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2021 - Volume 4 - Number 2

From “Shock and Awe” to Asymmetric Warfare in Modern Military Warfare

Daniel Galily * daniel.galily@gmail.com * ORCID: 0000-0001-9111-4502 * ResearcherID: D-4390-2019
South-West University “Neofit Rilski”, Faculty of Philosophy, Department of Philosophical and Political Sciences, Blagoevgrad, BULGARIA

David Schwartz * dvd99@015.net.il * ORCID: 0000-0002-3989-8546
Bar-Ilan University, Department of Political Science, Ramat Gan, ISRAEL

Open Journal for Studies in History, 2021, 4(2), 85-92 * https://doi.org/10.32591/coas.ojsh.0402.04085g
Received: 6 June 2021 ▪ Accepted: 6 November 2021 ▪ Published Online: 16 November 2021

LICENCE: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

ARTICLE (Full Text - PDF)

ABSTRACT:
This study aims to present the strategies from “Shock and Awe” to asymmetric warfare in modern military warfare. The main points in the article are: Introduction: The lessons of a war - The Yom Kippur War; In the years before the Yom Kippur War; After the Yom Kippur War, the American military understood that it had to focus on mobile and rapid warfare against regular armies, an issue that had been neglected over the past decade; The “Shock and Awe” battle strategy. In conclusion: a very important element for coping with asymmetric warfare is the psychological strength of the civilian population. As stated, one of the ways of warfare of the weak side against the strong side is the marking the psychological sensitivity of the civilian population of the strong side as a target. A psychological attack on the civilian population can manifest itself in the launching of missiles at it, the control of its information, the multiplicity of casualties of its soldiers and the sowing of a sense of frustration in it due to prolonged confrontation.

KEY WORDS: Yom Kippur War, “Shock and Awe”, modern military warfare.

CORRESPONDING AUTHOR:
David Schwartz, Bar-Ilan University, Department of Political Science, Ramat Gan, ISRAEL. E-mail: dvd99@015.net.il.

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