Adam Elkus: From Roman Legions to Navy SEALs: Military Raiding and its Discontents

Adam Elkus is an analyst focusing on security and international politics. He blogs at Rethinking Security.

The Osama bin Laden raid has been hailed as the centerpiece of a new style of "collaborative" warfare that leverages intelligence fusion and networked interagency teams to focus precision force on America's enemies. Collaborative warfare, while impressive, is only the latest and greatest in a genre of military operation that dates back thousands of years: the punitive raid. From the days of the Roman Empire through Sunday's raid in Abottabad, Pakistan, governments have relied on punitive raids and manhunts to eliminate challengers to state power without resorting to costly, large-scale occupations.

But a look at the history and evolution of punitive raiding reveals that it is not a substitute for sound strategy -- and can be far more costly than policymakers might suspect and may have political costs that outweigh the strategic benefits. Punitive raids -- whether they consist of a large column of raiders advancing by horseback or an airmobile squad of commandos about to drop into an enemy cross-border haven -- have always been deceptively appealing as low-cost alternatives.

In the classical world, punitive raiding served a simple purpose: shock and awe. Raiding forces -- advancing by foot, horse, or boat -- laid waste to enemy villages and cities and captured or killed those responsible for defying state power. By demonstrating the steep consequences of opposing the state, the raider established a crude form of deterrence and exercised influence far beyond its otherwise limited means. It didn't hurt that raiding forces -- like the Roman legion -- were often qualitatively superior to their victims.

Even so, states utilizing raiding have found it difficult to achieve lasting security. Unless incorporated into a sound long-term political-military strategy, raiding has only ever been a temporary solution to long-term problems. Many expeditions, while tactically devastating, did not compel obedience or deterrence. The British colonial experience in the 19th century is instructive, with many inconclusive operations in Africa and South Asia that did little to enhance the Empire's long-term security on the periphery. Some missions, like the First Anglo-Afghan War in the 19th century, were outright blunders of epic proportions....