Each of the Arab Gulf states faces major challenges in terms of its stability and security interests—only some of which can be addressed by creating more effective military forces, security forces, alliances within the Gulf and alliances with outside powers. These challenges vary from country to country, but they include religious extremism and terrorism; asymmetric and missile threats from Iran; internal sectarian, ethnic and tribal divisions; the need to deal with massive demographic pressures and a “youth bulge” that requires the creation of massive numbers of jobs and new social infrastructure as well as stable political and social evolution to avoid political upheavals that can do as much or more to disrupt reform and modernization as to achieve them.

Meeting Four Emerging Threats

Each Arab Gulf state must reshape every element of its security structure to move away from a past focus on conventional warfare and compartmented internal security efforts toward a spectrum of four interactive challenges:

1. • Internal security, counterterrorism (CT) and civil–military stability operations—often involving outside powers and arms transfers.

2. • Low to mid-level asymmetric wars that may involve conventional forces.

3. • Conventional wars using asymmetric means.

4. • Use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), weapons of mass effectiveness, and cyber-warfare, as well as wild card patterns of conflict and escalation.

Warfare is very much like a chameleon—its color changes in accordance with the prevailing conditions and surroundings. Warfare is constantly evolving at such a speed that it is difficult to keep pace with its developments; but it is still true that launching a war is much easier than ending one. A leader waging a war thinking that he will be able to manage it, will inevitably after the first salvo become a slave to the conflict, and to all of the eventualities that he did not plan for. Hence, the observation of the famous German military commander Helmuth von Moltke the Elder (1800–1891) that no battle plan ever survived first contact with the enemy. Adaptation in war, therefore, is vital to victory; one must “adapt or die.”

There are many variables in war, and there is no common denominator between them; that is, they cannot be processed simultaneously and in a linear fashion, or by employing an explicit formula—in the words of the Prussian thinker Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831), “everything in war is simple, and the simplest thing is difficult.” Indeed, Clausewitz suggested that the most difficult of all was dealing with what he called ‘friction’ — the way in which theoretical forward-planning is incapable of accounting for the multitude of eventualities one may face in real situations.

Fundamentally, most governments have chosen not to (and are unable to in the short- to mid-term at least) manufacture weapons systems or components. Governments have also entrusted the delivery of many important services, including the provision of training, to the private sector. The role of the private sector in generating a required military capability is therefore of particular significance when a government opts to use its forces in operations. A capable defense-industrial sector must accordingly be recognized as a multi-faceted national asset contributing to that elusive concept of political power.

It helps to think of two distinct, though overlapping and interdependent areas of analysis: the role played by the industrial base in preparing the military for operations, and the various activities undertaken by industry within those theaters of operations, close to the sharp-end of military endeavors. Both areas pose multiple challenges and opportunities for policy makers, military practitioners and industrialists.

This chapter seeks to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of these challenges and opportunities—an imperative for public and private defense stakeholders, not only in states with an advanced defense industrial base but also in those with a high level of defense imports, emerging domestic defense-industrial capabilities and a policy to advance their national defense efforts.

Success in future warfare is more likely to be the result of the successful coordination of all the tools available to governments than of battlefield victories. In fact, this has always been the case. In the context of contemporary operations there is an increased requirement to effectively coordinate all the elements of national power and to achieve at least a working relationship with the many international and non-state actors in conflict. Today there are a wider variety of actors with a stake in conflict (and humanitarian assistance, development and disaster relief) than ever before. Strategic success will require more nuanced approaches to the orchestration of non-military effects and will require leaders – both civilian and military – who must be comfortable with the fact that they cannot command all of the tools available, but must seek to influence others to achieve their objectives. This characteristic has always been a requirement of great civilian statesmen—such as Lincoln, Churchill and Roosevelt. In multi-dimensional civil–military operations, military and civilian leaders interact at the strategic, operational and tactical levels simultaneously. At the same time they must learn to integrate their efforts with often fundamentally different organizations and cultures if they are to achieve their objectives.

Defense planning cannot take place in a vacuum, and states need to adopt enhanced arrangements for multi-agency coordination and cooperation.

Asymmetric warfare and international terrorism will likely remain defining features of conflict in the 21st century. These are not new phenomena, as both have been part of the international system since at least the late 19th century. However, the current geopolitical order, combined with a variety of technological developments, has given them extraordinary prominence in the last decade of the 20th century and the first two decades of the 21st. Understanding asymmetric warfare and international terrorism is therefore vital to understanding the future of both inter- and intra-state violence.

This paper examines asymmetric warfare and international terrorism from the perspective of both state and non-state actors. It begins by defining and clarifying the two terms in the context of the early 21st century. Next it describes why asymmetric warfare and international terrorism will likely be so central to violence in the 21st century. It then focuses on two cases that lie at the intersection of these two issues. The first is the diffusion of techniques of rebellion and terrorism across North Africa, the Middle East, and Southwest Asia. The second is the evolution of one of the premiere asymmetric warfare techniques of the 21st century – the US drone operations in Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and Southwest Asia – which has been driven heavily by the asymmetric techniques of the first case. The result has been a duel between increasingly asymmetric techniques.