy and appearance of good behavior should be equated with a real change of intent. The argument here is that no other regime in history has signaled its intentions so clearly, so consistently, and so insistently, both publicly and privately, over time, and that a multidimensional body of evidence indicates that Kim Chong Il's purpose is fixed although his timing must be condition-based and opportunistic.

Even as we contemplate the question, we can anticipate recurring temptations to think of Kim Chong Il simply as a normal head of state because he occupies the position of one and because, as in the case of another dictator more than a half century ago, it becomes just too difficult to think what to do if this comforting assumption is abandoned. There seems little doubt that Kim is trying to reach out to Europe and elsewhere to establish what credibility he can in the hope of gaining assistance. A close examination of his track record, his statements over time, and his self interest, however, does not afford a compelling reason to believe that economic recovery in NK, if he could somehow achieve it, would translate into genuine opening or a more benign intent toward the ROK. The danger to the alliance here is the asymmetry between Kim's intent and the reluctance to acknowledge it, reminding us once again that it is sometimes hard for a democratic polity to recognize a mortal threat and to maintain the unity and resolve necessary to confront it.

Where does all of this leave us on terminological definitions? Perhaps, in the end, the danger posed by terrorism, rogue states, and asymmetric means can be said to merge. The development of horrific weaponry, the collapse of distance, and the fragility of modern sophisticated societies have created a new situation in which, increasingly, both state and non-state actors can do each other unimaginable harm almost at a moment's notice. Countermeasures are apt to be expensive and difficult, and we can hardly guard well against every imaginable artifice that might be used against us. Recalling the Korean aphorism of “yubi muhwan” (“if there is preparation, there will be no harm”), there are still some things we can do to reduce the effectiveness of these menacing devices and thereby reduce in some measure the temptation to use them. But does the notion of asymmetry really help us to do this? We might do worse than repair to a comment by Reading University's wise and experienced Prof. Colin Gray:

A little reflection reveals that asymmetry essentially is a hollow concept.... The concept may have some limited merit if it is corralled...with a carefully specified meaning.... As a contribution to the general lore of strategy, however, asymmetry is a complete non-starter. Given that competent American military planners have plotted how to defeat particular enemies in the distinctive ways best suited to the individual case at issue -- albeit in ways preferred by American strategic and military culture -- what exactly is novel or even especially interesting about the concept of asymmetry? Because all warfare is asymmetrical (there are no sets of identical belligerents), in effect no particular war or warfare is distinctly so. In this respect, a course of instruction on "asymmetrical warfare" would be content free.[16]

In sum, we should not be preoccupied with the elusive concept of asymmetry but rather with those threats for which we are unprepared.

[1] Noam Chomsky, Rogue States, South End Press, Cambridge, MA, 2000.

[2] USFK Korea Story Brief, 4 March 2002.

[3] These data are pretty well known. See among others Anthony H. Cordesman, The Global Nuclear Balance, Part V: North Korean Force Trends, NAPSNET, 13 February 2002.

[4] USFK Korea Story Brief, 4 March 2002

[5] Newsweek, 25 October 1999, page 20.

[6] Ibid

[7] “North Korea: A Shared Challenge to the U.S. and the Republic of Korea,” John R. Bolton, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, speech to the Korean-American Association, Seoul Hilton, Seoul, Korea, 3 September 2002.

[8] The Plague Wars, by Tom Mangold and Jeff Goldberg, St. Martin's Press, 1999.

[9] For an informed critique of the 1994 deal with Pyongyang and the KEDO project, see “Bush is Right to Get Tough with North Korea,” by Henry Sokolski and Victor Gilinsky, Wall Street Journal, 11 February 2002.

[10] The pertinent portion is as follows: "Unfreezing Yongbyon is the DPRK's quickest and surest path to acquisition of nuclear weapons. The U.S.-DPRK Agreed Framework should be implemented by the U.S. and its allies to maintain the nuclear freeze. However, the Agreed Framework is faced with limitations in that it does not freeze all nuclear related activities and does not cover ballistic missiles."

[11] See “Confessions of a Senior KWP Official: North Korea's Situation Today,” Monthly Choson, January 2002. The text of this article was provided to the Monthly Choson by a ROK citizen and summarizes a conversation he had with the KWP official in a third country. The reference to the activity at Kwanmo-bong was not highlighted and is only a small portion of the entire text.

[12] See “North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons, Which Have Become an Established Fact,” by Yi Son Ho, Seoul Puk'an, 1 February 2000. A report to Congress titled “On the Acquisition of Technology Related to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Weapons,” posted on the CIA Internet web site on 30 January 2002, states that North Korea has “continued its attempts to procure technology worldwide that could have applications in its nuclear program.” Other sources, such as the above-cited Seoul Puk’an report, specify uranium enrichment technology.

[13] See “North Korea’s Nuclear Threat,” by Choe Won Ki, Chungang Ilbo Internet Version in English, 27January 1999. This article describes a high explosive lens test conducted at Kumchang-ni, Kusong County, North Pyongan Province, North Korea.

[14] See “U.S. Expert Oberdorfer Says DPRK Tests High Explosives,” Korea Times, 8 January 2000, p2.

[15] Asked about anti-U.S. statements by some in the present administration, Kong responded as follows: That is not a desirable thing to do if you want to preserve the allied relationship. Likely they were afraid that Bush's statement would pour cold water on N-S relations and undermine the sunshine policy, but even if that is the case, those who said such things should have thought a little harder before they spoke. The ROK-U.S. alliance does not have the deep roots of shared culture and race that, say, the U.S.-Britain alliance enjoys. The ROK and U.S., therefore, must always work to keep their interests aligned and their alliance burnished. Both must find and stress our similarities. You can't bash your ally and then suddenly stretch out your hand when you need him."

[16] “Thinking Asymmetrically in Times of Terror,” Colin S. Gray, Parameters, Spring 2002, pp 5-14.