This helps explain why countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar have talked to the United States about giving the Syrian Liberation Army (SLA) and other "moderate" Syrian forces such weapons. A dictator-controlled military force like Bashar al-Assad's will still have the advantage in more advanced weapons, but it would face massive problems in using such force against a better-armed mass popular uprising.
A popular insurgency could then inflict far more serious casualties with far less risk of collateral damage and losses on its own side, as well as have far more motivation to persist. It will be able to create its own safe zones, take advantage of "no fly" or "no move" zones enforced with limited uses of U.S. or allied force, and be able to quickly become far more effective with limited training by U.S. or other Special Forces.
In some cases, even the threat of such transfers-coming from a U.S.-supplied allied or friendly state-could force an authoritarian regime to compromise or leave, knowing it could not win the resulting war of attrition. The transfer of "equalizers" could be as much a negotiating tool and deterrent as a method of combat. It also could bring a quicker end to long popular struggles and do so before they were polarized on ethnic or sectarian lines and gave growing power to the most extreme elements.
At the same time, the risks of transferred weapons falling into the wrong hands are clear. Iraq, Afghanistan, and the evolving patterns of modern terrorism have shown all too clearly the risks that such weapons could pose in the hands of extremist groups-as has the U.S. inability to control the leakage of Stingers to Iran and outside Afghanistan. The leakage of such weapons to extremist groups in Libya and outside it is a major ongoing threat.
Another clear risk is that extremist networks centered around al Qaeda or the Iranian Al Quds Force could rapidly transfer such weapons far outside the region in which they were originally supposed to be used: allied territory or that of the United States. The risks that such weapons could be turned on the United States and its allies are critical, and we and our allies are far less willing to bear the political costs or casualties of "incidents" than extremists and dictators if things go wrong.
There do, however, seem to be technological solutions that could largely reduce the risk of transferring such equalizers. As pocket cameras with a global positioning system (GPS) show, a small chip can be inserted into these weapons that could continuously read their location once activated. If such a chip was tied to a device that disabled the weapon if it moved to the wrong area, it would greatly reduce the risk of its falling into the wrong hands.
Advanced encryption chips can be equally small and cheap and could perform a number of additional functions. They could have a time clock to disable the weapon at a given time, with the option of extending the life if a suitable code was entered. Activation codes could be built in so the weapon was never active without a code restricted to moderate elements and timed so that such elements had to keep entering a different code over time.
The equivalent of an identification friend or foe (IFF) capability could be built into that disabled the weapon in the presence of U.S. and allied forces or civil aircraft. A similar enabling code could be tied to the presence of a U.S. or allied adviser or covert partner.
Given today's solid-state technology, all of these functions could be built into an MANPAD or ATGM. A rocket or mortar might be somewhat more difficult to modify, but building in such capabilities seems possible. The same seems true of remote triggering devices that can be used in bombs or the equivalent of IEDs or in providing antiarmor capabilities like explosively formed penetrators.
This scarcely means that the United States should transfer such weapons casually or give them as equalizers except under conditions of dire need that clearly serve U.S. interests. Sam Colt may have made men "equal," but no one has ever argued he made them "wise." A tool is never a solution; it is only a means to an end.
At the same time, the very fact the United States obviously has such weapons could tilt the balance toward political settlement in some cases, and actually deploying them would make a critical difference in others. Counterterrorism and counterinsurgency do not have to be "classic" and involve the large-scale U.S. deployments as is the past. Such equalizers could reverse the present pattern of asymmetric warfare where cheap, relatively low-cost systems increasingly offset the U.S. advantage in advanced weapons and technology.
Such equalizers could greatly reduce the need to directly project U.S. power in some contingencies and give our Special Forces and covert operators a whole new range of tools. They could alter the structure of proxy warfare and our ability to work with allies who directly transfer such weapons, without giving up final U.S. protections and controls. They could give friendly and moderate local forces a major advantage over extremists.
One thing is clear. The United States should not remain trapped in the dilemmas it faces in Syria or remain forced into the kind of hollow posturing both U.S. presidential candidates now bring to dealing with this issue. We need practical answers for both the military and political dimensions of what promises to be a decade of "expeditionary diplomacy," and these are tools that would be cheap and often help do the job.
