Notes on Asymmetric Warfare - 26 November 2025
On 28 April 2025, the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier lost an F/A-18E Super Hornet fighter jet valued at $70 million overboard from the hangar bay into the Red Sea. Initial reports from U.S. defense officials indicate that the carrier executed a hard emergency turn to evade incoming fire (combined missile and drone) from Yemen's Houthi rebels (Ansar Allah), which contributed to the loss of control during towing. The cost to taxpayers to build the Harry S. Truman in 2025 dollars is $8.8 billion. Daily operating cost to operate the Harry S. Truman is $6.5 million.
The cost of a Noor ASCM cruise missile, used by the Houthis against shipping in the Red Sea is estimated at $500K (Grok).
At the time of the loss of the Super Hornet aircraft I wondered, "Does our military know what it's doing? Keeping the sea lanes safe is an important function of the US Navy, but the adversary seems to be doing quite a good job of harassing Red Sea shipping and challenging US Navy deterrence for little cost relative to the spend of the US.
At a recent Hoover Institution donor retreat at Stanford University, one on one, I asked Admiral Jim Ellis, Hoover Distinguished Visiting Fellow, and Former Commander United States Strategic Command, about the Truman Red Sea incident. I asked Ellis: "Considering the USS Harry S. Truman event, are we spending heavily, but ineffectively, to keep the sea lanes open?" Ellis, who is forced to endure the presence of low information donors like Mwah (sic), acknowledged that fighting methods are rapidly changing due weapons technology development and that the US needs to stay on its toes meeting such challenges effectively.
The Ukraine war is an asymmetric warfare case study. Drones are used by both sides. In the early stages of the war, Ukraine developed an advantage using drones as the Russians were fighting a traditional ground war... tank battalions etc. In recent times, Russia has gained an advantage. Russian drone production is now at 4 million annually, compared to Ukraine's 3 million annual drone production. Russia has also developed drones guided by trailing microfiber (up to twelve miles) making them impervious to Ukraine radar. Russia has also introduced Rubicon technology which searches out and neutralizes, with great effectiveness, Ukrainian drone pilots.
Drones are an asymmetric war fighting tool developed and used at far less cost than deploying the high cost, but now old-fashioned tank battalions. Russia, on the cusp of defeating Ukraine in the three year long war, has developed technical and tactical mastery of using drones in a ground war.
Having a dim understanding that asymmetric warfare "was a thing," I was excited to listen to a recent podcast on the topic of asymmetric warfare and more broadly how the US will prepare for future wars. Cyber Rattling and Socialism, Anne Neuberger on Future Wars. All three of the Good Fellows were present, along with new Hoover Senior Fellow, Anne Neuberger: Niall Ferguson, H.R. McMaster and John Cochran.
Following are some takeaways from that discussion:
Technology is outpacing strategy, creating dangerous asymmetries in global conflicts.
One drone is hard to defend against, and the costs escalate exponentially for countermeasures.
U.S. adaptations. Reliance on commercial satellite providers like Maxar and Planet Labs for real-time intelligence. Starlink.
US lags in the "drone age"— Ukraine produces 3 million drones annually. Russia, 4 million. Europe also lags.
Neuberger advocates for "commercial-off-the-shelf" tech, open architectures for on-the-fly reprogramming, and invoking the Defense Production Act (as used for MRAP vehicles under Robert Gates) to secure supply chains. She flags rare earth mineral dependencies on China, recommending allied diversification (e.g., with Argentina).
What about the financial ripple effects of cyber disruptions? Say, bank runs. Neuberger: US banking system "highly secure." Biden Administration imposed sector-specific cybersecurity baselines (e.g., for pipelines and airports.
Neuberger: China dominates due to its authoritarian edge, while U.S. critical infrastructure—privately owned pipelines, power grids, and water systems—remains unmonitored by the government, hampering offensive responses after a first strike.
China has prepositioned malware in global civilian networks (U.S., Europe, Middle East, Asia) to sow chaos during crises, targeting air traffic control or water pumps for maximum civilian impact.
Neuberger prescribes NIST-inspired basics: data encryption, multifactor authentication, network segmentation, and AI-driven monitoring centers. Recovery strategies include "digital twins"—virtual system replicas for failure testing—and cautious red-teaming of live networks.
Ferguson warns: Eisenhower's 1961 "military-industrial complex" (MIC) is now updated for the tech era. Ferguson argues the MIC includes Congress's pork-barrel politics and overreliance on private innovators like AI firms and SpaceX.
McMaster: MIC procurement culture is biased toward expensive, delayed systems over agile ones, pushing for multi-year contracts and predictable demand.
Cochrane: Tech giants wield undue power.
Neuberger: Tech can self-correct, prioritizing defensive resilience over "sexier" offense. Offense knowledge helps us build better defenses.
The Good Fellows podcast was a good discussion and helped me better understand the landscape of asymmetric warfare. Learning of the advantages China has in the asymmetric warfare race was disturbing. Three years into the Ukraine War, Russia is far ahead in on the ground experience of using drones. The US has a lot of work to do.
I recently read Jack Carr's penultimate novel, "Red Sky Mourning." This novel is not just a thriller. It contains great insights on the global political scene and posits a much-changed future world in international relations as AI, synthetic biology, and autonomous war fare emerge in the future. Recommend! Following is a link to my review of "Red Sky Mourning."