"In 2002, as the United States moved towards war against Iraq, a final, huge war game tested American forces’ ability to defeat an unnamed Middle Eastern power. The American side had a clear advantage in advanced electronics, tanks, planes and warships. The general in command of the much weaker ‘enemy’ forces, however, rang rings around his opponents. He kept radio silence and used motorcycles to deliver messages and so made it difficult for his opponent’s electronic surveillance to follow his moves. He had fleets of suicide bombers in speedboats knock out, on paper, sixteen American warships. The Pentagon suspended the game part-way through and rewrote the rules. The warships were miraculously resurrected and the ‘enemy’ general was ordered to turn off his air defences and reveal the location of key units. He chose to quit in disgust. His demonstration of asymmetric war, where a weaker power can disrupt and challenge much stronger forces through unconventional means, was a warning of what was going to happen to coalition forces in both Afghanistan and Iraq, where they were battered by hit and run attacks by guerrillas who communicated through secure channels and who used cheap improvised explosive devices, often shells or other containers packed with explosives and pieces of metal such as ordinary nails which can be set off with cheap, readily available technology such as the remote controls for children’s toy cars or garage-door openers."