Unconventional vs. Conventional Warfare Conventional

Unconventional vs. Conventional Warfare Conventional warfare and unconventional warfare are terms that are of vital importance to countries that confront the possibility of an attack from another state -- or countries that have a stake in regional security. They are also terms that every alert military or defense agency has a need to understand thoroughly. This paper discusses key difference between the two, and breaks the subject down into one clear, distinctive difference. Conventional vs.

Unconventional Warfare Major Deborah Elek explains that the most common kind of conflict in recent years has been "low intensity conflict," typically insurgent movements "directed against unstable governments within developing countries" (Elek, 1994). And as to low intensity conflicts, they are the unconventional warfare strategies that Elek is referring to. Granted her article was published in 1994, but she is very contemporary when she asserts that the U.S. military has faced a "critical weakness" in fighting doctrine in the area of unconventional warfare (think Vietnam, in which the U.S.

employed conventional forces against unconventional forces of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese). The U.S. has had a tendency to deploy conventional forces -- wars of "…trenches, front lines, and masses of men in uniform struggling against each other on bloody battlefields" -- but the unconventional strategies of low intensity design are wars of "subtleties, nuances, intimidation, fear, political mobilization, terror and revolution" (Elek, p. 2). A classic example of the U.S.

using conventional forces against unconventional forces is when bin Laden was hiding in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan after U.S. air power and ground forces pushed the al Qaeda forces into hiding. But the al Qaeda forces "…successfully ambushed and… escaped the clutches of the Americans" (Rothstein, 2006). It was a case in which the U.S. "…perceived a conventional Clausewitzian war that they could understand and fight" but the 101st Airborne and 10th Mountain divisions failed to find and kill the elusive terrorists (Rothstein).

General Carl Von Clausewitz, considered one of the originators of conventional warfare, wrote in his book On War that simply following or pursuing the enemy after a successful engagement is not enough. "…This mere following does not tend to heighten the disorder in the enemy's army" (Clausewitz, 2009, p. 158). What needs to happened as the enemy retreats, is for the aggressor army in conventional strategic mode to "attack his rear guard every time it attempts to halt" hastening his retreat and contributing to "…his disorganization" (Clausewitz, 158).

The author makes his most poignant statement when he concludes, "…Nothing has such a depressing influence on the soldier, as the sound of the enemy's cannon afresh as the moment when, after a forced march he seeks some rest…" and falls into the "…law of the enemy" (158). Author John Nagl points out that the strategies promoted by Antoine-Henri Jomini -- another well-known and respected military theorist -- and Clausewitz have been confused.

Jomini had a prescription for "…the annihilation of the opponent's force as the best route to victory," a strategy which has "often and mistakenly" been attributed to General Clausewitz (Nagl, 2002, p. 18). Clausewitz was more likely to suggest that a political objective should be sought than that "anything was always the best route to victory" (Nagl, 18). Nagl asserts that Jomini "personally disliked" Clausewitz and thought Clausewitz's strategies were "rubbish" (Nagl, 18).

In fact, by the end of his life, Clausewitz had embraced "a much more nuanced view of warfare than always prescribing the destruction of the enemy forces," which was more of a Jominian idea, misattributed to Clausewitz by Moltke" (Nagl, 18). In conclusion, the one key difference between the two strategies is that conventional warfare counts on large standing armies and front lines that clearly delineate territory conquered vs. territory to be conquered; but unconventional warfare can be waged by a.