I've only recently become familiar with the term "
Asymmetric warfare" or "asymmetric tactics". The context I have encountered it has been in description of the the change in tactics by the Islamists in Mali now that the war has been "won", and they have been largely chased out of the territory they controlled in January.
They no longer have a large base to operate from and have weakened numbers and resources, and so rather than traditional fighting - army to army, they have turned to
asymmetric tactics - suicide bombings
against civilian targets in Mali and against
2 major targets Thursday in NIger that took 30 lives.
What makes these "asymmetric" is that countries in question are playing by traditional rules (not attacking civilians) and using traditional military forces (army, air, etc). The terrorists do not have the same resources but are in turn leveraging the strengths they have: ability to travel quickly through the desert and blend with local populations, willingness to sacrifice their own lives and to take civilians lives, using vehicles with some cheap explosives as suicide bombs.
Also in the news this week has been the massive
F5 tornado in Moore, Oklahoma that took 24 lives and flattened between 12,000 and 13,000 homes, affecting 33,000 people. My cousin and his family were among those who lost their homes.
So what does this have to do with Asymmetric Warfare? Well, I have been blown away by the asymmetric response of people in my home state in taking care of folks hit by this. It is not like we don't have practice: the 1994 Oklahoma City bombing changed us forever, and then the 1999 tornado also in Moore left lots of devastation.
Watching this on facebook, I have seen just an outpouring of love, compassion and giving
asymmetrically, without expecting anything in return.
This includes
- a million dollar check from Kevin Durant
- $2 million from Hobby Lobby
- People giving through Red Cross and the Oklahoma Baptist Disaster Relief fund
- concerts from Norman highschool students and country superstars
- churches like FBC OKC, FBC Moore, Victory church and literally 100s of others collecting supplies, providing lodging, going out to communities that are hard hit to help out.
- One apartment complex giving away free apartments
- A car dealership letting people use rental cars for free if their car was lost
- My alma-matter, the University of Oklahoma, opening up dorms for 300 or so people with churches providing free day care so parents could go deal with their houses.
- Giftcards from Walmart and Target, food from Buy for less
Donald Miller's storyline blog has than incredible write-up on this: "
We are Oklahoma. This is what we do." It includes this quote from NBC’s Brian Williams tonight, as he was speaking with
Governor Fallin:
“I watched your entire briefing today, you had heads of
all State Departments, including churches and conferences of churches.
You almost have a faith-based FEMA here, as well as FEMA.”
So alongside the symmetrical response of FEMA, we have this enormous groundswell of asymmetrical response by ordinary people.
If suicide bombers can leverage their limited resources in Asymmetric Warfare, how about we start a campaign for Asymmetric Compassion and Service:
- Leveraging the good things that we know how to do
- striking where love is least expected
- and expecting nothing in return except for asymmetric results.
Admittedly, this already happens in so many missions and churches and NGOs and inner-city works:
- our faith-based NGOs may not come in with the budgets of the World Bank or USAID, but we can do asymmetric things like going and living with the people, learning their language and teaching them to read in their mother tongue, building relationships in their communities.
- little churches and inner-city ministries can maintain food closets, and after-school reading programs, and ESL classes, clinics, big brother programs, etc.
It is hard to go down this asymmetric compassion path very far without thinking of
God's very asymmetric offering. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son." Against all logic, at huge cost and for a huge benefit.
I Corinthians 1: 18 -28 The
message of the cross is foolish to those who are headed for
destruction! But we who are being saved know it is the very power of
God... God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish...... 27 Instead,
God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those
who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame
those who are powerful..... 28 God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important.
Luke 9:23 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.
So let's get busy getting asymmetrical!
By a twist of fate (or the pen), he is assigned to ferret out the Christians in the catacombs, eventually finding access and asking WHY they face death with joy. He converts and winds up in the catacombs himself in short order.
