"Since the mid-1990s, the concept of strategic asymmetry has begun to receive serious attention from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). The 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review, for instance, stated, "U.S. dominance in the conventional military arena may encourage adversaries to use ... asymmetric means to attack our forces and interests overseas and Americans at home." But while American strategists and defense leaders sense the importance of strategy asymmetry, much analytical work remains to be done before it is fully understood. The author assesses the revisions to Joint Vision 2020, DOD's roadmap to the future, that must be undertaken in order to prepare for asymmetric challenges."--Summary.

The U.S. military's joint vision of how it will approach conflict in the future, Joint Vision (JV) 2020, is vulnerable to asymmetry. The tremendous relative military combat power of U.S. forces and our commitment to expanding that lead means that, for potential adversaries, asymmetric approaches will be their only recourse. Asymmetric strategies-intentional or opportunistic-will seek to counter the operational concepts underpinning JV2020. Successful asymmetric approaches could prevent the United States from fighting as designed or even at all. Alternatively, asymmetry may not defeat U.S. forces, but could prevent them from winning. Asymmetry affects the whole force and must be addressed in that context. Reliance on overwhelming offensive military power for warfighting and adopting a defensive strategy against asymmetric approaches will not ensure mastery of the asymmetric domain.

A stimulating new inquiry into the fundamental truth of strategy - its purpose, place, utility, and value. This new study is animated by a startling realization: the concept of strategic victory must be summarily discarded. This is not to say that victory has no place in strategy or strategic planning. The outcome of battles and campaigns are variables within the strategist's plan, but victory is a concept that has no meaning there. To the tactical and operational planner, wars are indeed won and lost, and the difference is plain. Success is measurable; failure is obvious. In contrast, the pure strategist understands that war is but one aspect of social and political competition, an ongoing interaction that has no finality. Strategy therefore connects the conduct of war with the intent of politics. It shapes and guides military means in anticipation of a panoply of possible coming events. In the process, strategy changes the context within which events will happen. In this new book we see clearly that the goal of strategy is not to culminate events, to establish finality in the discourse between states, but to continue them; to influence state discourse in such a way that it will go forward on favorable terms. For continue it will. This book will provoke debate and stimulate new thinking across the field and strategic studies.