I was the only one who voted for the “war on terror”, b/c it happens today, and it is especially interesting that asymmetrical warfare was not possible until recent times, at least, the warriors conducting asymmetrical warfare didn’t achieve any goals, except for annoying the kings and conquerors who had the most power.
In historical times, including WW2, if you had the strongest military forces and won battles on the ground, you won political power. In modern times, this is not so obvious. I guess the Vietnam war was first in history where a much stronger power didn’t accomplish their political goals, and so, the US lost that war even if the killed hundreds of thousand of enemy soldiers and only lost about 60.000.
The Vietnam war was not about terror, but it had some asymmetrical warfare elements, as the Vietnamese was illiterate peasants defeating the most powerful country on earth, although, with some help from China.
We can see some of this in Afghanistan, NATO is much more powerful than taliban and other warlord fractions, but they still seem to loose. This make war much more complicated and difficult.
The long lasting truth that if you won military you also automatically won politically, does not apply anymore.