William Spaniel Gets Into the Asymmetric Game With No Lines on Maps
- john raymond
- Jul 2
- 3 min read
William Spaniel, long celebrated for his clear and rigorous modeling of traditional military conflict, has—perhaps unwittingly—entered the domain of asymmetric warfare. In his recent video dissecting the rise of "Trojan horse" drone operations by Ukraine and Israel, Spaniel walks his audience through a world where deterrence collapses, attribution fails, and geopolitical action no longer respects the boundaries of sovereign maps.
For a theorist who has built his career on the mathematics of how states fight over territory, this signals a profound shift: he is now analyzing a battlefield with no front lines, no occupation zones, and no formal declarations of war. It is, in short, the new warfare—networked, deniable, asymmetric.
But even as Spaniel navigates this evolution in the tools and tactics of war, he stops short of confronting its most chilling implication: the rise of decapitation strikes against political leadership in the West.
This is not a failure of intellect—it is a failure of nerve. To say this aloud is dangerous. And yet, the courageous analyst must say it: in a world of smuggled drones and low-cost assassinations, it is no longer military bases or airfields that represent the true strategic prize. It is political figures. It is decision-makers. It is regime heads. And in this regard, Spaniel's analysis falters not in accuracy, but in ambition. He aims for tactical vulnerability but shies away from strategic terror—the knowledge that asymmetric war does not seek parity, but paralysis.
Consider Trump. Iran’s hatred for him is deep, rooted in broken treaties, killings, and bombings. But Trump is not only feared and despised in Tehran. He is loathed in Kyiv.
Ukraine remembers his withholding of aid. It remembers the damage of his attempts to blackmail Zelensky. It remembers the emboldening of Putin, a dictator who launched an exterminatory war that continues to devastate Ukraine. So when we speak of potential attackers, we are not limited to Iranian proxies. Ukraine, too, is now capable of deep infiltration and high-value targeting.
Spaniel is right to focus on smuggled drones and political vulnerability. But he misses the axis along which this war is evolving. We are no longer watching strikes designed to cripple warplanes or blow holes in oil depots. We are watching the beginning of an era of surgical, leader-focused violence. And here, Spaniel remains conventionally cautious: he names airfields, airports, drone factories, strategic infrastructure.
But the real target isn’t on a map.
It’s quite possibly a person. A face. A man behind a desk in Russian or Tel Aviv or in the West.
Spaniel hints at this transformation but declines to dwell on its most explosive corollary: that deterrence fails when the target is symbolic, not strategic. That is what decapitation strikes are—a war not against logistics, but against morale, coherence, continuity.
Trump's administration seems to know this. There is mounting evidence of physical fortifications being raised in D.C.—a curious gesture in a peacetime capital. But it makes sense if the true threat is not criminal indictment or electoral defeat, but being struck down by one of many enemies made around the world.
The courage to say this openly is rare. But we must be clear-eyed. Spaniel has taken the first step. He has entered the game without lines on maps. Now, he must dare to follow the logic of his own analysis to its end: in a truly asymmetric world, the next target isn’t where we expect it—it’s who.
And that truth is what makes asymmetric war the most terrifying of all.
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