This is the original version of the article published in the Op-Ed pages of the Times of India on 14th April 2026.
Watching events unfold in West Asia and Eastern Europe, one cannot help but wonder if their playbook was written by Chanakya. In both arenas, the weaker powers—Iran and Ukraine—have embraced asymmetry as doctrine: using proxies, economic disruption, and low-cost drones to impose disproportionate costs on stronger adversaries, while stretching conflicts into battles of attrition. In doing so, they echo an ancient maxim of Sun Tzu: “Avoid what is strong and strike at what is weak.”
History suggests that this logic has long governed unequal wars. At the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, English longbowmen devastated heavily armoured French knights, turning terrain and technology into decisive force multipliers. Centuries later, in Vietnam and Afghanistan, far weaker forces used guerrilla tactics, geography, and time itself to wear down vastly superior military powers.
Consider the Battle of Hydaspes in 326 BCE, where Porus faced Alexander of Macedon. Porus deployed war elephants—intended to shatter enemy lines and sow terror. Against most armies, they would have been fiercely decisive. But Alexander relied on manoeuvre and deception: crossing the river unexpectedly, striking the flanks with cavalry, and using light troops to harass the elephants rather than confront them head-on. As the animals panicked under sustained attack, they became liabilities, trampling their own ranks.
In the early 13th century, across the vast steppes of Central Asia, the lesson was the same. Genghis Khan’s horse archers ensured that heavily armed soldiers never came within striking distance. Fighting from horseback with speed and precision, they struck, withdrew, and struck again—turning distance into a weapon. The sword was not defeated—it was merely rendered irrelevant.
A different kind of asymmetry emerged with the arrival of gunpowder. At the First Battle of Panipat in 1526, Ibrahim Lodi commanded a vast army built on traditional strengths—cavalry, infantry, and war elephants. Babur, by contrast, introduced field artillery and matchlock guns at scale. As cannon fire and disciplined formations disrupted advancing ranks, the logic of the battlefield shifted. The fight was no longer decided at close quarters, but at distance. Lodi’s army was not outnumbered or outfought—it was outclassed by a new way of war.
By the 17th century, Chhatrapati Shivaji had refined asymmetry into a doctrine of deception and endurance. Avoiding decisive confrontation with a far larger Mughal force, he stretched the conflict across terrain and time—appearing, striking, and vanishing at will. The contest was not for territory, but for the ability to outlast.
What binds these examples together is not merely ingenuity, but economics. Asymmetric warfare thrives on cost imbalance. A low-cost drone can compel the deployment of a far more expensive missile defence system. A lightly armed insurgent can tie down a heavily equipped army for years. Attacks on an adversary’s allies, supply chains, and economic lifelines multiply pressure without direct confrontation. The objective is not to overpower, but to impose a relentless tax on the adversary’s resources—financial, military, and psychological.
Over time, the battlefield extends beyond terrain into perception. Democracies grow weary of long wars, constituencies lose patience, and alliances strain under prolonged uncertainty. The stronger side begins to question the purpose of a conflict it cannot decisively win. In such circumstances, time itself becomes a weapon, one that favours the side willing to endure longer.
Trump’s “favourite field marshal”, Asim Munir, once likened India to a shining Mercedes-Benz and Pakistan to a dump truck of gravel. He asked his audience, “If the truck hits the car, who is going to be the loser?” The crude analogy, stripped of its theatrics, captures a central truth of asymmetric warfare: sophistication does not guarantee advantage when the weaker side can impose disproportionate costs.
This raises more uncomfortable questions. Who is willing to hold out longer—the US or Iran? Who is better positioned to absorb sustained economic and psychological strain? Who can better tolerate ambiguity, stalemate, and the absence of decisive victory? In Ukraine, the question is no less stark: can Russia impose its will before the costs of war erode its own capacity?
These are not questions of strength, but of endurance. As Henry Kissinger observed, “the guerrilla wins if he does not lose. The conventional army loses if it does not win.”
