“Insurgents do not just use asymmetric tactics; they do so in the context of asymmetric strategies. The insurgent’s most fundamental objective is simply to thwart the counterinsurgent’s objectives. We may think of this as “monkey wrench power.” Throwing a monkey wrench is a form of sabotage. The purpose of sabotage is to interfere with a competitor’s goals and interests and to create disorder. Disorder is the strategic friend of the insurgent and the foe of the regime.
Insurgent movements often do not aim for decisive victory, but rather to prevent the counterinsurgent from achieving victory. They seek to be winning, not necessarily to be victorious. To be winning, the insurgent need only to disrupt, break, and resist. He does not have to build, create, or sustain. In nearly every way, the insurgent’s burden is much easier than that of the counterinsurgent. Henry Kissinger noted nearly a half-century ago, ‘The guerrilla wins if he does not lose. The conventional army loses if it does not win.’ This asymmetry is the essence of resistance and it gives the insurgent an enormous advantage.
The asymmetries of constraint further multiply the insurgency’s power. The insurgent has much more tactical latitude to resist than the state has to quell the resistance. Insurgent tactics are constrained only by the ethos and popular support of the people. As long as the insurgent is able to take the people’s side, he can largely use any means they wish. The insurgent’s grand strategy of “not losing” involves persistently provoking, disrupting, and exhausting counterinsurgent forces. The insurgents provoke the state, hoping counterinsurgent forces will overreact with excessive force. The resisters then flaunt and leverage that regime’s response in order to mobilize their own popular support.” – Randy Borum, Ph.D, in Seven Pillars of Small War Power