After reading such a theory, one can do little more than roll one's eyes skyward, mumble "Experientia docet stultos..." and count to ten before drafting a response.

Launching an insurgency against a powerful state to prevent them from supporting a separatist movement in your country? It does have a certain ludicrous ring to it, but hardly seems advisable in practice. First off, it presupposes the ability to think far enough in advance to build sleeper cells into your large neighbor. Many states can barely think past the next election or coup.

More importantly, it neglects the teensy-tiny issue that such actions would result in your little state not merely angering a larger, more powerful neighbor, but being labeled as a "state sponsor of terrorism", since, outside the context of declared war, that's what it amounts to when your citizens blow up civilian and military infrastructure in a neighboring state.

Here's a radical concept, a few handy do's & don'ts... Do negotiate cooperatively. Presume that groups within your borders who meet the standards for declaratory sovereignty laid out in the Montevideo Conventions 75 years ago are entitled to the right to self-determination, and act pre-emptively to grant them greater autonomy or federated status within your government, or the opportunity to peacefully separate. Don't target civilian population centers with multiple-launch-rocket artillery. Don't place your trust in treaty alliances that lack the pre-positioned forces or logistical supply routes to allow your treaty partners to actually provide the security that they notionally promise. Do consult a map. It comes in handy when making these judgments.

Just my two drachma,
Cleitus the Black

To be honest, I find the premise frustrating. This is less about the tactics of small states and large states and more about flexibility of the actor, state or non-state. So-called 'asymmetric' conflicts are really asymmetric in that one side chooses or is inhibited from leveraging certain advantages of the other. So-called 'asymmetric warfare', also called 'irregular warfare' has been a mainstay of U.S. Special Operations for decades. The problem has been the resistance from Big Army and the civilian leadership, who may or may not be influenced by Big Army (e.g. they come in with their own conception of war should be waged).

John Robb suggestion of infrastructure attacks are wrong. These can easily hidden from view, or worse, distorted by effective information operations to be threats on civilians.

Let's get the ideas right here. Asymmetrical warfare, or irregular warfare, is about opinions, both private and public. This is a war of persuasion and of perceptions. The pain on Russia would be minor as they then convince their people and 'fence sitters' that they are subject to terrorist reprisals and much increase their own security.

All operations should be considered with the informational effects in mind. The Georgians should focus on the global information environment and examine how global opinion, G8, NATO, OSCE, and EU can be mobilized in support of their actions. Georgia should adopt Hezbollah's tactics of placing combat cameramen everywhere and in every action. They need to decentralize their information distribution and do what they can to integrate global media. Last I checked, the Russians were conducting ethnic cleansing. The 'militias' were Russian proxies. Where's the media on this? Facilitate action, get footage, get information out, etc. The priority must not be on sending bullets downrange but information uprange.

What mitigates the use of this strategy? Internal myopia, lack of awareness, and probably the urge for big bangs regardless of effects.

Cleitus the Black wrote:

"Launching an insurgency against a powerful state to prevent them from supporting a separatist movement in your country? It does have a certain ludicrous ring to it, but hardly seems advisable in practice."

I did not say that a small state should sponsor an insurgency in a larger state ( though I suppose that could possibly be an option) my post suggested that they could emulate their asymmetric fighting style rather, say, rush headlong into a head to head conventional battle they are apt to lose badly.

Wilsonian self-determination is an interesting concept but ultimately an atomizing one in practice since there will eventually be a scalar point of descending granularity where the resultant microstates lack economic viability - particularly in the absence of at least a regional regime of free trade.

Matt,

There's nothing wrong with your suggestions and in fact they'd be beneficial as part of a full-spectrum asymmetric strategy. However, dishing out economic pain in Russia via systems disruption is viable given the hypercentralization of most systems to the "Moscow hub" and being able to inflict those costs are the best deterrent a small state can have.

Georgia traded a territorial defense type force for a force that could conduct COIN missions for NATO and the US. If I were a defense planner for the Georgians, I wouldn't even bother buying artillery and tanks. Instead, I would buy the best shoulder fired weapons money can buy and train my force in small unit tactics. Of course, its very possible that the Georgia was required to develop such capabilities in return for American support. The trade-off must have been between having a territorial defense type force, but without American training, FDI, and political backing, and having a COIN force with America as a friend.