Al Qaeda, of course, is an organization that has completely adopted the notion of fighting in small packets. In addition to the 19 who attacked America on 9/11, al Qaeda and its affiliates have struck repeatedly throughout much of the Muslim world using this approach. They have had some success in Libya and now are roiling troubled waters in both Iraq and Syria. Hezbollah, too, has relied on "the few" to take on larger forces, fighting the Israel Defense Forces to an arguable draw in Lebanon in 2006.
In pre-industrial times it was common to see a large proportion of a nation's field forces or fleets gathered in some small space or in narrow seas. During the Napoleonic era, for example, there were Borodino and Waterloo on land, and Aboukir Bay and Copenhagen in terms of naval battles. The American Civil War, a "bridge conflict" to the machine age, saw massive slugfests like Antietam, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg -- yet also featured the countless small groups of freebooters William Tecumseh Sherman unleashed to swarm from Atlanta to Savannah. But when mechanization truly came, and married up with longer-ranging weapons of all sorts, theaters of operations expanded in size, logistical "tails" grew, and the time of the few truly arrived. Remaining massed now meant being massacred.
Today, in the early decades of the information age, technological advances in communications, sensors, and weapons guidance systems are empowering small groups even more. The new possibilities were hinted at in the American-led campaign in Afghanistan late in 2001, when just 11 Special Forces A-teams -- about 200 soldiers on the ground -- riding with outnumbered allies but supported by air power, were able to topple the Taliban and put al Qaeda on the run. This was truly the vision that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had. It was neither of remote-control wars nor of massed armies -- he opposed the "big package" proposed for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 -- but of new technologies that made it possible for small yet strong military formations to find and fight a range of enemies. Moving faster, going farther, fighting smarter.
President Obama leans a bit in Rumsfeld's direction, though his general reluctance to let "the few" loose on the ground hobbles us and cedes the field to our enemies. Al Qaeda's few had and still have influence in Libya -- not only in the overthrow of Qaddafi and its aftermath, but in the humiliating blow struck against us in Benghazi. Perhaps in Boston as well. Small groups of al Qaeda fighters now pose the prospect of an even greater, bloodier outcome in Syria. Clearly, we already owe much to our own few -- many of them serving in the special operations forces -- for all their efforts and achievements over the past decade. But we must not hesitate to call on them yet again. The enemy few will not be defeated by massive "shock and awe," or by Colin Powell's concept of applying overwhelming force. Only our few can defeat theirs.
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