Asymmetric Warfare is a doctrine. It is an effective doctrine. It is effective because the cost of offensive action is low and the cost defensive or responsive action is high.
Skirmishing using Asymmetric Warfare is small – it can be indistinguishable from a Lone Wolf or an angry mob. What these small-scale actions have that differentiates them from acts rage is connection to a goal which is impossible to achieve by action, and is only achieved through the reaction their action causes.
Fear, Wrath, Fatigue, Despair. Actions are always geared towards instilling emotions into an audience to alter the state of mind of the decision-makers in charge of the response. The response is irrelevant, only the psychological mood of the responders matters. Do this once, it fades into history. Do this over and over and over and over again and your opponent takes on the psychology of a victim of bullying, of domestic abuse, of genocide. Proactively, without you paying the costs of physical violence at the scale that would otherwise be required to win.
Osama Bin Laden won the Global War On Terror because his goal was to ruin the West off the battlefield by costing them their civil liberties, their reputations, and their money. Not because TSA and Homeland Security and the Patriot Act and Iraq and Afghanistan weren’t expensive to do, but because they were done willingly, out of fear and wrath.
Curtis Yarvin is winning Civil War 2 because his goal is to ruin America off the battlefield by costing Americans their faith in themselves, their belief in the ideals of democracy, and their privilege. Not because of minority rule or the cult of personality or oligarchs or because DOGE isn’t legal, but because the endless torrent of bullshit and lawlessness is unchecked, normalized, and sanctified by the institutions that are supposed to check, ostracize, and vilify these very actions. They are exhausted and overwhelmed by the boldness, rapidity, and brutality of what is happening and the cost of response keeps going up.
There is a reason that we give medals to people who keep fighting when everything seems hopeless and it isn’t because of their actions. We give them medals because of their ability to remain hopeful in the onslaught. Their heroic actions are the side-effect, not the cause.
You are the raindrop and the spark. We are the flood and the wildfire.