Jocko Podcast - 446: Using Asymmetric Warfare To Even The Odds In Competition

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

What do we do when we are outmatched, outgunned, out-resourced? When there is an imbalance in power in competition, war, relationships, and life. Defining Asymmetric Warfare. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 446 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. So what are we supposed to do when we are outmatched or outgunned or outresourced? So there's an imbalance in-balance in warfare. That means there's an imbalance of resources or an imbalance of technology or an imbalance in balance in the number of people we have or any number of things. There's any number of things that could be un-inbalanced.

And so if we're going to war and we're disadvantaged or there's some kind of imbalance, we have to do something to overcome that. And that's something is known as asymmetric warfare. So asymmetric warfare is a term that's been through a pretty decent variety of definitional, definitional changes over the last few years. but it's a concept that's important for us to understand because it applies not only to combat but it also applies of course to business to life to relationships to leadership and what's interesting is if you're an American and you're listening to this show you might not you'll you'll

relate to this as Americans we learn a lot about asymmetric warfare as children Because as children, we learn about what we call the Revolutionary War, right? That's what we call it. The British call it something else. The British call it, you know, a revolt from the colonies. They have it. My wife's a Brit. They call it something different.

But when I was a kid, we learned these things. This was asymmetric warfare. The British had all the proper weapons. They had all the proper uniform. They had all the proper ships. They had all the proper military regalia. And we didn't have any of that. But guess what else they did?

They stood up in lines, in ranks. And what did we do? As Americans, asymmetric warfare, we hid behind trees and we hid behind stone walls. And we used the terrain to our advantage, whereas the Brits would line up on a field. They'd say, hey, you wanna fight me, cool. I'll bring my army, you bring your army,

we'll meet tomorrow at this time on this field, and we'll shoot at each other until one of us gives up. We're like, oh, we're not gonna meet you on that field. We're going to be over here in this river. You can go to that field, but we're going to be over in this ravine. We're going to be up on this knoll. We're going to do urban combat. We did urban combat. We used the buildings in port cities to shoot at their merchant vessels and their ships. And then we use little small kind of fastboats to attack them. John Paul Jones. He conducted a raid in England.

that was kind of just for psychological warfare. That's what he did. It was it was letting the locals, letting the British know that we could hit them. Psychological warfare. It wasn't like we were going to invade them and take over England. We didn't have the capability of doing that,

but we could go rough them up a little bit. You know what I'm saying? That's asymmetrical warfare. We had local militias that were running around and harassing British forces and disrupting their supply lines. That's asymmetric warfare. We use the terrain.

You know, we had this vast open terrain, just woods and mountains, right? And we'd go hide our forces in there. And it made it really difficult for the Brits to control what we were doing. And we eventually won. And this is asymmetric warfare. And there's been a lot of warfare like this over the years. It's this is, this is, and we'll get to, we'll kind of talk about this. Warfare is this.

Right? Warfare is asymmetric warfare if you play it right. And we'll talk about MMA because there's MMA comparisons, obviously too. If you're a boxer and I'm not a boxer, I'm not going to box you and we'll get to that. But the asymmetric warfare has been going on for a long time. The Arab Revolt, 1916 to 1918. You ever heard of Lawrence of Arabia? Yeah.

Yeah. So he kind of made that famous T.E. Lawrence. He made that that rebellion famous, but it was guerrilla tactics used by the Arab rebels against a much more powerful Ottoman Empire. That's what they did. And they won. I mean, yes, they did win. The Arab rebels won.

They captured Damascus. They declared their own kingdom. The European powers didn't uphold their part of the bargain. And that's caused problems to this day. They divided the region between the UK and France. But the actual war itself, Arab rebels were able to achieve victory. They captured Damascus and declared. There's own kingdom.

Kingdom. That's a win. That's a W. The French Indochina War, 1946 to 1954. The, it was a Vietmin insurgency against the French. And how did they do it? Did they say, oh, yeah, you want to fight? Okay, we'll put our army against your army? No, it was ambushes. It was indirect fire.

It was blending in with the local populace. That's what the primary effort was. Now, what's interesting about this war is there were some more conventional. operations like conventional force battles but it was made possible by these guerrilla missions and it was you know this this war the french indo china war culminated in the battle of den bian foo which is everybody knows about this battle but 13 000 french were surrounded by 50,000 vietnam this is this this was the end of that war they had anti-aircraft weapons to keep the air support out They had the high ground, meaning the Vietmen had the high ground,

the Vietmen had anti-aircraft weapons. French were defeated, 2,200 killed, 1,600 missing, 5,000 wounded, less than 100 escaped capture. And again, this was a major European nation against these rebels, these insurgents. And the rebels were just getting warmed up against the French because the French also had to fight the Algerian War of Independence, 1954 to 1962. Again, hit and run attacks, ambushes, sabotage, bombings, assassinations, terrorism against the French

and against French collaborators. So, and eventually the French left Algiers. So oftentimes, when prosecuted correctly, asymmetric warfare, the, the, less powerful element can achieve victory. Now, they don't always work. They don't always work. These types of insurgencies are not guaranteed to work the Philippine-American War, 1899 to 1902.

Now, look, the U.S. used a brutal, horrific tactics to smash the rebels. They burned villages. They did indiscriminate killings. They tortured. They did reprisal operations, which are very scary. Brigadier General Jacob Smith ordered troops, ordered his troops to kill everyone over the age of 10 in retaliation for a previous massacre of U.S. troops. Here's his order.

I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn. the more you kill and burn, the better it will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against the United States. Never heard that order before, have you? No. That's, I want no prisoners.

I wish you to kill and burn. The more you kill and burn, the better it will please me. I want all persons killed who are capable of bearing arms in actual hostilities against United States. And he was asked. the question, hey, who do you consider? What do you mean by capable of bearing arms? And he said, 10 years or older.

And when was this? 1899 to 1902. And then reprisal that's, that's like, oh, someone, we, we patrolled through your village and one of our guys stepped on a bomb or a booby trap. So we go kill everyone in the village. Oh, is that like revenge kind of a thing? Yeah, like punitive reprisal. Okay, reprisal, you could use the term punitive raids.

You could use reprisal raids. Even what you just said, revenge. Yeah, yeah. Right. Revenge is reprisal is probably the cleaned up euphemism that the military, we conducted a reprisal raid instead of just being, hey, we conducted a revenge raid. Yeah, yeah. In the, what do you call in the streets where they call justice.

Yeah. They'll see it's justice, but it's like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We actually revered revenge. Yeah. Or revenge someone's loss.

Now, even in that situation, major. Littleton Waller, the guy that actually took the action, he didn't obey this order. Prisoners were taken, but between 2,000 and 5,000 were killed. So General Smith was eventually court-martialed. And when he got court-martialed, his only punishment was basically he was forced to retire. And people were kind of up in arms about this. But he didn't really, he didn't really care. He was like I did the right thing.

So he had that kind of attitude. He only got forced in retirement for ordering that. I mean, that's crazy. He tried to volunteer for World War I because, you know, this, that war ended in 1902. So you figure, what, 15 or 16, 17 years later, World War I kicks off. He volunteers. He gets told no until the, you know, throughout the rest of his life. He spoke about this and, hey, this is what you got to do.

We got it handled. So my point in kind of going off on that story a little bit was that the rebels, the insurgency in the Philippines was shut down. Same thing with the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, 1983 to 2009. I was adjacently involved in that because I went and helped train the government forces. Long and bloody conflict, lots of terrible things happened. suicide bombers from the Tamil Tigers, definitely very aggressive efforts from the Sri Lankan government. And they were able to suppress that insurgency, ended in 2009. The Dofar Rebellion in Oman, 1963 to 1976.

Again, this is the Dofar province. They had the Dofar Liberation Front. There was guerrilla attacks. There was assassinations and assassination attempts. They attacked oil installations. They attacked government posts. Eventually, the Brits came in and helped out. The SAS conducted some serious operations.

But they did a bunch of other things too. The government did. They offered amnesty to the rebels. They did these big civil projects. This is where you start seeing hearts and minds type situations because you realize, hey, it's easier and better to open your mind, bring these people on board, try and understand what their frustrations are,

try and work through their frustrations and you can end up in a better situation then that's what they did they supported tribal militias and i give the locals some little bit more power against the against the insurgents a pretty positive thing and and plus they got supported like i said they got supported by the brits they eventually got supported by saudi arabia and jordan and abu dhabi and iran they all supported the omani government but they were able to shut down that insurgency And by the way, I'm calling it an insurgency, but the topic here is asymmetric warfare. So you had this asymmetric situation where you have these rebels that don't have the power, don't have the resources, but they're able to make an effort to overcome a stronger,

more powerful government. Greek Civil War, 1946 to 1949. Fundamentally, we're talking about communist versus anti-communist forces. and this was a bloody, bloody war. 24,000 casualties for the communists, 48,000 casualties for the government forces. With civilian deaths, it's like 150,000 total. Starvation disease.

The U.S. government went and supported. We provided advisors. We provided weapons. And the communists were eventually defeated. So my point in bringing up all these different examples is that asymmetric wars can be fought. They can be won. They can also be lost.

But I think it's important, and what kind of has got me off on this path of wanting to cover this is, like all warfare, it's a way of thinking. And it really is as old as war itself. We want to attack our enemy's weaknesses. And if we can do that effectively,

we're going to win. Now, this means that we have to pay attention, We have to look for we have to find the imbalance. We have to find the asymmetry. So the real obvious example, especially from you and I with our backgrounds in the in the MMA game in fighting. I already mentioned this briefly if you're a boxer and I'm a jiu jitsu guy. I'm not going to box you. If I'm a jiu jitsu guy and you're a moitai guy, I'm not going to do more tie against you. I am going to do jiu jih Tzu. What's interesting, and I was thinking about this, jujitsu counters a lot of power imbalances, just jiu jitsu itself, because grappling is a way to overcome striking, just in general.

Like if you're a really good striker, I don't have to be a better striker than you. If I'm a better grappler, I'm going to be better off. Jiu jitsu actually is a counter to wrestling because if someone's a really good wrestler, and you know Jiu-Jitsu, well, this is, of course,

you know, going to like the pure. Right. Because if they know Jiu-Jitsu and you know Jiu-Jitsu and they're a better wrestler, they're probably going to beat you. But if they don't know anything, you can arm lock them.

You can guillotine. I mean, all the early UFCs prove this over and over again. But Jiu-Jitsu is a counter to wrestling, if you think about it that way. Jiu-Jitsu is a counter to Maitai, if you think about it that way. Jiu-titsu is a counter to boxing.

This is where I really, started thinking about it. Jiu-jitsu is also a counter to superior strength, superior speed, and superior athleticism. Right? Like, it doesn't matter. If someone doesn't know Jiu-Jitsu, they can be bigger, stronger, more athletic, and somebody that's less strong, less athletic, less fast, can absolutely beat them.

So J-Jitsu is this really good asymmetric tool to have in your, in your toolbox. Yeah. We see this in fights where a boxer or someone that's not a boxer will go against someone that is a boxer and they'll try and box and they're going to lose. Or someone that's a wrestler, but they're not as good as another wrestler and they'll try and out wrestle them. They get out wrestled. There's there's countless examples of this. A smart, a smart player, you can also watch that. when you watch

Adasanya versus Jan Jan just took him down like why is Jan going to stand there and try and strike with with Adasanya he's not he's going to take him down and control him there's countless examples like that

in the MMA world and what that really means is there's an asymmetric undercurrent of the fight and so they decide I'm not going to play that game. That's really a good way of thinking about asymmetric warfare. I'm not going to play the game

that you want me to play. I'm just not going to do it. Remember Jeremy Stevens versus Dos Anios? So this was, I think this was the first time I ever had anything to do with Jeremy. Like he'd just come out here to San Diego and he was learning. He was an actual white belt in jiu jitsu. And

I don't mean that by saying oh, he only had his white belt. Meaning he was more advanced than that, but he had never been, you know, promoted for what, no,

no, no, I trained with him. He was an actual white belt. He did not know very much at all about jih Tijuana. Now he wrestled in high school and a brother's from Iowa. So, you know, he definitely had that going for him.

So his wrestling was good, but he didn't know Jiu-Jitsu. I mean, he just did not know it. And he went into that fight. And going into that fight, he had to stay standing with that guy

because Dosanos a black belt and jiu-jitsu and I trained with Jeremy and we'd put small guys his size that was a blue belts or a purple belt they'd catch Jeremy if they were just doing jiu-jitsu luckily Jeremy's an animal or with his fists but

I got Jeremy so freaking paranoid about going to the ground because here he is getting tapped out by He's just like a random blue belt, right? He knew he couldn't handle this dude on the ground. And he was so freaking prepared to not be on the ground. He just went full asymmetric warfare. I am not going to play that game with you.

I was like, hey, bro, if he gets a takedown on you, while you're going down, be getting back up. Don't even wait until you get to the ground. You have to be getting back up. And you go watch that fight. You can see he was, I don't want to use the word, terrified or petrified because it makes it seem like Jeremy Stevens is like a type of dude that's scared because he's not. But he was definitely not willing to go to the ground with those años.

He was focused on staying up. He was very focused on staying up. You might not have been scared, but he was not going to be down there. And by the way, just if you don't know the outcome of this fight, third round, Jeremy hits him with a one of the all-time mega uppercuts in the UF, history of the UFC. Like, it is a death blow. But this is after he avoided two and a half rounds of the guy trying to take him out and Dosanios is an incredible fighter. I mean, he became champion. And so, but it was asymmetric warfare. Jeremy did not play the game that Dosanios wanted him to play. He wanted him to do mixed martial arts. Part of mixed martial arts is jiu jihitsu. Jeremy didn't know jiu jihitsu. He didn't want to play that game. He said, I'm getting back up. And Jeremy's strong. Yeah. Like, he's, he, He's not just a guy, you know, they talk about his power in his fist, which he absolutely has, but he's also just a strong, strong guy for a one. That might have even been a one.

No, it's 155. Yeah. So understanding that and going into a fight, knowing that there's a part of the game you do not want to play, is very important. And how are you going to avoid that part of the game? Very important. You can see fighters that also get lured in their eagle lures him in. Yeah. And the other fighter will talk shit, trying to get the person like, oh, Echo's scared to stand

with me, right? If I was a, if I was a Muay Thai fighter and you were a grappling guy, I'd like, Echo's just scared to stand. He doesn't have, he doesn't have what it takes to go toe to toe with me. He, I want to put on a good fight for the fans. Echo just wants to hug it out, right? I try and talk smack to you. Get you fired up.

So where you test it, like, oh, I want to test myself. And I can get your ego to work in, in. My favor. Happens to generals too, right? Happens to the military people. Happens to any of us. We have to watch out for that. We have to be careful that we're not getting lured into a game

that we're not prepared to play. Your ego can let you do that, but also just not being aware. And by the way, if the other opponent or competitor or business or adversary, if they're smart, they're trying to bring you into their game. Yeah. That's what they're trying to do. You got to find that asymmetry.

This is another thing that that John Donahir did. When his Donaheher death squad was coming up, so if you don't know about this, this is John Donahir, he's a jiu jitoo teacher, and he very much popularized leg locks and lower body submissions. because of a conversation that he had with Dean Lister,

where he saw Dean, I don't know if he was at a tournament or I don't know if it was at a seminar of some kind, but Dean was just grabbing people's feet and tapping people out, which I had been watching Dean do for a long time. But when John Donoher said, he's like, hey, you know, what's the deal with all these, why are you doing all these foot submissions

and knee submissions? And Dean Lister now famously told him, why would I ignore 50% of the body? And Dona heard that and said, That's a freaking good point. And so he started really looking at leg submissions. And he produced a bunch of students that were very proficient in leg submissions. And what this allowed them to do is you could have someone that was a black belt with their guard, a black belt with their half guard, a black belt taking the back, a black belt with their takedowns, a black belt in every aspect of the game.

But maybe a blue belt with their leg entanglements. and the Donnerher Death Squad, which is now defunct, unfortunately, but the Donner Her Death Squad at the time would just get into leg entanglements. And the Black Belt, who's a black belt in 94 different positions, there's one that he's not.

And the Donaher Death Squad student, who might only be a purple or a brown belt in some of these other areas, just because they hadn't been training as long, now has them in their arena. and they're going to make, they're going to tap them out. One of the positions that Dean Lister made famous

in the Abu Dhabi Championships is something that we called the Kakareko, which is now very commonly called the 50-50, meaning if you and I are in this position of the 50-50, we're in an equal position. You have a 50% chance. I have a 50% chance. Dean called that position 90-10,

meaning I have a 90% advantage to your 10, because I've spent more time there. So there's an asymmetry of knowledge. There's an asymmetry of understanding. So this is an important thing to understand. And we have to look at things and look for the imbalance. Where is there an imbalance?

And where does the imbalance favor me and where does this imbalance favor my opponent? And I was thinking about this as well. This is adjacent, in my opinion, to strategic, thinking versus tactical thinking. And I'll give you an example. You and I, we're both, let's say we're 25 year old men, we're both sort of competing in life, just in general, right?

You're driving a nice new Cadillac. Oh, competing against each other? Just, yeah, we're just competing against, you know, you and I live on the same street. Yeah, yeah, we're just in competition. Yeah, yeah. Maybe we knew each other in high school. We graduate from high school,

and we're checking each other's face. to see how it's going. You see what I'm saying? Small rivalry. Yeah, rivalry. Maybe you, you know,

you made the football squad. I didn't. I've been resentful ever since. So you and I are now competing. Sure. Which, by the way, I don't recommend this, but I'm just,

want to give this example. So you're posting on your Facebook. Yo, New Cadillac. Got that escalade. You're 25 years old. And you beat me, right? And I'm driving like an old Chevy,

whatever. Chevrolete scooter, which was the family car. I had when I was growing up. Dude, this thing was a piece of crap. AM radio, no AC. But that's what I'm driving. Now, you're, you're beating me

because maybe your job, you're making a little bit more money than me, but it doesn't really matter. You go out and you get that loan, the high interest loan, or maybe you lease the car, whatever. You're doing something to get that car. Meanwhile, I'm over here just like,

all right, I'm going to beat him in the long run. You see what I'm not going to play this game right now. I'm going to play the long game, which is I'm going to save that money. I'm going to start saving for a down payment for a house. So while you're covering your car payment every month, I'm not trying to compete with that. I'm not trying to get a nicer car. I'm not even playing that game. I'm over here in real life.

I was actually driving a 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan. I did this. I wasn't really competing with anybody, but I was just like, but trust me, you're not much competition when you're driving a 1997 Dodge Grand Caravan with a freaking window taped shut. Hell yeah. So, never tell you that story. I had a rich friend and I was going to his house

and I was following him to his house. And he was driving an S-class Mercedes coupe with a 12-cylinder engine. Like this is probably a 150 to $200,000 vehicle. Yeah.

I'm driving in 1997. And when was this? Will you? I was in the Navy. So, oh, five-ish? No, I'd say like probably like, let's just say 2004. I don't know, something,

a pretty long time ago, maybe 2007, I don't know. It's a lot, yeah, that's even, yeah, yeah, because if it was like last week, you know, the, anyway, yeah, I got you. Oh, you're saying that the price of the car is even more valuable than that. Exactly, right. It's an expensive, expensive car.

He's out there doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So even though I'm following him, there was a part of the road, was a two-lane road, and we came to a stoplight, and I was next to him. And he wanted to tell me something. he rolls down his window.

So he's on my left-hand side. I'm looking out my driver's side. Wait, just for clarification, this is your friend? Yeah. But no rivalry, though, or nothing like that. No, no. He's a friend of mine. Just a friend, okay.

But he rolls down the window. Like, he presses a button in his car, and the window on the passenger side goes down. And he's looking at me like, yo, roll down your window. I have to crack the door open. Because my window doesn't roll down. It's taped shut. It's broken. That's real.

So, you know, I cracked the door. And he's like, it's two streets up on the right or whatever. But I couldn't even roll down my window. So my point in telling you all this is I was in going back to the former analogy I was given, we are competing on Facebook. You're buying this Cadillac. You look cooler than me. I'm, I can't compete with you right now.

I'm saving my money. And I'm setting that aside. And now you fast forward 15 years. and you are still renting an apartment and I now have a house and I'm kind of like doing better, right? And so you're posting like, hey, I got another new Cadillac

and I'm posting, hey, just got my first house. And so, you know, I'm coming back. But there's sort of a, there's not just a strategic versus tactical thinking there, there's an asymmetric situation that I'm overcoming. and I'm not playing your game. You know, when going back to you and me, now we're in high school together.

And you're kind of cool, and you're on the football team, and you're also kind of like skipping classes. You know what I'm saying? You're going to parties on the weekend. The homework's not getting turned in. And it's cool. You still graduate, you know?

And when you graduate, what do you do? You're like, become a bouncer. Sure. You know what I'm saying? And meanwhile, I was over here working hard. I got good grades. I got into school for software engineering. I go and work hard and create an app.

You know what I'm saying? And then we fast forward 15 years. And, well, you're kind of limited in what you've done. And I've kind of expanded now I own a big giant, multi-billion dollar app company. Sure. Hell yeah. But I didn't try and compete with you in the short term.

Like you were better at football. You were more handsome than me. You were more charming with the ladies, right? I couldn't really compete with that. So I focused on asymmetric warfare, long-term strategic vision. One day, I'm going to own that guy's freaking whatever. Yeah. I'm going to own his apartment building.

Sure. You know, like the ultimate, I just come in and buy this, where you rent your apartment, I just come in and buy it. And I jack your price out. Some freaking reprisal scenario. Yeah, that's a reprisal, straight up. Yeah. That's a classic story, though, right?

Obviously, you know, in a lot of these movies, right, where they even technically the real classic the ugly duckling that's kind of the jam i mean it's less about if i remember correctly it's less about competition but still that still that way it can happen where it's like hey there's a bigger picture going on some people they focus on the smaller picture or the short term as the case maybe and you know in the moment yeah you could get lured into that game and get beat at it but you know you're kind of you're outnumbered outgunned in that So you got to look at a better way to approach it, you know, and you can play your own game. Yeah, you've really got to pay attention to what games you want to compete in.

Of course, we did a whole podcast about games and the big game and the games within the games, but you've got to pay attention to the games that you're going to compete in. And that's what we have to watch out for with asymmetric warfare. Are we going to get on the battlefield with someone that has more tanks than us, more artillery than us, more soldiers than us, and better technology? Not a good idea. And that's what you've seen for America's adversaries since, well, really since the Vietnam War. They're not going to compete with us on that.

Well, I guess Iraq Gulf War won. They tried to. Like, we've got, we've got tank brigades too. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Watch this. You know, because we have air superiority.

We have Dave Burke dropping freaking the first GPS guided bombs on your ass. Good deal, dude. That's the one. So you've got to pay attention to the game that you're going to play. And I think it's just very important to develop an ability to identify asymmetry in our lives. So that what we do is we focus our resources and our efforts on the right things, right? We prioritize and execute properly. If we can't figure out where to put our resources, we're not prioritizing and executing properly.

We can waste all of our marketing dollars on some fantasy thing that doesn't really work or doesn't really have a market. We spend all this marketing dollars on it, but we're wasting our money. We should put our marketing on this thing over here that's selling well. So you've got to figure that out.

So I found a good paper, I guess, written from the Institute of Land Warfare, which is run by the Association of the United States Army. They have this thing called the Institute of Land Warfare. And there is a paper called Defining Asymmetric Warfare Written by David L. Buffalo, B-U-F-F-A-L-O-E. And this guy, he started as an enlisted soldier in the National Guard in the late 1980s.

He eventually went to Desert Storm. He earned a nomination to West Point. And then he did, you know, got his commission, did peacekeeping operations in Macedonia, became an instructor at ranger school, and then he served in Iraq and Afghanistan, multiple combat deployments. So he has a wide range of experiences,

and he captures some good perspective on asymmetric warfare, for sure. And some of what he's writing about is focused on the mechanics of the military and how the military puts together its methodology and how the military makes its choices. There's things like the Q. UDR, which is a huge deal inside the military. It's a quadrenial defense review. I saw that when I was the Admiral's aide.

It's basically like every four years. The military just assesses everything. That's what that is. The quadrenial defense review. So he talks about things like this. He talks about Joint Publication One, Joint Warfare of the United States of America. These are the kind of documents that he explains and he uses those to explain the evolution of the broad military perspective of asymmetric warfare.

And you can get this, this is, you can get this PDF online, you know, and check it out. I'm not going to go too deeply into that because it's, it's very focused on specifically inside the military. But there are some really good, he has some really good commentary about the topic at large. So I want to cover some of those, some of those highlights from this paper, which is called defining asymmetric warfare. What years is this? This paper came out in 2006.

Okay, so kind of updated. Oh, yeah, well, we've learned a lot since 2006. Yeah. But what's good is you can see that he, this guy, David L. Buffalo, had a good feel for the knowledge that was coming. You know, he'd been to Iraq, been to Afghanistan. He understood what was happening. Yeah.

And he's making good predictions that still hold true. Yeah, a lot of the manuals that we can kind of go over are a little bit more old school than this one. Yeah, it's good to have one. that's newer. Yeah, yeah. All right, so here we go. There's a forward written by Gordon R. Sullivan, who's a general, United States Army, retired,

who's the president of the Association of United States Army. He says, warfare today has taken on a new form and grown to new levels. The type of warfare is not new, and few of the tactics are new. What is new is that this type of war has recently reached a global level. And the United States and its allies have found themselves ill-prepared. Many strategists and theorists have attempted to grasp the concept of the war we are facing today, yet none of adequately given it definition and understanding. America's sole superpower status forces us to continually engage in asymmetric warfare since no force can win a traditional war against us. Even traditional wars today, such as the first phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom and in the future will have many asymmetric elements and implications.

and implications, especially after the traditional war has been won. So there you go. That's written in September of 2006. So getting into this, defining asymmetric warfare. This is the introduction. The September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States, homeland, captured the attention of the world and ushered in a new phase of warfare. Not that terrorism was new.

It has been around since the dawn of time, but just as World War I and World War II elevated warfare itself to a worldwide level, 9-11 brought a global dimension to terrorism. The difference today is that the enemy takes on many faces and methods. Terrorism insurgency, war of information and ideas, war of disruptive threats, attacking using bio-weapons through mail or cyber attacks on the internet, war waged by non-state actors against the sole remaining superpower. The face and method not used by the current enemy is what's known as traditional warfare, warfare conducted by legitimate military forces of nation states,

wherein objective is either terrain or enemy focused. So isn't it interesting? And look, it's not like this hasn't existed before. But the war of information and ideas, disruptive threats, attacks using bioweapons, all these tools, which they were used sparingly in the past in like World War I, World War II, there was information war, there was propaganda. in World War II for sure. But the way that it works now,

the way that you can fuel an insurgency now is definitely gained so much momentum. But what he's saying, and this is important, traditional warfare is legitimate military forces of nation states, and the objective is either terrain, meaning I'm going to get your land or enemy, I'm going to kill a bunch of you. I'm going to focus on killing enemy

or a triding enemy. or a triding enemy or I'm going to get terrain. That's what traditional warfare is focused on. Whereas asymmetric warfare is talking about ideas. We're talking about more importantly, the focus is the populace and we'll get to that. It goes through that speech that we've heard from John F. Kennedy before. This is another type of war, new in its intensity, ancient in his origin,

war by guerrillas, subversive insurgents, assassins, war by, ambush instead of by combat by infiltration instead of aggression seeking victory by eroding and exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him it preys on economic unrest of and ethnic conflicts it requires in those situations where we must encounter it and these are the kinds of challenges that we will that will be before us in the next decade of if freedom is to be saved a whole new kind of strategy a wholly different kind of force and therefore a wholly different kind of military training this is the beginning of special operations. That was Kennedy addressing West Point class in 1962.

And that's when the seals were made. Because he knew. We were going to be fighting a different type of war. David, Buffalo goes on to say here that many have tried to describe this new type of warfare and many catchphrases and buzzwords have come and gone. Low intensity conflict. That was big when I first tried. Sounded cool, right?

Get involved in a low intensity conflict over here. Here's another one, military operations other than war. That was another one. I lived through both those. There was a time when all the officers were talking about, you know, this military operations other than war. Asymmetric warfare, fourth generation warfare, irregular warfare. These are all kind of things, names that have been thrown around.

Traditional warfare has taken the form of violent military action among, amongst nation states. We covered that. The 9-11 terrorist attacks, of course, changed many concepts. taking place roughly a decade after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the end of the bipolar order 9-11 showed the West that their new enemy plays by no rules respects no national boundaries and although he wields little or no advanced technology or firepower can wreak more destruction upon American lives on U.S. soil in an hour than occurred in the nearly half century of the Cold War. The attacks also demonstrated that a military could no longer guarantee its ability to serve as a buffer between the enemy and its own government or people. This shock to the Western psyche spurred much of the discussion that was already transpiring on the concept of asymmetric warfare, changing perceptions of strategy, tactics, security, and threat forever. They were able to have a more significant impact in an hour with less technology, I mean, drastically.

less technology than the Cold War, than the Russians had. He goes on to say, and obviously I'm not reading this whole document, you can find it. Again, defining asymmetric warfare by David L. Buffalo, you can just get the PDF. You can read the whole thing if you want to. I'm hitting some highlights because it's very interesting and very informative. However, the concept of asymmetric warfare has been around for centuries. Following the teachings of Sun Su, all warfare is asymmetric because one exploits an enemy's strengths while attacking his weaknesses.

The Greeks used the phalanx to defeat a mounted enemy. Hannibal used a feint in the middle of his forces with a double envelopment to achieve victory over the Romans. Every time a new tactic or invention changed the fortunes and power of one army or empire over another, an imbalance or asymmetry occurred. The waiting to one side created the conditions for victory. So he's basically saying they're like, every war is asymmetric in a way. At some point, it becomes asymmetric.

Otherwise, you get this, what he says, given the strict definition of symmetry, if any war were perfectly symmetrically weighted, then stalemate would be the norm and victory would be solely based on luck. So, yeah, they always eventually become asymmetric or you just have a stalemate. And then he goes on to say that they started using the term asymmetric warfare and they used it to describe everything and it became meaningless. And he goes through a bunch of history about the use of asymmetry in government documents. some of the things that got used in that QDR, which I talked about. Asymmetric means to attack our forces and interests overseas and Americans at home. Like very broad definition. Another thing, asymmetric approaches our attempts to circumvent or undermine U.S. strengths

while exploiting U.S. weaknesses using methods that differ significantly from the United States' expected method of operations. So these are just the ways that people were describing asymmetry. asymmetry in the in the government and primarily in the military 2006 the QDR said this war requires the U.S. military to adopt unconventional and indirect approaches currently Iraq and Afghanistan are crucial battlegrounds but the struggle extends far beyond their borders with its allies and partners the United States must be prepared to wage this war in many locations simultaneously and for some years to come. Yeah, 2006. Yeah, it kept going until 2020. As the Department of Defense works to defeat these enemies, it must also remain vigilant in an era of surprise and uncertainty and to prevent,

deter, or defeat a wider range of asymmetric threats. They're saying this in 2006. There's fast forward a little bit. Other asymmetric challenges, irregular challenges, catastrophic challenges, catastrophic challenges and disruptive challenges make up the other three quartiles and represent the future prescription for capabilities the Department of Defense wishes to achieve. Getting into this now, so there's a whole section again that's about like how we were defining it inside the military and I said I'm not going to cover that too much. But this is the getting to some of the meat here. Asymmetry and history. The concept of asymmetric warfare has existed since the dawn of time. The first is Sun Su, the sage of warfare theory. In his monumental work, the art of war written

more than 1500 years ago, he states, all warfare is based on deception. When confronted with an enemy, one should offer the enemy a bait to lure him, feign disorder and strike him. When he concentrates, prepare against him, where he is strong, avoid him. Fast forward a little bit. Sun Su's concept of the asymmetric nature of all warfare was echoed in the mid-20th century by B.H. Liddell Hart, a staunch advocate of the indirect approach. He taught, quote,

the wisest strategy avoids the enemy's strengths and probes for his weaknesses. So obviously we've covered B.H. Liddell Hart. We've covered the indirect approach. We've covered Sun Su, we've covered the Art of War on this podcast, and both of those can show you a, version of asymmetric warfare.

This is a good one. In the late 19th century, another German, Otto von Bismarck gave the first hint that non-traditional asymmetric concepts can help to balance conventional military weaknesses. And he says this, quote, we live in a wondrous time in which the strong is weak

because of his moral scruples and the weak grows strong because of his audacity. So if you're weak, but you're willing to stick somebody in the back with a freaking broken bottle in a bar fight, mm-hmm, yep. Advantage.

You can win. You become strong because you're crazy. And the strong person who's not willing to go to jail over a bar fight becomes weak. He's like, oh, it's not appropriate place for me to fight. Oh, yeah, cool. And clearly, that's the way, terrorism works. We're terrorists. We don't care if we kill civilians. We don't care if we

blow up a church or a school. In fact, we're going to do that. So they become strong because of that. And because the larger power has the morals and scruples that don't do those things, they become weaker. Back to the book. This statement illustrates a cultural asymmetry bringing a whole new concept to asymmetry in warfare. In it, Bismarck illustrates that one can balance against a stronger military force if one is willing to forego the boundary of moral and cultural acceptability. To do some shady things or immoral things, you can gain strength. T.E. Lawrence, popularly known as Lawrence of Arabia, I mentioned him earlier, was one of the first military thinkers to understand and write about the concept of unconventional slash asymmetric warfare. In seven pillars of wisdom,

he points out that a strict military advantage might not be this surest route to victory. Quote, do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war and you are there to help them not to win it for them. Lawrence shows that when fighting in an asymmetric environment, long-term objectives come into play. So what I was talking about earlier. Intangible progress is achieved by the manner in which the war is fought. So just how you're fighting the war is going to play into the long-term objective.

This intangible progress outweighs the traditional military progress of fighting a campaign. He teaches, quote, actually also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as perhaps you think it is. It may take them longer and it may not be as good as you think. but if it is theirs, it will be better. End quote. This is allowing, in a leadership situation, allowing your subordinates to do something the way they want to do it instead of dictating

how are you going to do it to them. And when they do it themselves, it's going to be better in the long run. Then you just spoon-feeding them everything. Very important piece. Anytime you're bringing up a team, the long-term success is when they do things, for themselves by the way that team includes your kids oh yeah you could do that

you could do the product have you done that yet have you freaking stepped up and done any school projects for your kids yet tell the truth tell the truth bro no none no oh no what's your most senior grade most senior well Jace graduated so okay what about it so do you didn't do any part you didn't you didn't freaking I I assisted maybe a little bit too much. Was there any video editing that happened or anything like that? Not for any school project, no. But I helped the school out, but it's different.

But the, no, the closest I came to was I did a drawing for, yes, a project, a presentation of this museum scenario. And I drew it. I drew the museum. I didn't do the research and all the info part, but, you know, it's part of the display, you know. Oh, yeah. Oh, I know. I jumped in there for sure. I don't think I've helped out maybe at all.

That makes sense to me. But my wife, you think she hasn't been cutting some ribbons and sticking some things on some posts? I can tell you this, she's done some damn runs to the office depot for some supplies, some late night freaking,

what is it called board? There's some kind of special board for a project. They're in league, dude. The public schools are in league with office depot. Yeah, I can see it. This is the kind of stuff, ribbons. Yeah, rubens for poster board. That's what it is.

Postureboard. It's scotch tea. Foam-backed poster board. The rubber cement. Do they still do rubber cement? Oh, yeah. Remember that? Yeah, yeah.

For sure. That was like super toxic. Probably cement. Yeah. You know how you'd like when you smell it? Actually, no, that's a good point. I don't think they do it because they have glue sticks now. Well, Elmer's school glue was never toxic.

That was the whole jam. What the white stuff? Yeah, yeah. Like you eat it. It did it. But the rubber cement, bro, that's straight up smelled like freaking kerosene or something like that. Well, we used to spread it out on the table and then like roll it and then like rubber balls eventually, right? Hell yeah.

I wonder if that was, yeah, that's probably cost us some brain cells for sure, huh? It's probably legal now. Yeah, probably. But yeah, I don't think I helped out very much at all with this projects or this stuff. How much of that was? Hey, now, wait, wait, wait, I definitely. gave some input on some writing, like some,

hey, what are you doing? What, like, think about this sentence. I gave a little bit of that feedback. Yeah, but that's different though,

isn't it? Like, because even, even by your own doctrine, it's like, hey, like to guide someone in a different direction

is different than be like, hey, that's wrong. This is right. Right this. You know, where they're like, they don't have to think about it,

you know, nothing like that's different. Yeah. So let me ask you this. How much of that of your, how should I say, lack of contribution, in that in that way how much was that based on your you know your what do you call your

my leadership principles and execution versus like a bride I'm just not messing with it because you know I don't have time or I don't you know I'm not interested you know well I would say a couple things going on here number one my kids were all like they weren't coming to me last minute like I need help with this I owe a paper or whatever they weren't doing that kind of thing they were squared away. They'd have their stuff done. And so they weren't coming to me like, and I think they all knew they weren't going to get.

There wasn't a lot of asking. Got a part of my point. Yeah. They'd go to mom. Yeah. You know? But, and you know, oh, my wife used to make like really good Halloween costumes for them. Oh, hell yeah.

There was an OB hollow, there used to be, I don't think it happens anymore. There was an OB where I live, Ocean Beach. holiday or Halloween like a festival festival and one year this is when I only had three kids my fourth wasn't born yet one year we swept

my wife swept the wins I think my oldest daughter was dressed up like a like an eyeball and then one of them I forget one of them was like a jellyfish but it was an umbrella with all these things hanging off and she was kind of pulsating it all homemade yeah all 100% homemade

that's impressive And then my son was like a soldier. Yeah. So he was just dressed up in Camby's. But executed perfectly. I mean, let's face it, he looked pretty good. You know what I'm saying? And I think he was just really small and cute but had a machine gun.

Right, right. So you're kind of like, we got to give this kid something. Otherwise, he's frigging going to lose his mind. But, yeah, she did a lot of that. Shoot, so she's pretty artistic then. No, she would straight, like, get up, there's websites or there's magazines. Oh, yeah. And you could look up.

My daughter wants to be an eyeball. Yeah, yeah. And they would look up and get veins and stuff hanging out the back and like what to make them with. My wife is very committed to following instructions. Oh, yeah. I dig it, man. Fast forward a little bit. He talks about there's a book, which I just ordered.

1964, written by a French officer named David Galula. The book is called Counterinsurgents. Warfare reads like a field manual for counterinsurgency. I just like I said, I just ordered it. So in that book, he says there is an asymmetry between the opposite camps of a revolutionary war. This phenomenon results in the very nature of the war from the disproportion of strength between the opponents at the outset and from the difference in essence between their assets and liabilities. The insurgent has a formidable asset. the ideological power of a cause on which to base his action.

The counterinsurgent has a heavy liability. He is responsible for maintaining order throughout the country. The insurgent strategy will naturally aim at converting his intangible assets into concrete ones, the counterinsurgent strategy at preventing his intangible liability from dissipating his concrete assets. The peculiarities that mark the revolutionary war as so different from the conventional, conventional one derived from this initial asymmetry. And I know that's a bit wordy, but we're going to get a little bit more into this concept of what the insurgent has, which is an idea. And how hard is it to protect an idea?

Well, in some ways, it's not that hard. How hard is it to protect a bridge? How hard is it to protect airplanes? and, you know, how hard is it to protect government stations? All those things cost a lot. And whereas if you just have an idea, well, how do you spread your idea? Well, how do you spread your kingdom? You build more.

You take more land. How do you spread an idea? It doesn't cost you anything. So there's an asymmetry on just the cost that we're talking about right there. And then he talks about this other thing. And he'll get back to Galula a little bit later. 1999, two colonels Kow Liang and Wang Zhang Zui from the People's Republic of China, they wrote a book called Unrestricted Warfare, which caused a mass panic in the U.S.

Defense and Intelligence Community. It suggested other catastrophic and disruptive threats as the only means to wage war against a country that is vastly superior in traditional and conventional military might. This is this one you can find. on the internet. Don't need to buy it, although you can buy copies of it as well. They say this in that book,

while we are seeing a relative reduction in military violence, at the same time, we are definitely seeing an increase in political, economic, and technological violence. However, regardless of the form the violence takes,

war is war. And a change in the external appearance does not keep any war from abiding by the principles of war. So this is the straight admission that, look, there's less war. There's less war we see on TV, but it's all because it's now political, it's economic, and it's technological. And does this read like just the straight playbook of what China's been doing to us?

100% economic war, technological war, political warfare. All that stuff is happening right now. And we're over here, D, D, D, D. Just seemingly like idiots. And meanwhile, they're fighting war with us. He goes on here to talk about asymmetric warfare in scholarly writing. So he's done some of the, did some of the military stuff, did some of the other literature around it.

And then he starts talking about some of the academic. Again, not going to spend a ton of time around this. One of the studies built the notion of real, realist doctrine of, international relations that a rational enemy of the United States would seek means to strike at America where they could avoid the tremendous U.S. military advantage, obviously. Dr. Max Manwaring in international wars in September 2001 wrote, strategies being developed to protect or further the interest of a number of new players on the international scene are inspired by the dual idea of evading and frustrating

superior conventional military force within the global chaos. the better a power such as the United States becomes at the operational level of conventional war, the more a potential opponent turns to asymmetric solutions. So no one's going to try and fight us. Fast forward a little bit. Melissa Applegate, a former military intelligence officer, she wrote, asymmetric approaches can no longer be considered secondary or peripheral to conventional threats. U.S. forces must master the asymmetric domain with the same intellectual energy devoted to conventional warfare.

because asymmetry is not just a threat, which is interesting. You know when they made, you know what space war is? Space war. Oh, sorry. Space force. Space force.

Yeah. Trump made that. And I really wished that instead of space force, they made like the information force or the cyber force. It should have been cyber force. Because we should have just full, and look, we've got elements that are dedicated to that,

but they're within our existing military. it should be a separate force that's like this is what you're doing because this is the threat we're facing right now look at what china is doing they just said it they said in 1999 it's going to be an economics going to be technological warfare we're not going to go toe to toe to though they don't want to we're going to go information warfare we're going to go sciops that's what's happening it should be a a cyber branch that we're behind you know you you know you recruit guys for the the seal teams what do you get when you recruit a guy from the seal teams a dude that's a like freaking work and

out, he wants to go shoot people, like that's what you're getting. You're getting guys that are aggressive, that have high testosterone. Like, that's what you're getting. Recruit someone from the Marine Corps. Who joins the Marine Corps? Like a young kid got a bunch of testosterone, wants to go kill bad guys for his country. That's what they're doing. That's what they want.

Perfect. But if you're trying to recruit someone that's super smart and really into computers or really into propaganda or really into filmmaking. Like you, those are the kind of people you need to fight a cyber war and an information war. And we're not recruiting them. We're recruiting knuckleheads like me that are like, ugh. You know what I mean? Yep, they did.

Fast forward, 2003. Retired General Montgomery Meegs. He said al-Qaeda's overall strategy is not new. The 11th and 12th century in the 11th and 12th centuries, the assassins, a militarily weak fundamentalist and extremist sect used pinpoint killing to bring more powerful ruling groups to heal, indoctrinating their young followers into an extreme and enthusiastic cult of Shia Islam. They sent individuals and small teams out to infiltrate the inner circles of targeted leaders today.

Only the mechanisms of attack have changed. Stuff's been around forever. Dr. Stephen Blank, he said this for the last several years. The U.S. strategic community has used the terms asymmetric and asymmetry to characterize everything from the threats we face to the wars we fight. In doing so, we've twisted these concepts beyond utility, particularly as they relate to any threats we face. So he's saying we use the term asymmetric so much that it just lost its meaning.

The term asymmetric warfare has dwindled into useless. And eventually they did form in 2006, March of 2006, the asymmetric warfare group, AWG, Army Special Missions Unit. And these guys were going around to, they were in Ramadi. They came out and went on some patrols with us. But they were just advising, hey, here's where things are heading. Here's where we think things are heading. So this asymmetric warfare has certainly been a focus inside the.

military. They created a group around it. He talks about some of the past attempts to define asymmetric warfare. Some guys named Metzen Johnson. They made some attempts in the realm of military affairs and national security. Asymmetry is acting, organizing and thinking differently than opponents in order to maximize one's own advantages, exploit and opponent's weaknesses, attain the initiative, or gain greater freedom of action. Pretty straightforward. Colonel Robert Shaw, the first commanding officer of the U.S. Army's new asymmetric warfare group defines asymmetric warfare as warfare in which the two or more belligerents are mismatched in the military capabilities or custom methods of engagement such that the militarily

disadvantaged power must press its special advantages or its enemy's particular weaknesses if they are to prevail. So he goes through these. Now he starts talking about thoughts and discussion around asymmetry. He talks about the asymmetric nature of all warfare. We've kind of covered that. Asymmetry of cost. This is an important one. One aspect of the current asymmetric war is the asymmetry of cost.

Galula, that's the French officer, noted in 1964, the asymmetry of the cost between an insurgent and a counterinsurgent. An insurgent blows up a bridge. a counterinsurgent now must guard all bridges. An insurgent throws a grenade into a theater. A counterinsurgent must now make very expensive steps to ensure that the population feels safe. This concept is drastically illustrated today in the tremendous cost to the United States to secure its airways after the relatively inexpensive for the attackers 9-11 attacks. So essentially, when you get right down to it,

resources are going to need to be expended. And if you make the enemy expend more and more and more and more of their resources, eventually they can run out. We see this now with, you know, over in Ukraine, a $10 million or $20 million tank getting taken out by a $200 or $300 drone. It's a nightmare. The Houthis launch in their drone attacks and little cheap missile attacks against big, big American ships.

And then there's this idea of cultural asymmetry, asymmetry. Failure to understand an enemy's culture, assuming that the enemy thinks as you do and shares your values, will lend to a failure to achieve victory because you are unable to identify his center of gravity. General Anthony Zinney, U.S. Marine Corps retired, identified the center of gravity of America's current enemy

as angry young Muslim men. Cultural asymmetry impacts the way the West communicates or fails to communicate with this center of gravity. So we make mistakes on how we're talking to people. We think they think like us, they don't. And you've got to get over that. And this happens, I mean, this can happen from different families. Like one family has one culture another family has another culture.

It's like, oh yeah. Oh, yeah, I'm just going to let my kids go out all night. Another family's like, are you crazy? Do kids need to be? Like, you can have a cultural differences within a family. Oh, yeah. And you can't think that other people think the way you do. It doesn't work.

Multidimensional warfare. Shaw cited the multidventional nature of asymmetric warfare. Whereas traditional warfare is linear nature. Asymmetric warfare is multidimensional and amorphous. One category blends into another. One action affects the other. And there's a guy named Dr. David Kilcullen, retired Australian, lieutenant colonel, was in East Timor. And he said, or he talked about population-centric warfare.

And I alluded to this earlier. Kilcullen also identified traditional warfare as either terrain-centric, as in World War II, and also in the Falklands or the Kuwait or Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm or enemy-centric as phase one of Operation Iraqi Freedom where the primary goal was to seek out the Republican Guard and the Baft Party wherever they might be. Asymmetric warfare is population-centric. The population is the ultimate key to victory

for both sides of the conflict. So it's very important that you identify what it is you're trying to accomplish. Are you, what are you fighting for, right? What are you fighting for? Are you fighting to achieve something? Like, terrain? Like, are we trying to take this hill or this land?

Or are we just trying to get rid of this enemy? Or are we trying to beat someone, some idea? Again, this is one of those things where I've worked with companies where they're trying to scale. Right? We're trying to scale. But you ask them why they're trying to scale. And sometimes they don't have the best answer, right? They're trying to scale because that's the next step when they went to business school

on where you grow and blah, blah, blah, blah. But you say, okay, so you want to be the, for instance, oh, you want to be the CEO of a public company. Do you know what that means? Do you know what it means to be a public company? Do you know the kind of scrutiny you're at you're under? Do you know the kind of rules and regulations that you're now going to have to follow? Whereas right now you don't have to worry about those things because they don't impact

millions of shareholders. So why is it you want to do this? And sometimes they can't. Sometimes they have a good answer. Hey, look, it's going to give us access to capital. It's going to give us the reach that we want to get. Okay, cool. There can be a reason for it.

But if your reason is like, because that's kind of the, you could consider that in some ways going public as the pinnacle of business growth, right? We built this business and we went public. Okay. Why do you want to go public? Yeah. Well, I want to achieve the pinnacle. okay if that's but let's at least be honest about that

because there might be better ways to make things happen than going public Yeah that's a with college right that's like a thing I mean now it's more prevalent for people think about Think about it because I think college is kind of under a little bit more scrutiny publicly now a lot more scrutiny Yeah Then it was before but you know you know why are you going to college? If you were to ask me that back in the day besides football but let's face it you know like football You know it's very rare you know very rare that that's a viable thing, you know, to go.

Yeah, yeah. What percentage of high school D1 football football players make the pros? Actually, yeah. And if you want to look broader, it's like what percentage of high school football people who want to go to college to play football, go to pros. Is that like less than 1%?

Way less. Oh, way less. Oh, way less. Oh, yeah. How many people get drafted every year? I don't know. I'm not sure. But if you consider only the top high school people go to college.

I don't care, D1 all the way down to D3, double, triple C, whatever. I don't know, whatever the letters, numbers are. But only the top guys. So you figure, let's say there's an average of, I don't know, 60 people on a high school football team, you know, only like, I don't know. I mean, depends, but, you know, let's say it ranges from one person all the way down, or actually zero people. How many people from your high school football team, senior class went, played in college? Any college, senior class, I don't know, probably six or eight maybe. Damn, and you and Jade were two of them, huh?

Yeah, that's pretty impressive. EJ. Did any of your guys from your high school team go and play with you at college? Yeah, Jeremy Traskin. Day all. Yeah, hell yeah. Later when, and obviously we didn't go pro, you know that about me. I'm not, I was never an NFL player.

Neither was Jeremy tried. Jeremy went to the SEAL teams, you know, good on them. And then, yeah, some guys went to smaller colleges for sure, but only a few. And you figure there's what, 60 people, you know, on the team and that, you know, across the board. And we're pretty average. Like, you know, we were good as far as high school and the nation. We're okay. You know, we're probably right in the middle of the road, to be honest with you.

So you kind of kind of extrapolate that out. No one's going, pretty much no one's going to the NFL, pretty much. Yeah. You got one guy out of probably, what, 3,000 people maybe? Damn. Not even that, really, when you can kind of look at the numbers for sure. So it's some low numbers. Nonetheless, okay, point is, yeah, ask yourself, why are we going to college?

And even a football aside, I was just talking about myself. football aside it's like why are you going to college well because that's what my parents expect me to do that's what my town expects me to do that's what you know that's just how that's what that's I don't know what I'm going to study yet like I used to hear that all the time I don't know but I'm going to get a college education and then see what up and bro right be surprised how you know how many better options there are you know yeah especially when you end up whatever 200 grand in debt yeah yeah and you have a degree that's meaningless in many ways depending on the degree you pick.

Yeah. And a lot of times too, like you, and this is just one of many outcomes, obviously, but you can go to college and be like, oh, yeah, I want to go to college because I want to get a good job, right? Let's say that, which is actually kind of solid, really. But you can wind up in kind of referring back to the whole game thing, like what game are you playing? You were playing the game of like going to college to get a good job rather than, right,

you could serve like your whole community, country or whatever and yourself getting like a job that you would enjoy and be more committed to and we'll have a farther reach than I don't know whatever job you might have been pursuing at first you know just because you were only thinking in that one specific way and didn't ask that question like hey what like what's the outcome that I really want from this thing rather than just going okay this this next step is really the outcome I want no no okay now this next step is like and then all of a sudden you look up you're like ah bad should have did something else you know especially people end up they get their their first degree after for four years and they get their masters and they get their PhD.

And sometimes I talk to those people, they don't have a goal of doing anything with that other than becoming an academic themselves, which is if that's really what you want to do, cool. Yeah. But just think about that. Yeah. Just know what you're doing and why you're doing it. Yeah.

Same thing with going to like a big school with a big name. You're like, oh, I really want to go to this school. Well, why? Because it's going to cost you this much more money and run the numbers and see if it's going to get you what you expect out of it. Yeah. Got to be careful at these things. Yeah, Philly.

It'll, at the very least, I feel like asking the question more often. What's the goal here? What are we doing? Like, what's the goal? Why am I doing this? Yeah, yeah. It's not just what's the goal. Why do I have this goal?

Yeah. You said it. I was going to cut you off. Thankfully, I didn't. Because it's not just what's the goal. Why is this the goal? Like, why do you need a bigger house, let's say? Yeah.

Right? Yeah. Because you got your house and you kind of want to be. bigger one and if you can have a legitimate reason for it like oh well I have two more kids now or I have another kid or whatever you can have legit reasons for that but you can also just want another house because you want to straight up keep up with the Joneses which is a real thing it is a real thing we have to be careful of yeah fully and and a lot of times too especially um when you don't really really focus on asking yourself that question it'll feel justified you know it'll feel

feel like, oh, I want to keep up with Joneses. And since it's more of like this feeling, you feel, you feel all the motivation. You feel all the justification or whatever, but it's not like articulated even in your own head. So you'll just let it slide. And then people wind up doing that kind of stuff and jamming themselves up. But at the very least, you keep asking yourself these questions. It'll improve the, uh, the probability of, of your success and satisfaction, I think.

Because let's face it on the flip side, which is bad advice, by the way, but it is possible to just be like, I don't know, I'm supposed to do this. And then you have, let's say, oh, I don't know, I'm supposed to exercise. I don't know, I'm supposed to do this stuff, right? And you do it. And then you kind of look up and find yourself in a pretty solid situation. Like, that's, that is possible. Yeah, that is possible.

You know, the, but I don't think that's like the intelligent way to do it, comparatively speaking. Yeah. There's sometimes when you're 14 and you're just kind of doing what you're told, there might be some reason behind it because you haven't figured it out. Yeah, you're like, dude, I just want to play football and like talk to girls. Yeah, hell yeah. That's Echo Charles.

We have, well, consider every NFL player pretty much, pretty much, more less, right? Where it's like, no, I just want to play football. I'm going to train and I love doing it. And, you know, I know it's just and I'm just looking and I want to win this next game. I want to win the championship and I want to, sure, I want to go to the NFL, right? Even though they know the numbers, they know the probability, right? But they'll look up and they just sort of did the right thing what's in front of them because they love football straight up. And even if they don't make it to the NFL, well, you had to keep your grades up.

You stayed in good shape. You know, you worked on this. You didn't get in trouble. Like there's a bunch of good things you could have done. Well, yeah. Trying to get that goal. And it'll be good. Yeah.

And it looks great. But it's like, if you don't ask the question, I'm just saying like probability wise that you're not setting yourself up. Yeah. Generally speaking, that's, we want to ask these questions. You want to understand what you're fighting for and why you're fighting for it. If you don't know it, you could be out there trying to fight for terrain when you don't care about the terrain. Yeah.

You can be fighting for the against the enemy. You don't really care about that enemy. Like what do you? You know, that's the keeping up with the Joneses. Like really? Is that really what, you know,

is you really need to get a new freaking Cadillac? Like your Cadillac's two years old. Now you need a new one. You know what I mean? Kind of. All right. So then we get finally to David L. Buffalo's recommended definition of of asymmetric warfare. In consideration of the above analysis, again, I only touch on the wave tops.

I propose the following definition of asymmetric warfare. Asymmetric warfare is population-centric, non-traditional warfare, waged between a military superior power and one or more inferior powers, which encompasses all of the following aspects. Evaluating defeating asymmetric threat, conducting asymmetric operations, understanding cultural asymmetry, and evaluating asymmetric cost. That's his definition that he came up with. To fully understand the definition above requires discussion of the four primary elements of asymmetric warfare described there.

And so he uses these terms, asymmetric threat. Components comprising asymmetric threat are terrorism, insurgency, information operations, disruptive threats and unknown threats. Terrorism. We kind of know what terrorism is. Terrorism includes all known forms of terrorism that exist today. Suicide terrorism, catastrophic attacks, political. assassination, biological strikes like anthrax, maelings, and many others. Terrorism is meant to produce a horrific effect. In the information age, terrorism is much more effective because a terrorist message is

disseminated and its impact felt instantly and worldwide. Insurgency at its root and insurgency is a revolutionary war. Asymmetries abound in an insurgency. The key is that, unlike a terrorist, an insurgent is completely reliant upon the population. and the population is the objective for both the insurgent and the counterinsurgent. Fast forward a little bit. Information operations. Galula stated in counterinsurgency warfare that information operations I.O. are key.

And I can go and tell you that I believe that this is the biggest key. That's why we need cyber war. We need a cyber warfare branch, which would include information operations. An insurgent's greatest asset is an idea. He wants to spread this idea and convert it into more tangible assets like soldiers and support, which is interesting. Like you think about it. You got this idea and you want to get people on board with your idea. That's what they want to convert the idea into like someone that's going to go and throw a pipe bomb.

Or even more, someone that's going to form up 10 people to go carry pipe bombs. Or that's going to form up 20 people, but they're actually going to get. RPGs like real weapons, not just homemade. You see what I'm saying? It's like converting these ideas into people and material. Similarly, in today's asymmetric war, the United States is fighting a war of ideas wherein the Muslim population is the objective. In this war, information operations are key.

In the information age, a terrorist network or a weak insurgent need not have extensive funding to have his message heard. Bin Laden can easily issue a fatwa by having one operative publish it on the internet. Of course, bin Laden can't do that so easily anymore. No. The enemy wages information warfare by issuing propaganda, creating lies and developing conspiracies. The enemy, like the insurgents described by Galula, can bank currency on mere premises rather than upon action. They can also seek to drive a wedge

Between the target population and the West This was clearly exemplified by the violence That followed the publication of the Danish cartoon Depecting the Prophet Muhammad Isn't it interesting Is that What the insurgent needs to do is just create rumors Just create propaganda lies

They just need to get them out there And it gets traction With no with very little cost. Disruptive threat. Promoting disorder is a legitimate objective for the asymmetric enemy. Between terrorism and disruptive threats

lies much overlap. When conducting a disruptive strike, an asymmetric enemy need not even commit an action. The mere threat of action is enough to disrupt the American way of life. This holds true in the United States, but even more so in part of the World War suicide, bombing is part of daily life.

And he goes into this section that's about enemy versus tools. Many people view crime, organized crime, hate crime, disease, drug trade, protest, natural disasters, peaceful disobedience, or human trafficking as potential asymmetric threats. These in and of themselves are not the enemy because they fail to meet the Klausvizian principle of politics through other means. Rather, they are events that are part of that are profit motivated directed toward minorities, rather than toward the government, part of the nature or part of the political life of a free

free democracy. However, each one of these could be used by an asymmetric enemy to achieve his goals. In this case, it becomes a tool and does fall under the realm of asymmetric threat. Criminal elements can supply and assist enemies. Protesters can further an enemy's cause. Natural disasters can provide a disruption that the enemy can capitalize upon. However, none of these is motivated by the audiology of the enemy. A criminal seeks profit and avoids arrest. His ideology is moot. Criminals can be bribed to work against the enemy or intimidated into submission if their price is too high.

So it's interesting. You get someone that's just, you want to disrupt the Americans, get people turned on each other. That's all you need. Oh, you got, oh, you got a pandemic. Cool, let's take advantage of that. Let's just make, we'll just cause more chaos with that.

Each enemy tool must be addressed by a strategist, as long as that tool is not targeted as the actual enemy. Targeting these forces as an enemy instead of as a tool can cause the population, the true objective to become more sympathetic to the enemy's ideology. Asymmetric operations in this formulation are those operations that are planned and conducted by the stronger side of an asymmetric war. They can be thought of as an offensive operation. They consist primarily of putting an asymmetric twist on the traditional spheres of national

power limited for the purposes of this paper, diplomacy, information, military, and economic. He talks about the asymmetric diplomacy, talks about asymmetric information operations. Galula said something else. With no positive policy, but with good propaganda, the asymmetric enemy may still win. We can never, we can seldom cover bad or non-existent policy with propaganda. So they can do the enemy The weaker enemy can win with just propaganda And yet the strong one can usually not even cover up

Things that they've done with propaganda That's how hard it is Yeah Yeah it's like the this whole idea of And I'm trying to just really kind of construct a mental Freaking diagram of this whole thing Which is very interesting by the way the so it's almost like because it's all relative so like if if let's say we'll call it the underdog

and the what's the opposite of underdog the freaking the favorite yeah so the underdog is already down here so an improvement in the for the underdog is like pretty simple just one step up you know but you're already down here the favorite like bruh his improvement is like kind of hard so every step he risks freaking degeneration he he he he risks like a loss bigger small and that's a hard position to be in you know he's already at the top kind of a thing so it's like in a way in a way every move is favored by the underdog in a way yeah because if he doesn't if he's not successful rather we were we were not successful even before we made the move so i i impress gregg train yeah Greg train he goes hey when you talked about star wars and how we just

Everyone roots for the rebel Like everyone roots for the underdog He said did you Did you come up with that? I don't know if I came up with it But I haven't heard anybody else use Star Wars To describe the fact that There's a reason when they made this movie It's not about the freaking

Dominant Empire just crushing people No, no one wants to see that Yeah There's like very few Movies that are about the dominant force dominating even more right I guess you could say team America world police right but it's just a big mock it's comedy yeah they're they're just making fun of it yeah so yes you're

right when the when the underdog you know scores a touchdown the crowd goes wild yeah it's like yeah they're opened up for all kinds of moral victories and like all this stuff you know where they can like capitalize on and benefit from that the favorite simply cannot do let's face it if the favorite runs up the score yeah it's kind of a loss on their part they kind of literally yeah it's hard to get a moral victory yeah man that's weird that's crazy here's the not to go too too much of a tangent which but i will the the whole empire star wars and stuff right they did a good job okay so this is what they did and this is like a thing where when they create bad individuals put them, they make them relatable to good people. That's what that one, that's what makes a great

bad guy. I know I said this before, but that's what makes a great bad guy. iconic bad guy, someone that the normal person will like relate to and kind of cheer for certain qualities. At the end of the day, he, he's like, there's some good in him and, and he has his own morals, like all this stuff. And he's powerful, but he has his own morals. And when it's time to get stuff done, he'll get it done, you know, kind of that thing. And there's all. And there's all, you know, even like small little bad guys that people tend to, like, there's a guy named Darth Mall in like episode one. It's a small, small role, but very impactful, right?

People love that guy because he's like so athletic. He's super stoic. He's like really good at fighting. In fact, people were mad the way he died. How did he die? He just got chopped in half or whatever on like some weak move that the other guy did or whatever. It's like it wasn't symmetrical with like his performance kind of a thing.

Anyway. But he just get caught? He got caught. Exactly right. But he's so good. Who killed him? It was Obi-Wan Kenobi. Damn, okay.

Well, Obi-Wan's kind of a big hero, right? Yeah, yeah, later, but he's like more of a learner at the time. Anyway, but anyway, the point is, but the empire is, that's not an individual character. You know, like, you can like the idea of domination, whatever, but the empire is bad. And the rebels, they're all good people and all that. So you can't, it's very hard to root for the empire, but it's very easy to root for, like, Darth Vader or these bad people. So that's what makes like the movie and the movie arc so interesting, you know, usually. If you get a bad guy that you can't relate to him at all, like there's, I can't think of an example, but there's bad guys who you can't relate to it all.

You just can't wait for the guy to die. And then when he's dies, like, freaking, why did I waste my time even, you know, kind of a thing with this movie? Or another little wrench they throw in if they make the good guy annoying. That's another wrench they throw it. They throw in. Do they do that in Star Wars? No. Karate Kid one, though, they do for sure.

In fact, all the karate kids. Wait. Who's annoying? Moshio Daniel Leruso the character yes wait Daniel Leruso is played by Ralph Moshio yeah and he's a little bit annoying yes sir in what way um well his personality he'd always be like rocking the boat you know like the new kid rocking the boat oh oh that kind of so they did that intentionally on purpose yeah he kind of causes some beef oh yeah fully I don't I haven't seen that movie no long sure watch it like he does annoying stuff like

like obvious stuff like dude what are you doing yeah don't do that it yeah don't do that it Yeah, exactly right. And so why do they do that? To make you more engaged with everything. So it's like, you know he's at the end of the day a good, so you're rooting for him, but you're troubled. And then the bad guy is the inverse, you know, where it's like, you know he shouldn't win or whatever, but you're troubled because you kind of want him to win because, hey, man, I dig it. I see why you're mad right there, you know, kind of a thing. So you just engaged the whole time, hopefully.

That's kind of part of the little strategy. Interesting. But it's interesting. Case in point is what Galula said. the insurgent, the underdog can get a win based on a lie and the freaking empire, the favorite,

can't really even cover up with the truth. He can't use the truth. Like come out and say, hey, actually, this is not true. It's kind of crazy. Oh, yeah. And there's another example. Okay, so, you know, I'm freaking about the movie necessarily, but okay, the idea of like a little kid's stealing. food, right? Because, brother, the thing, literally a thief committing crimes, right?

But he's doing it for a good reason because he doesn't have all this money or whatever. He's trying to, you know, feed himself or something like that. So it's almost like that same idea where the underdog is like, brother, everything's stacked against them. You got to let him slide in so many things because, but he's over here trying. These over these favorites over here, they should do everything perfect because everything's in their favor. You know what this encompasses is to is the idea of punching down.

Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Just full on punching down. Full on. Like I, you can make fun of anyone that's above you. Yeah. But you can't make fun of someone that's below you. Yeah.

Not allowed to do that. Or you'll look like bad. Bad. Yeah. Look stupid. Oh yeah. Right on. Um, the third concept is that the I.

I.O. message comes across much more convincingly when it's delivered by a local leader rather than a Western spokesman. Whenever possible, United States should engage in friendly sheiks and moms, elders and elected officials to disseminate I.O. themes. Very good information there. asymmetric military operations. It just talks about comprised direct action, unconventional warfare,

anti-terrorism, counterinsurgency, psychological operations, civil military operations, foreign internal defense, and special reconnaissance. And this is interesting because this is my whole adult life was all that right there.

And that's what they say is, ironically, this used to be a special operations command, but now the rest of the military is doing it. And he wrote that in 2006. They're GTG now, good to go. Asymmetric economic operations. The most visual asymmetric economic operation is development and reconstruction.

Foreign aid, trade policy, and foreign direct investment. Also play vital roles in waging asymmetric economic operations in a war where the population is the objective. The target population must be able to see and understand the tangible benefit for supporting the side with the asymmetric advantage and to see the A, and understand. the material advantage, disadvantage for supporting the asymmetric enemy. This is why we spent a ton of money. I'm talking about myself in Iraq

trying to help them build repave roads and put in irrigation ditches and re-roof the school. Like we did all that stuff. Trying to let them see, hey, there's an economic advantage if you get on board with what we're doing. Speaking of advantage,

leveraging asymmetric advantage, finding the side of an asymmetric war that wields the asymmetric advantage must understand how to leverage that advantage against the enemy, obviously. Cultural asymmetry. Cultural asymmetry is one of the hardest concepts to grasp but is one of the most crucial in an asymmetric war.

Cultural asymmetry is not new to American forces. During the development and reconstruction phase during World War II, when the Allies were rebuilding Japan, General Douglas MacArthur exhibited a keen grasp of cultural asymmetry when he allowed Japan to keep its emperor rather than punishing him as a war criminal, even though the concept of an emperor ran counter to American values.

That's such a great example. It's like, hey, look, we don't do emperors over here, but that's your guy, and it's going to be a lot easier if he's putting out the word. You know, this is a huge mistake that we made in America with disbanding the Baft Party and disassembling the Iraqi army. When all those people are like, hey, got a new leader now,

get on board of what we're doing. That would have been much, much easier, but we didn't listen to what McCarthy did. Asymmetric, asymmetry of values. Bismarck statement that the strong is the weak because of his moral scruples and the weak grows stronger because of his audacity, refer to the cultural asymmetry of values, norms, and rules. The West believes that it's a values, that it values life too greatly to employ suicide as a political or military tactic. Suicide terrorists see themselves as sacrificing their lives to achieve legitimate military

goals and in the context of the terrorist suicides of Islamic extremists to reap commensurate rewards in heaven. Just totally different. Totally different viewpoint. And by the way, just FYI, a lot of those suicide bombers, hey, in Iraq, when I was in Iraq in Ramadi, a lot of those suicide bombers were not doing it. They didn't sign a piece of paper that was like, I'm doing this of my own free will right now.

A lot of them, their family was going to get killed. Like they were they were being held hostage basically. I don't know what percentage. Maybe I shouldn't say a lot, but that was definitely a thing, a very common thing. It was like these kids, their family would get taken ostrich. They say, well, kill your parents, you got to drive this freaking truck in here. So you might as well just get on board and say, I'll Akbar and get it done. Asymmetry of norms.

The West has gone to great lengths to legitimize acts of warfare by identifying combatants and non-combatants. However, if a non-Western culture vilifies an entire group of people for committing economic and political as well as military atrocities, then they can view the people working in the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001 as combatants, whereas the West justifiably identifies them as innocent non-combatants. Once again, the West need not accept the enemy's norms. Strategists must simply attempt to understand them so strategy can be focused accordingly. Boom. They're going to think different. They are different than we are. They have a different culture than we have.

We have to put that into the calculus. Also in the Muslim cultural loyalty is placed above honesty when weighing one's honor. Found that out. I would find that out because an Iraqi officer would be like, yeah, the common example I give. Yep. I'd say, can you bring 20 guys on the operation tomorrow? They'd be like, yep. Then they show up with three.

What happened? Well, I'm trying to support you, but. It's not happening. Right. That's so crazy how it plays out, you know, that, that kind of stuff. It's like it's essentially the most basic level of miscommunication. Like, well, it's intentionally. Not miscommunication.

It's a, it's a cultural freaking difference. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's kind of like sarcasm. And you can kind of think about this and trip out how often this should happen but doesn't. But the smallest little thing can jam up communication. That's why text messaging can jam me up, by the way. Where, so if it, let's say you're not used to sarcasm. Let's say you never even, you know, whatever fantasy world, you've never heard even

heard of sarcasm. Meanwhile, like, you know, you guys like Andy Stomph and, you know, these guys were like, that's literally their first language, you know? And then it's like you can't understand what they're saying. Literally, they'll say one thing and then it'll mean literally the opposite if you don't know that, you know? Or if it's like, hey, I was only just. You know, so it's like whatever you said before that if if they didn't think you were joking

That's saying something completely different than if you did know they were joking and then that's not to mention Where it's like I'm gonna say something I'm not joking. I read your reaction now I say I'm joking. It's like a flip-flop So it's like bro, how do you even communicate with people you know you gotta be on the same page is what I'm saying You know so man if you have your whole culture that's different Br, you're gonna lack some understanding for sure and and if you don't if you're not aware of that that's where it causes problems. Sure. I think so.

Asymmetry of rules. Asymmetric enemies are bound by neither the laws of land warfare nor the Geneva conventions. They routinely directly violate actions against civilians or direct violent actions against civilians. They use terrorists of tactics of terror and horrific images. Many terrorists and insurgents are also willing to sacrifice their own lives for their cause in a suicide strike.

All of these must be weighed when planning to fight an asymmetric enemy. No atrocity is beyond the enemy's capability. That's so important. I like the thing. Must be weighed when planning to fight an asymmetric enemy. Because you're sitting there going, oh, we'll do this. And then they'll have this reaction. No, they won't.

You don't know what reaction are going to have. They don't care about rules. They don't care about how many people that you kill of theirs. They don't care if you kill civilians. They don't care. They don't care. You kill civilians. They don't care.

They don't care. They're totally different. And if you're not ready for that, if you're not putting that in calculus, you're going to have problems. By the way, it's really difficult to predict that. We've made all kinds of mistakes

thinking that they're thinking like we're thinking and they're not. Understanding the target population when waging a population-centric war strategists must identify the values and norms of the target population. These may be very different from those of the enemy

and if so must be exploited. And this is the really important situation here. Information operations. Cultural asymmetry is crucial in Waging Information Warfare. As previously stated, information warfare is waged whenever any Western spokesperson makes a public statement

and any time the West acts or fails to act in a given situation. Often Western leaders make statements for their own benefit and without consideration of their impact on this war's target population. And this was such a good point. Statements such as, I would rather fight them over there than over here. tell an Iraqi who's deciding whether to support the insurgents that the goal of the United States is to make Iraq his home an unending battleground.

Courses on communicating with the Muslim world can can and should be taught to any Western spokesperson. That's such a great thought. I never thought of that before. I've never really said that before. I've never been one of those guys like, hey, it's better to fight him over. Better to fight them over there than over here. And it makes sense.

When you're in America, you're like, yeah, hell yeah. But if you're in Iraq, you're like, what are you talking about? Over here, this is where I live. Why do you want to fight him here? I don't want to fight him here. If you're here fighting, that's going to do damage to my home. Yeah, every day all day, by the way. Every day all day.

And that's what your goal is? No, I don't want you here. Get out. Makes sense. Asymmetric cost. Galula quite eloquently explains that there is a tremendous cost to asymmetry in counterinsurgency warfare. This is true in all types of asymmetric warfare.

Quote, disorder is cheap to, to create and very costly to prevent. Because we cannot escape the responsibility of maintaining order, the ratio of expenses between us and the asymmetric enemy are high. Because of the disparity in cost and effort, the asymmetric enemy can thus accept a protracted war. We should not.

The asymmetric enemy is fluid because he has neither responsibility nor concrete assets. We are rigid because we have both. Gosh, that's important to think about from a book from 19. 64 called counterinsurgency. Dude, what do we do? Why are we not reading this?

Asymmetric cost encompasses assets at stake, cost of asymmetric defense, cost of undertaking action, and the asymmetric cost and nature of information operations. And you know what? Dude, it's not just about reading and understanding this. We just have a tendency to be like, oh, yeah, well, this is going to go our way. When war is not like that. War is just like random.

Oh, sure, you can control this? No. You can control what percentage can you control? I don't know what number you want to throw on it, but there's a huge percentage that you can't control. You cannot control. A huge percentage that you cannot control. And yet we go into wars thinking we can control all these variables

that we actually have no control over. That's why we end up getting in stupid wars. Because someone thinks that we can, oh, it's going to go the way I planned it. That's what's going to happen. No, it's not going to happen. Yeah. Assets at stake. As stated previously a nation state that goes to war places, many assets at risk, population, land, and interest.

A non-state actors or an insurgents only cost, only asset is his idea. He has no land or population. They have nothing. Cost of defense. As Galula noted disorder is cheap to create and very costly to prevent. It is cheap for an insurgent to bomb a bridge, but extensive for, for a counterinsurgent to guard all the bridges. We've seen it's cheap for al-Qaeda to hijack airpillar. but expensive for the United States to maintain air security.

It's cheap to mail anthrax, but expensive to screen the mail. Cost of undertaking action. Also, as Galula states, to be effective, a counterinsurgents' forces must be 10 or 20 times the size of the insurgents. This lends itself to the asymmetric cost of defense. An insurgent can afford to wait, and he chooses where to strike. The drawn-out nature of a counterinsurgency makes it extremely costly. However, as stated under information operations, failure to act in a given situation, loses more of the population to the insurgency.

So when you don't do anything, you lose even more. Information operations, information operations hold a position under asymmetric cost due to the costs associated with conducting information operations in an asymmetric war. The enemy can base his entire I.O. campaign on rumor, propaganda, and conspiracy theories. The West can only base theirs on concrete actions, and they are judged very harshly when they fail to act. It's rough. It's easy to be that dude sitting in the back of the room throwing darts, right? And they actually have a huge advantage.

Massive, yeah. And the other person, the favorite, has to, like, even when they engage, it still costs them because now they're punching down. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But failure to do anything can also be harshly judged. Yeah. There's a lot of advantages to be the, to being the insurgent.

Yeah. That's why there's such tough wars to fight. Yeah. And I'm going to close this book out or close this paper out. And I'm going to kind of fast forward here a bit, but there's an assessment that he makes. And again, this is an assessment from 2006, but it's definitely worth noting. He says this. The West is currently at a turning point, again 2006.

The United States could turn this war into a victory or it could dissolve into a defeat simply because the nation fails to recognize the war it is fighting. Asymmetric warfare is waged differently by each side and the victor is not preordained. It can be won, but not by blindly charging into the fray, chasing terrorists without concern for the effect on the population because the population is the true objective for each side. The first step in winning a war is knowing the type of of war one is fighting. By understanding asymmetric warfare and its policy implications,

the United States will be able to effectively coordinate its actions to achieve victory. So there you go. And that was a huge piece. You know, when, and I talked about this when General McFarland was on, and I talked about it with Laif, you know, I was lucky enough to read the counterinsurgency manual that came out just as we were going on deployment. And that idea of security for the populace and securing the local populace was such a huge paradigm shift in my head. Like, oh, that's what our goal is.

This isn't about taking terrain. This isn't about going street to street. This isn't about taking this building or that building. It wasn't even about setting up combat outpost. The setting up the combat outpost wasn't to take the terrain. It was to secure the populace. It was to protect the locals in the city. No.

Did you have to seize the terrain to do it? Yes. but that wasn't the goal. The goal was to protect the populace. And this individual, David Buffalo, was putting this word out in 2006 that came out in September of 2006. So he was putting this out.

He was probably writing this while we were in Ramadi fighting, and he identified these things. So very interesting, very interesting paper, very interesting. And again, not just from a warfare perspective, but it's really a mindset for all of us and you and I touched on some of these mindsets of to reframe what you're doing to reframe the fight that you're in the battle that you're engaging in

there's an old seal saying of like never fight fair like I don't want to get a fair fight or I don't want to get a fair fight hard yeah I want to be able to cheat and we've actually talked about that before they teach you it's if you ain't cheating you ain't trying but there's some limitations to that, right? Because now you're doing things that you might,

should not be doing. Cheating means bending the rules. Sometimes you have to bend the rules. But I think what's even better than that is what asymmetric warfare means you're going to play a different game. Let's play a different game. Let's not just try in Ramadi. Let's not just try and kill the insurgents.

let's try and win the populace. Let's try and get them to fight the war. Then it's not us anymore. So keep that in mind. This is how you get strategic wins in life. And you might lose some tactical battles. But if you focus on what you can do overtime strategically by playing the game that you have an advantage in, then you can win.

And that's what I recommend. And with that, Speaking of being strategic. Sure. We want to be strategic with our health. Well, when you think about it, if you're focused on your health, if you view life as a, you know, combination of collaboration and competition. Is this your concept? Collaboration and competition?

What? It's both happening? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay. I like it. I've heard you talk about this before. Well, you know, I go deep.

Been contemplating. Yeah. Anyway, if you do view it like that, as far as a competition part, there are certain things that you can do for yourself voluntarily that does create asymmetry in your favor. I'm saying? Exercise is one of those things. Can you outwork outperform someone who's too tired? Doesn't feel good. Too weak.

No stamina. Always got to take a nap all the time. Always not feeling like it. Oh, can't, can't finish up. Oh, this person's a victim. Oh, yeah. It's a lot easier to win in the event of competition. It's a lot easier to win against someone like that versus someone who's not like that.

Is what you're saying? That's what health, fitness, exercise, all this stuff. That's what it does for us. So we're working out. We're working out. We're lifting. We're lifting. We're running.

Yeah, we're running. We're training. Metcons Alde. And we need proper fuel. Yes, sir. What field do you recommend, Echo Charles? Jock Fuel. All day?

All day. All day. That's what we're doing all day. In the morning. In the morning, we're taking super krill. In the morning, we're taking joint warfare. In the morning. I'm taking time more.

Do you take time more in the morning? I don't take time more in the morning. I take my main, every single day, non-negotiable, as one might say, is creatine and hydrate pack. That's the routine. In the morning. Yeah. You get getting jacked on that creatine, huh?

Hell, yeah. Yeah. So we started all day. Yeah. Lunch time, maybe we're having a mulk. Maybe early afternoon. Maybe we're having to go. Need a little bit of that energy.

Maybe you had some pre-workout. I don't know. You might have. Have you been, is go a thing in the morning? I will not have a go, generally speaking, until around 10. Now, when I was up at the council, I was having, because I was briefing in the morning at 8 o'clock, I was having one at 7.40. Yeah, well, a lot of people replace their coffee with that, which I understand.

Some people really like the coffee, so they'll do the coffee thing then, you know, early, sorry, early noonish or whatever, early afternoon. Boom, go. Yeah, well, a lot of people are really just kind of killing two birds with one stone with that coffee milk, which has 95 milligrams of caffeine and 30 grams of protein. What a win that is. People, that's become like a staple in people's lives right now. Yeah. And yeah, you make sense. I mean, it makes sense because, you know how like they'll go to like the, the.

Coffee shop, right? And get the sweet, freaking coffee, whatever. You ever seen those things when they show like how many sugar cubes are going in one of those Starbucks, Rappuccino's or whatever they are? Yeah. I haven't seen that particular one, but that makes sense because it's very easy to do this if you seek this out. Seek out like how many calories and what kind of calories are in, I don't know, whatever you want to see. And those start those, whether it be from Starbucks wherever. Yeah, yeah.

These, these things that we get in the morning, if you break down the calories, and macros brought you'll be alarmed. If you care about that kind of stuff. Yeah. But I went to, oh, this is side note. So I went to a, I don't want to put the restaurant on blast because it's a restaurant that we all know. So we go there as like a thing, it was by the hotel, right?

In Hawaii, Honolulu. So we go and we sit down and I'm like, you know, I'm trying to freaking stay on the deal. You know, stay on the path. I'm not going to cut loose too hardcore. Don't care where I am. Nonetheless. So I look at the menu and this, they did us the service of putting, you know,

sometimes I'll put the calories. The macros. Yeah. Wait, macros or just calories? Just calories. Okay. So I'm like, you know, I'm going to stick with something light.

I'm going to get a Caesar salad. I'll put the dressing on the side, whatever. You know, that's the move or whatever a lot of times. So I'm Caesar salad. You know, all good. I'll add some chicken on there. We'll be solid. I'm not going to get the freaking double triple cheese blend pasta,

Parmesan freaking chicken, whatever. I'm going to get the salad. It was 1875 calories. Damn. For a salad. Yes, sir. For a Caesar salad with grilled chicken? Grilled chicken?

Caesar salad. Yeah, grilled chicken. Well, I don't know. I don't remember what kind of chicken is. I don't know that it said grilled chicken, but I'm assuming most of these salads I have don't have a freaking fried chicken in it. Nonetheless. That's a lot, man. Bro, it was alarming.

That's crazy. Oh, yeah. And so, and the point is, it's like restaurants, most of the time aren't necessarily focused on like, hey, let's get you what you need. It's more like, hey, let's get you what tastes good, what you want right now. You know, kind of a thing. And these coffee scenarios, that's no exception. Same thing. Be careful, man.

We left the restaurant, by the way. Left. You didn't even go? You didn't even know. Stood up and left. 100%. Where'd you go? We went to, it was like a, you know, one of those food, or later on.

I mean, what was our secondary? Yeah, yeah. It was like we found this food court, which was kind of cool. And you were able to dial in what? Caesar salad. I got a Caesar salad. That was more healthy. On this other place.

Yeah. A pizza place, by the way. And did they have the caloric count there? Or did you just go. ignorance is bliss because I think it was ignorance is bliss for sure but it was more simple

so look a lot of time if you go to certain restaurants they try to make it taste good and gourmet and they add this now and this is our special sauce you know and it's like brown the special sauce they put like a bunch of stuff in there and the you know whatever they

cook the chicken in they put it you know there's all these extra ingredients to make it extra palatable and all this other stuff right versus you go to like a simple piece of place Or if you make it at home, by the way, it's like, bro, we're not, we're not that well versed in all this culinary stuff

to make it taste good. My wife's been making Caesar's out dressing. Yeah. And it is on point. All homemade dressing. All homemade dressing. Yeah, a lot of times that's the best way. Actually, Rana originated that whole jam.

Like, she started making it. And the whole family was like, we need more of this. What's the main ingredient in Caesar? I don't know. Come on, bring that kind of stuff out. Nonetheless. We'll put it up, you know, on the show notes. Chalka's Caesar

Yeah Yeah But what I'm saying is you can mitigate it And really the main point there is You gotta watch out Yeah you know what's really good Is just preemptively When you're going somewhere

Just have a mulk on the way out the door Like you'll just be so much better off in life Yeah Before you go out You just grab a mulk And you're just good to go Because let's face it Your hunger is satiated

by at least half with one milk. Like at least half of your hunger's gone. And you just got 30 grams of protein. So when you're rolling out, because there's some scenarios you roll in there, you're not even looking at that calorie thing. You're like, bro, bringing on. Oh, yeah.

You're going to go right off the path. Yes, sir, you will. And that's kind of a wide. What did it cheat? Did it have the calories for like a cheeseburger and fries on this menu? Well, they didn't have cheeseburger and fries, but yes, they did have the certain pasta dishes for sure,

20, 100. for one. How could a pasta dish be 2100, but a damn Caesar salad's 1800? Yeah. I don't know.

I'm not the chef, so I don't know what they put in that. That's interesting. We'll have to talk to some of our people and see what's going on with that. Well, I would imagine that that olive oil or,

you know, these high calorie count things are like a big time ingredient and a lot of this stuff for sure. But yeah, that's real though. But the good thing, Jocco Fuel,

that they focus on different things, you know, or how should I say, We focus on it. Yeah, it just gives you this the options, man, for the cleanliness and the goodness. Yeah, so that's what we're doing. Mulk, drinking a hydrate right now.

And by the way, the hydrate, if you got a sweet tooth, if you really want to gratify your sweet tooth, get the fruit punch RTD hydrate. It is sweet. But there's no sugar in it. It's sweetened with Jocko Good sweetener, by the way, trademark.

Oh, for real? Yeah. Oh, no shit. It's a whole blend that we figured out over the past five years to make stuff taste delicious. So, yeah, the hydrate, the go, the mulk. What else? My daughter does roast you behind your back. Oh, no, what?

Hydrate. And what about it? So this is what she'll say. I'll see if you can figure it. I'm concerned. She goes all the time. She's like, she's like, oh, you know what's cool about this is that it's clear. You know why?

Because it's clean. Oh. And she says that like, that's like some big joke. So anything that's clear, she'll be like, look, it's clear. And then like the long pause, you know, and then everyone laughs or whatever. And she goes, because it's clean. Did I do that in the video or something? Yes, you did.

All right. Well, I'll talk to her offline. Get that straightened out. I'll be roasting me. Right. Lends every single time it lands. Every single time. That's good.

Yep. So check out joccofield.com or go to Wawa. Go to vitamin shop. Go to GNC. Go to the military commissaries. Go to Afeas. Hanifert's. Dash doors in Maryland.

Wakefern. Shop right. H.E.B. down in Texas. Meyer in the Midwest, Harris Teeter, Wegmans, Lifetime Fitness, Sheels, and small gyms everywhere. Jiu Jitsu gyms, CrossFit gyms, if you want to help out, or if you want to get JockoFuel into your gym, email JCOFuel.com. We can make that happen. Also, you need clothing. Don't get clothing from the people we're in an economic war with, which would be China, which would be most of the clothes that you might be wearing right now. If you're not,

not getting your clothes from origin USA.com where we get the fabric from America. We get the leather from America. These zippers are from America. The thread is from America. It's all from America. And we have everything that you need. Jeans. Cacky pants. We have hooded sweatshirts. We have workout gear. We have hunt gear. We got everything that you need. And it's all made 100% in America. There's a new version of our workout gear that's freaking outstanding. It's the best you can get. Achieved.

So check that out. OriginUSA.com. Get yourself the clothing that you need and get it from America. Also, we have a training camp for law enforcement first responders, 27th through the 31st in Maine. It's jujitsu base But we got a bunch of police officers And military people that are black belts in jujitsu

That are going to teach Of courses We're also going to cover some leadership stuff with JP from Eshlam Front So we've got a great stuff If you want to check that out All of that go to origin USA.com Also jaco store called jaco store Discipline equals freedom

T-shirts and hats and hoodies This is uh yeah if you When you're representing on the path As you create asymmetry in your warfare competition position. You want to represent. That's where you can get your stuff. Good.

The idea of good. People seem to like that one. We got kids stuff out. By the way, new kid's stuff. Just launched, by the way. Check it out.

Right. It's pretty solid. The kids seem to like it is what I'm saying. So yeah, Discipline equal freedom. Good. It says good. Like, have you seen it?

Did you see it? Yeah. It looks like a kid wrote it. Yeah. Only one part of it though. So it says good in the, you know, the iconic.

And then it kind of if you look close it has like you know when you're learning to write the freaking lines or whatever if you look close and then yeah below it says you learned in like freaking hand rating it's pretty good I think it came out good check out the creativity we think it came out anyway check that out it's all in jacchoo store

com also the short locker on jacquistore.com still it's called the short locker new shirt every month subscription scenario new design last month or this past month which is June thinking strategically and on the front it says all the time.

Look at that. Then it has the man, you know, the thinking man statue. You know, you remember that? That's on the back. Anyway, it's just good. You know, we're doing some, some little bit, uh, different type designs, um, you know, a little more, uh, outside the box sometimes. But nonetheless, called the short locker.

It's on jocco store.com. Check that. If you, you know, you like something, get something. Speaking of get something, get some steak. Go to primobeefe.com or Coloradocraftbeef.com. Get yourself some freaking awesome steak made from awesome. cows from awesome American companies. Primalbeef.com, Colorado Craftbeef.com. Check them out. Also subscribe to the podcast.

Also subscribe to Jockle Underground. We're getting ready to record one of those right now. We have YouTube. Check those out. One for, for what? Jocco podcast. One for Jocco Fuel. Two for Jocco. USA. Oh, two for Jocco podcast. Oh, we have a Clips one now. You finally got in the game. Dude, we went around for eight years. You're like, oh, make a Clip's podcast. one well well technically we you know that's like one of those things where you do have to ask like okay why like why would we do that you know so yeah sure that's the normal i get it you know but there's technically we have underground stuff on jaco podcast the official right we have jocco full episodes we have shorts like shorts uh on jaco and then uh underground stuff clips from the underground

Check. That's on jock pad. So it's starting to get a little bit, you know. And then not to mention the, you know, freaking enhance videos, all these other things that are on Jocko. Anyway, it's starting to get crowded. Okay.

So now if we can have just cool clips from the podcast, whatever, that can be on their separate channel, whatever. So, you know, can be kind of organized a little bit better. So what's it called? Jocco podcast clips. Damn, original.

And Ashland Front also has a YouTube channel. Oh, psychological warfare. Check that out. Flipside canvas.com. Dakota Myers selling stool. Cool stuff to hang on your wall. I've written a bunch of books about leadership. I've written a bunch of books about, I've written a bunch of kids books.

I wrote a novel called Final Spin. Anyways, check any of those out. I wrote a book about discipline called Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual. The Way of the Warrior Kid books. Movie coming in a year. But get ahead of that. Don't wait a year to get your kids on the path. Get them on there now.

yeah fully Mikey and the dragons often called the best kids book ever I understand at least I call it that often extreme ownership dichotomy leadership about faced by Hackworth echelon front we solve problems through leadership it's our leadership consultancy if you need help inside your organization go to esplanfront dot com we will set up a program for your company or you can bring people from your company to one of our events our next big event is the muster in Dallas which is 16 to 18 October 24. Also, we have the Women's Assembly, September 11th through September 13th in San Antonio, Texas.

We also have an online training academy for life. If you want to get better at life, go to extreme ownership.com. We will give you the skills. And if you want to help service members active and retire, you want to help their families. You want to help Gold Star families. Check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got an incredible charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get it.

involved go to america's mighty warriors dot org also don't forget about micah think up in montana with heroes and horses dot org and finally jimmy may's organization beyond the brotherhood dot org check some of those out also if you want to connect with us you can go to jocco.com also we're on social media echo is at echo charles i'm at jocco well just be careful because there's an algorithm that will try and get you. Thanks to all of our military personnel out there around the world, locked into numerous asymmetric battles and wars. Thank you for doing what you're doing so that we can do what we do. And the same goes to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, as well as all other first responders.

Thank you for doing what you do here at home to keep us safe. And everyone else out there, there, don't fight fair. In fact, don't even fight. Don't play by their rules. In fact, don't even play their game. Figure out where their weaknesses are. Figure out the game you should be playing, the game that you can win. Think strategic and find that path to victory. And that's all we've got for tonight. And until next time, this is Echo and Jock out. Thank you.