To win the fight in asymmetric warfare often will require information and intelligence gathering at all levels of operations, which helps gives United States forces a knowledge advantage that in turn leads to a decision advantage over its adversaries, according to a report released by CACI International [CACI] and the Center for Security Policy.
“’Without a distinct knowledge advantage, we will not have a decision advantage over our adversaries,’” says the report, Combating Asymmetric Threats: The Interplay of Offense and Defense. The report is a summary of the comments made at an Asymmetric Threat symposium in April that was co-sponsored by CACI, the Center for Security Policy and the U.S. Naval Institute. The comments at the symposium were not for attribution.
 |
Quoting one symposium participant, the report says the keys to combating asymmetric threats include “’decision superiority, resiliency, and agility, as we move to become a more interdependent, more cost-effective military.’” The report continues, citing the same participant, that attaining these keys means making “’better use of open-source information and more intelligence.’”
The report also says that “enterprise agility” needs to be strengthened to ensure that the United States has the initiative in offense and defense capabilities against asymmetric threats. This agility means being able to operate at network speed and in a distributed, flattened network, “something we don’t necessarily have today,” it says.
The report also quotes a participant as saying the complementary nature of special operations forces, cyber and intelligence, which are important to having an asymmetric advantage, will continue to become “’major team players’” as they are “low-cost, high-payoff, soft power enablers.’”