guerrilla warfare

(ordnance) Operations carried on by independent or semi-independent forces in the rear of the enemy; these operations usually are conducted by irregular forces acting either separately from, or in conjunction with, regular forces but may at times be conducted entirely with regular troops.

Competitive marketing strategy typically followed by smaller companies challenging larger ones for a greater share of the consumer market. The market challenger will make small periodic attacks against the larger competitor, hoping to establish a permanent foothold in the market. Guerrilla warfare tactics include selective price cuts, executive raids on key personnel, intense bursts of promotional activities, or various legal actions. See also offensive warfare.

Guerrilla warfare is, at its simplest, a direct reversal of the logic of regular warfare. Where regular armies aim to concentrate force to achieve a decision with maximum speed, guerrilla forces disperse and conduct small-scale operations over an indefinite period of time. The strength of this form of warfare is its resilience; its weakness is the inability of small forces to confront regular armies directly. If a guerrilla strategy is to secure victory, this can only happen if it can debilitate the regular force, or if the guerrilla force can transform itself into a force capable of defeating the regular force in open battle. The former outcome is unlikely to occur in a physical sense. The arresting metaphor of fleas biting a dog to death (alluded to in the title of one of the most popular studies of guerrilla war, The War of the Flea) cannot be literally applied to human organizations like states and armies. But psychological debilitation is quite possible.

Guerrilla strategy and tactics are in one sense the most ancient form of warfare, but in the 20th century they have become one of the most sophisticated forms. Indeed for a whole generation in the third quarter of the century, there was a widespread assumption that they would neutralize all ‘conventional’ armies. The growth of this belief can be quite clearly traced. Even during the period of professional warfare, skirmishers were maintained to conduct what was called ‘la petite guerre’ (the little war) on the flanks of the tightly controlled regular armies. But these forces were auxiliary and marginal. A big shift in perception came during the Napoleonic wars, when irregular resistance both in Russia and in Spain played a substantial part in weakening the French invaders. It was the Spanish ‘la guerra de guerrillas’ (the war of little wars) as waged against the French in the Peninsular war that gave the form its distinctive name and showed that it could work independently of regular war.

Observing the Napoleonic period, Clausewitz perceived the significance of what he called ‘arming the people’ (Volksbewaffnung). Armed civilians, operating over an extended area and time, ‘like a slow gradual fire’, could ‘destroy the bases of the enemy force’. Militarily, he saw such popular forces as still being auxiliary, but politically they were absolutely vital: they were the physical manifestation of the national spirit. Without patriotism, they would never take the huge risks involved. Clausewitz was profoundly aware of these risks: French reprisals against Spanish communities had been ferocious. But he suggested that careful selection of targets could nurture the spirit of resistance: occupying armies would have to detach small forces as guards and foragers, and as ‘at some point the enemy is overpowered by sheer numbers, courage and enthusiasm grow’. This was the crucial dynamic for guerrilla warfare.

Ideology would prove to be the fuel for the eventual transformation of guerrilla warfare. After the fall of Napoleon there was to some extent a turning-away from the abyss of ‘absolute war’ that the French Revolution had opened up, but there were several indications that the return to ‘limited war’ was more apparent than real. The American civil war generated less guerrilla activity than might perhaps have been expected, in the light of earlier American experience, and the leaders of both sides were as hostile to guerrilla war as most European regular soldiers. The reason for this hostility, and indeed fear, became clear in the Franco-Prussian war, where an apparently decisive German victory in the first weeks of the war was followed by months of guerrilla resistance, known as the ‘people's war’. This was a slight exaggeration of the level of popular involvement, but the struggle was hard enough to impress on the Prussian COS Helmuth von Moltke ‘the Elder’ that the shape of future wars would change radically.

Guerrilla methods were of course ubiquitous in the imperial wars of the late 19th century, but they were seen as symptoms of inferiority, the only possible response of undeveloped societies to the overwhelming power of European armies, difficult and exhausting to deal with, but a nuisance rather than a real threat. Conventional wisdom took the same view of the more formidable guerrilla war waged by the Boers after the defeat of their main forces during the Second Boer War, despite the respect accorded to some of the commando leaders like de Wet and Smuts. The veld was hardly normal European territory; nor was the desert in which the Arab revolt arose in 1916, but the latter produced something that no previous guerrilla war had: a charismatic theorist.

Lawrence ‘of Arabia’ wrote a famous, highly coloured account of his role in the Arab revolt, as well as a compact and systematic analysis that set out what could be seen as a blueprint for national liberation movements everywhere (The Evolution of a Revolt, 1920). It held out the promise that imperial occupying powers were eminently defeatable; the apparent strength of their armies could be negated by careful use of guerrilla methods. His theory contained four key elements, which he called mobility, security, time, and doctrine. A combination of their own mobility and the security provided by superior intelligence information, an advantage which should naturally accrue from popular support, would render the guerrillas invulnerable. Time was on their side, so they could afford to limit their operations to those they were sure to succeed in. Success would bolster the popular support that doctrine, which for Lawrence was the cause of national liberation, ultimately guaranteed.

Although he recognized that irregular forces could not confront regulars in open battle, he argued that by harrassing, confusing, exhausting, demoralizing, and discrediting them, a guerrilla strategy could not only weaken or neutralize but actually overthrow a superior military power. This was a dramatic enlargement of earlier ideas. It was to some extent borne out by the success of the Irish patriots in the Anglo-Irish war of 1919-21. They were numerically weak and chronically short of arms, but the use of guerrilla methods enabled them to paralyse key elements of the British administrative and legal system, and—crucially—to undermine the legitimacy of the state. By rendering local police posts untenable at an early stage of the fight, they effectively ‘liberated’ large areas of the country. The alternative government established by Sinn Fein after its election victory in 1918 achieved remarkable credibility. The use of modern publicity methods played an important part in maximizing the impact of small local operations, bearing out Lawrence's dictum that ‘the printing press is the greatest weapon in the armoury of the modern commander’. Even in areas of heaviest British military presence like Dublin, the IRA survived, thanks in part to the intelligence system built up by Michael Collins. The British forces were never in any military sense defeated, but a substantial garrison (some 40, 000 troops and 10, 000 armed police) conspicuously failed to defeat the 3, 000-odd active guerrilla fighters. The political damage caused by this failure was decisive. Though Britain conceded less than it appeared to, the impression that a major imperial power had lost a guerrilla war resonated throughout the world.

By the 1920s guerrilla warfare was poised to sweep into public and military consciousness. The final impulse was supplied by the revolutionary ideology that took power in Russia after 1917. For the next half-century socialism would combine with nationalism to generate a heady revolutionary cocktail. Though the Bolshevik leaders downplayed the significance of guerrilla action in winning the Russian civil war, the opposite was the case in China. After the failure of the communists to replicate a Russian-style urban insurrection in the late 1920s, they turned to the countryside. The Long March, which reduced the Red Army to barely a tenth of its orginal strength, also cemented the dominance of Mao Tse-tung, who became the most influential of all guerrilla theorists. Mao had reservations about guerrilla action as such, with its potential for excessive decentralization or even anarchy, and preferred to speak of ‘protracted war’ to stress its essential logic. In protracted war the weaker side would adopt guerrilla tactics to harass and weaken the enemy, with the aim of building up forces that would eventually be capable of conventional fighting. Mao's famous triadic formula, with guerrilla operations during the phase of inferiority, mobile forces in the phase of contention during which the balance of strength would shift, preparing the way for a full-scale offensive, pointed up the difficulty of the central phase. The support of the people was vital. The revolutionaries needed to demonstrate not only that they could take on the enemy but that they could create a better social order—hence the stress that Mao, unusually among guerrilla theorists, laid on fixed base areas. Hence, too, his famous instructions governing the behaviour of the communist fighters, the ‘Three Disciplinary Rules’ and the ‘Eight Points of Attention’. For Mao, party discipline was the only way of controlling a guerrilla campaign.

The eventual victory of the communists over the Chinese nationalist government in 1949 probably owed as much to the Japanese attack on China in 1937 as to Mao's theories. The effective and well-publicized resistance of the communist guerrillas damaged Japanese prestige and rallied patriotic support. The same patriotic credentials were a key asset for the Vietnamese communists who led the wave of post-war revolutionary movements inspired by the Chinese example. The guerrilla forces of the Vietminh led by Gen Vo Nguyen Giap succeeded not only in fighting off a French effort to recover control of Indochina between 1945 and 1953, but also a formidable US military intervention in support of the partitioned southern state in the 1960s. In the process they demonstrated that technological development favoured the guerrilla rather than the counter-insurgent forces. The whole tendency of modern weapons was to make firepower more portable. The grenade launcher, for instance, transformed the striking power of small fighting groups; plastic explosives like Semtex were a similar boon. As against these, the stupendous increase in the destructiveness of air power has been of limited utility in guerrilla war. The USA was able to inflict appalling collateral damage on Vietnam, but not to inflict a decisive check on the Vietcong.

The post-war decade saw a dramatic burgeoning in guerrilla insurgency. Guerrilla successes seemed to outweigh failures like those of the MPLA (Malayan People's Liberation Army) in the Malayan emergency, the Hukbalahap in the Philippines, or the Mau Mau in Kenya. The campaign of the Zionist military groups against the British government in Palestine in the 1940s, and the miniature (at least by Chinese standards) EOKA (National Organization of Cypriot Fighters) campaign in Cyprus in the 1950s demonstrated that declining imperial regimes could be persuaded to quit by relatively small threats. This was the bottom line in the extensive, vicious, and long-drawn-out Algerian independence war that began in 1954. The military threat posed by the insurgent FLN (National Liberation Front) was gradually choked off by French counter-insurgency measures (see guerre revolutionnaire) ; by 1961 the number of active guerrillas had been reduced from 40, 000 in 1956 to around 5, 000. But in the process French public opinion turned against the effort to keep the colony, despite the presence of a million French colons.

The most reverberant of all guerrilla triumphs came in 1959 in Cuba, when the government collapsed in face of a tiny insurgent force under Castro. His apparently foolhardy invasion began in December 1956, and his original force of 80 was all but annihilated in its first battle. The survivors escaped to the southern mountains, the Sierra Maestra, and began a guerrilla campaign that survived the poorly organized efforts of the Cuban army to locate and destroy them. Until the very last phase of the war, rebel strength was no more than 300. The rapid collapse of the Batista regime astonished the world and seemed hard to explain. One explanation, not the most convincing but certainly the most romantic, was that offered by the revolutionaries themselves, and especially Guevara, who argued that they had created a new paradigm for guerrilla strategy, a ‘revolution in the revolution’. His international best-seller Guerrilla Warfare contained little that was new in military terms, but offered the prospect of success to small bands of dedicated revolutionaries. With the right moral qualities and physical toughness a dozen fighters could form a foco insurreccional whose actions would win public support. Unlike classical Marxists, who insisted that revolutions arose from objective circumstances, these soft Marxists said that revolutionary circumstances could be created by will.

The foco theory inspired a new wave of guerrilla insurgency in the 1960s, for example in Guatemala, Venezuela, Colombia, and Peru. None of these succeeded in generating the predicted mass support. The most striking failure was that of Guevara himself in Bolivia, hunted down and killed by US-trained Rangers in October 1967 amidst an indifferent peasant population. This was by no means the end of the line for guerrilla insurgency but by the early 1970s there was a noticeable shift towards what became known as ‘urban guerrilla warfare’, very different in its logic and method from the rural version. Pioneers of this new direction, like Marighela in Brazil and the Tupamaros in Uruguay, reversed the Guevarist geography and relied on coups de théâtre in major cities to convey their message. They operated in small anonymous groups, which could not grow and build up support in the way that earlier theories had required. The balance between military and propaganda elements in their campaigns was reversed; they became in effect terrorists.

The relationship between guerrilla warfare and terrorism was always complicated. Governments routinely branded all insurgents as terrorists, and most insurgents denied this label. In the abstract it is important to grasp the difference between the two, but in practice the dividing line can be blurred. All rebel organizations, like all states, use intimidation to maintain their security. They try to win public support but they also need to prevent public opposition. Their survival often depends on denying information to the state security forces. Terroristic violence was a salient part of most insurgencies—for instance the IRA in 1920-1 or the Vietminh in 1945-53—but guerrillas do not become terrorists unless they adopt an exclusively terrorist strategy. In some modern conflicts the balance has been very fine. Thus the PLO, essentially a territorial nationalist guerrilla movement, turned to transnational terrorism in the 1970s to compensate for the loss of its territorial base. The reborn IRA in 1971 also had some territorial bases, but had no hope of conducting a classical guerrilla campaign, since the majority of the Northern Ireland population was deeply hostile to the nationalist programme.

Most of the ‘urban guerrilla’ movements which looked to be engulfing the world in the 1970s have subsequently died out. By the 1990s even long-lived groups, like the Shining Path in Peru and the Basque national liberation army ETA, seemed to be stalemated. But the strength of rural guerrilla warfare was again demonstrated in Afghanistan, following the Soviet intervention in December 1979. By 1987 the Islamic forces opposing the communist government were in control of three-quarters of the country, and numbered some 100, 000 guerrilla fighters. The inability of the USSR to contain or crush them was at first sight even more astonishing than the failure of the USA in Vietnam. It came to appear less remarkable in retrospect, as the political and economic weakness of the USSR—brought to a crisis by the Afghan campaign itself—became clear. Nonetheless, a global superpower with a shared land border and an undoubted strategic interest in supporting the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), had failed. Defective counter-insurgency methods played a significant part in this, as did the weakness of the PDPA regime and the availability of foreign sanctuary and support for the rebels. But a key factor was the dedication of the insurgents, who saw themselves as mujahedin, holy warriors, going some way to bear out Lawrence's idealistic model.

Bibliography

• Fairbairn, Geoffrey, Revolutionary Guerrilla Warfare: The Countryside Version (Harmondsworth, 1974).
• Laqueur, Walter, Guerrilla: A Historical and Critical Study (London, 1977).
• Paret, Peter, and Shy, John W., Guerrillas in the 1960s: A Background Study of Modern Guerrilla Tactics (New York, 1962).
• Taber, Robert, The War of the Flea (London, 1970).
• Townshend, Charles, ‘People's War’, in Townshend (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of Modern War (Oxford, 1997)

— Charles Townshend

Guerrilla warfare (the word guerrilla comes from the Spanish meaning “little war”) is often the means used by weaker nations or military organizations against a larger, stronger foe. Fought largely by independent, irregular bands, sometimes linked to regular forces, it is a warfare of harassment through surprise. It features the use of ambushes, hit‐and‐run raids, sabotage, and, on occasion, terrorism to wear down the enemy. Typically, a small guerrilla force seeks to concentrate its strength against the weaker portions of the enemy's forces, such as outposts or lines of communication and logistics, to strike suddenly, and then to disappear into the surrounding countryside. In the American experience, this type of warfare has been used since the French and Indian War (1754–63), when colonists adopted American Indian tactics to strike back against French forces and their Indian allies. Maj. Robert Rogers of Connecticut, considered a founder of the guerrilla tradition in America, organized Rogers's Royal American Rangers in 1756 and trained them to carry the war deep into enemy territory. His doctrine, published as Rogers’ Rules for Ranging (1757), is considered a classic and is still issued to all soldiers attending the school for U.S. Army Rangers (Fort Benning, Georgia).

During the Revolutionary War, the guerrilla legacy was reflected in Col. Ethan Allen's capture of Ticonderoga (1775); Col. Francis Marion's operations against Col. Bonastre Tarleton's cavalry (1780); and Brig. Gen. Daniel Morgan's victory at the Battle of Cowpens (1781). Gen. Nathanael Greene even developed principles of guerrilla warfare in his successful campaign against the British in the South (1780–81). During the Civil War, the outnumbered Confederate forces featured several guerrilla leaders, including Col. John Singleton Mosby and Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. A particularly fierce guerrilla war was waged in the border states of Kansas and Missouri, where Southern sympathizers organized into partisan bands that attacked Federal supply trains and harassed Union sympathizers. The more prominent partisan leaders were William Quantrill and William “Bloody Bill” Anderson. The former is best known for his daylight raid and destruction of the city of Lawrence, Kansas (1863), and the fact that his followers included Frank and Jesse James and the Younger brothers, destined to become prominent outlaws in the postwar years.

After the Civil War, the much‐reduced regular army was fully engaged in supporting the westward expansion of the United States, a mission that entailed years of fighting against American Indian tribes that opposed encroachment. Considered one of the premier practitioners of guerrilla warfare, the American Indian proved a formidable and elusive foe. Before being ultimately defeated, the Indians occasionally inflicted stunning reverses on units of the regular army—in the Fetterman fight (1866) for example, and the defeat of Custer's 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn (1876). Those army officers who were most successful at countering the Indians did so primarily through their adoption of unconventional tactics. Among these innovators were Gen. George Crook, who pioneered the use of pack mules to enhance the mobility of his columns and employed Apache Indian scouts against hostile Apache clans led by Geronimo; and Gen. Nelson Miles, who struck at hostile tribes during the winter months when the warriors’ mobility was restricted by deep snows and lack of forage for their ponies. Significantly, although the Plains Indians Wars lasted well over thirty years, the army regarded this sort of warfare as a temporary condition and never developed a coherent doctrine for countering a guerrilla foe. Even protracted operations against Philippine insurrectos in the Philippine War (1899–1902) and Mexican general Francisco “Pancho” Villa's irregular forces (1915–16) failed to engage the interest of army theorists.

It was the U.S. Marine Corps, engaged in a number of expeditionary missions in Asia and Latin America during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, that began to codify the techniques, tactics, and procedures necessary for conducting counterguerrilla operations. The Marine's efforts culminated in the publication of the Small Wars Manual (1940), a work that is still issued to Marine officers.

In World War II, some U.S. servicemen in the Philippines retreated into the hills after the Japanese conquest, set up guerrilla organizations, and continued to harass the enemy throughout the occupation. At the same time, the army and Marine Corps began to form and train units for irregular or guerrilla war operations, most notably Brig. Gen. Frank Merrill's “Marauders” and Col. William “Wild Bill” Donovan's Office of Strategic Services. The latter fielded a number of three‐man “Jedburgh Teams” (contrary to more romantic theories, “Jedburgh” was selected from a series of randomly generated code names), who were inserted behind Axis lines in Asia and Europe to perform covert operations, organize and advise resistance groups, conduct acts of sabotage, and collect military and political intelligence.

After World War II, the American military gave little thought to guerrilla war theory, despite the examples of the French in Indochina and Algeria, the British in Malaya, and the defeat of the Huks in the Philippines. Even the brief involvement of U.S. military advisers from the fledgling Special Operations Forces (formed by direction of President Eisenhower in June 1952) in the Greek civil war made little impression on American military thought. It was not until the United States had become engaged in Southeast Asia that military planners began grappling seriously with the problem of guerrilla warfare and counterinsurgency. The immediate result was President John F. Kennedy's decision to expand the U.S. Special Forces (1961). Called “Green Berets” because of their distinctive headgear, these are carefully selected and highly trained troops organized into ten‐man operational “A‐Teams” (logistics and other support activities being handled by larger “B‐Teams”). Each soldier was required to be an accomplished parachutist and capable of speaking at least one foreign language. Additionally, each team member was cross‐trained in two military occupational specialties (e.g., a radio operator might also be certified as a demolitions expert). Special Forces operational teams were organized and trained to act as advisers and planners for indigenous guerrilla units and achieved some measure of success, especially among the Hmong and Montagnard tribesmen of the Vietnamese highlands. These minor successes were not enough to turn the tide of battle, and with the end of the Vietnam War (1975), the Special Forces were relegated to a secondary status in the armed forces.

In the 1980s, in response to increased guerrilla activity in Central and South America, the U.S. military experienced a resurgence of interest in the problem of guerrilla warfare, now under the rubric of Low‐Intensity Conflict (LIC)—in turn superseded by Operations Other Than War (OOTW), and then by Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW), encompassing peacekeeping, peace enforcement and humanitarian assistance, or stability and support operations—which resulted in the formation of a separate Special Operations Command (SOCOM), and the establishment of a separate source of funding to support special operations missions, training, and equipment.

[See also Caribbean and Latin America. U.S. Military Involvement in the; Counterinsurgency; Covert Operations; Terrorism and Counterterrorism.]

Bibliography

• NAVMC 2890, Small Wars Manual, 1940.
• Robert Utley, Frontier Regulars, 1973.
• Robert Asprey, War in the Shadows, 1975.
• U.S. Army Field Manual 90‐8, Counterguerilla Operations, 1986.
• U.S. Army Field Manual 100‐20, Low‐Intensity Conflict, 1990.
• Joint Publication 3‐0, Joint Operations, 1994.
• Joint Publication 3‐7, Military Operations Other Than War, 1995.
• U.S. Army Field Manual 100‐5 (Draft), Stability and Support Operations, 1997

gǝˈrilǝ ˈwôrܖfer military and paramilitary operations conducted in enemy-held or hostile territory by irregular, predominantly indigenous forces.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

Armed struggles waged by irregular units, usually in the countryside and enjoying popular support, which demand socio-political transformation and challenge the power of the state. The strategy has been identified with Third World revolutions, particularly the Chinese, Vietnamese, and Cuban.

— Geraldine Lievesley

"Guerrillas" is a term originally applied to quasi-military and irregular groups of Spanish partisans who fought against Napoleon in the Peninsular War (1808–1814), but the type of warfare implied by the term is found everywhere in history, from the most ancient times to the present. The spectrum of guerrilla activity runs from conventional military operations by organized groups to uncoordinated, spontaneous, individual acts of sabotage, subversion, or terrorism carried out against an enemy. Guerrillas normally operate outside of constituted authority.

American guerrilla warfare during colonial times, the Revolution, and the War of 1812 was based to a large degree on knowledge of the Indian tactics of hit-and-run raids, ambush, and cover and concealment. During the Revolutionary War, for example, Francis Marion, the "Swamp Fox" of the southern campaign, used these techniques against the more traditionally organized British forces. In the war with Mexico (1846–1848), enemy guerrillas caused the U.S. army much trouble. The 1850s saw the rise of partisan bands on both sides of the border-state issue, who carried on guerrilla activity that was more often banditry than support for a cause. This activity continued through the Civil War, enlarged by deserters on both sides who raided for profit. Many of these groups—the James and Younger gangs were the most notorious—continued their brigandage well after the war ended.

Until 1917, American troops engaged in guerrilla and partisan activities while fighting Indians in the West and while aiding those fighting for independence in Cuba. They also fought Boxers in China, insurrectionists in the Philippines, and bandits on the Mexican border. Not until World War II were Americans again involved in guerrilla warfare. In the Philippines especially, many American soldiers and civilians, finding themselves cut off, fought with Filipino guerrillas against the Japanese. In all theaters, troops furnished assistance to partisans fighting their homeland's invaders. Most often, the Office of Strategic Services carried out this aid.

In the Korean War, Americans participated in a number of activities either directed at the enemy's guerrilla campaign in the south or in support of South Korean guerrilla operations in the north. In the Vietnam War, commanders directed a major part of the pacification effort at eliminating communist guerrilla activities in the countryside. Small numbers of insurgents effectively tied down major elements of both U.S. and South Vietnamese military forces in every province and district in the country. The ability of the insurgents to blend into the populace and the terror tactics used to ensure their security made their dislodgment and elimination extremely difficult.

Bibliography

Appleman, Roy E. South to the Naktong, North to the Yalu; June–November 1950. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1961.

Morton, Louis. Decision to Withdraw to Bataan. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1990. Originally published in Greenfield, Kent R., ed., Command Decisions, Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 1960.

Zook, David H., and Robin Higham. A Short History of Warfare. New York: Twayne, 1966.

(DOD, NATO) Military and paramilitary operations conducted in enemy-held or hostile territory by irregular, predominantly indigenous forces. Also called GW. See also unconventional warfare.

Wars fought with hit-and-run tactics by small groups against an invader or against an established government. (See counterinsurgency.)

"Guerrilla" redirects here. For other uses, see Guerrilla (disambiguation).

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Guerrilla warfare is the irregular warfare and combat in which a small group of combatants use mobile military tactics in the form of ambushes and raids to combat a larger and less mobile formal army.

The guerrilla army uses ambush and mobility in attacking vulnerable targets in enemy territory. Guerrilla warfare is countered with counter-insurgency warfare.

This term means "little war" in Spanish and was created during the Peninsular War. The concept acknowledges a conflict between armed civilians against a powerful nation state army, either foreign or domestic.

The tactics of guerrilla warfare were used successfully in the 20th century by, among others, the People's Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War, the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence, and Fidel Castro's rebel army in the Cuban Revolution. Most factions of the Iraqi Insurgency and groups such as FARC are said to be engaged in some form of guerrilla warfare.

Contents 1 Etymology 2 Strategy, tactics and organization 3 History 3.1 World War II 4 Current and recent guerrilla conflicts 5 Counter-guerrilla warfare 5.1 Principles 5.1.1 Classic guidelines 5.1.2 Variants 6 Influence on the arts 7 See also 8 Footnotes 9 External links

Etymology

The Spanish guerrillero Juan Martín Díez, known by his nom de guerre, El Empecinado.

Statue of Juana Galán in Valdepeñas, Spanish woman guerrillere

Guerrilla (Spanish pronunciation: [ɡeˈriʎa]) is the diminutive of the Spanish word guerra "war". It derives from the Old High German word Werra or from the middle Dutch word warre; adopted by the Visigoths in A.D. 5th century Hispania.

The use of the diminutive evokes the differences in number, scale, and scope between the guerrilla army and the formal, professional army of the state.

An early example of this came when General John Burgoyne, who, during the Saratoga campaign of the American War of Independence, noted that in proceeding through dense woodland:

‘The enemy is infinitely inferior to the King’s Troop in open space, and hardy combat, is well fitted by disposition and practice, for the stratagems of enterprises of Little War...upon the same principle must be a constant rule, in or near woods to place advanced sentries, where they may have a tree or some other defence to prevent their being taken off by a single marksman.'

So conscious of hidden marksmen was Burgoyne that he asked his men, ‘When the Lieut’t General visits an outpost, the men are not to stand to their Arms or pay him any compliment’, clearly being aware he would be singled out.^[1]

The word was thus not coined in Spain to describe resistance to Napoleon Bonaparte's French régime during the Peninsula War. Its meaning was however broadened to mean any similar-scale armed resistance.

Guerrillero is the Spanish word for guerrilla fighter, while in Spanish-speaking countries the noun guerrilla usually denotes guerrilla army (e.g. la guerrilla de las FARC translates as "the FARC guerrilla group"). Moreover, per the OED, 'the guerrilla' was in English usage (as early as 1809), describing the fighters, not only their tactics (e.g."the town was taken by the guerrillas"). However, in most languages guerrilla still denotes the specific style of warfare.^{[citation needed]}

Strategy, tactics and organization

Main article: Strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare

The strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare tend to focus around the use of a small, mobile force competing against a large, unwieldy one. The guerrilla focuses on organizing in small units, dependent on the support of the local population.

Tactically, the guerrilla army attacks its enemy in small, repetitive attacks from the opponent's center of gravity with a view to reduce casualties and become an intensive, repetitive strain on the enemy's resources, forcing an over-eager response, which will both anger their own supporters and increase support for the guerrilla, thus forcing the enemy to withdraw.

As a second part of the strategy, guerrilla fighters seek to become physically indistinguishable (e.g. Civilian Camouflage) from the communities through which they stage their attacks. Thus, by adopting the general customs & dress of the area they have infiltrated, they make it virtually impossible for an enemy force to distinguish friend from foe.

History

Main article: History of guerrilla warfare

Boer guerrillas during the Second Boer War in South Africa.

Since Classical Antiquity, when many strategies and tactics were used to fight foreign occupation that anticipated the modern guerrilla. An early example was the hit-and-run tactics employed by the nomadic Scythians of Central Asia against Darius the Great's Persian Achaemenid Empire and later against Alexander the Great's Macedonian Empire.

The Fabian strategy applied by the Roman Republic against Hannibal in the Second Punic War could be considered another early example of guerrilla tactics: After witnessing several disastrous defeats, assassinations and raiding parties, the Romans set aside the typical military doctrine of crushing the enemy in a single battle and initiated a successful, albeit unpopular, war of attrition against the Carthaginians that lasted for 83 years.

In expanding their own Empire, the Romans encountered numerous examples of guerrilla resistance to their legions as well.^[2] The success of Judas Maccabeus in his rebellion against Seleucid rule was at least partly due to his mastery of irregular warfare.

The victory of the Basque forces against Charlemagne's army in the Battle of Roncevaux Pass, which gave birth to the Medieval myth of Roland, was due to effective use of a guerrilla principles in the mountain terrain of the Pyrenees.^{[citation needed]} Mongols also faced irregulars composed of armed peasants in Hungary after the Battle of Mohi.

One of the most successful of the guerrilla campaigns was that of Robert the Bruce in the Scottish War of Independence when using strategies of ambushes, avoiding large battles, destroying enemy strongholds and using a scorched earth policy, the Scots forced the English out of Scotland without a single largescale battle until the Battle of Bannockburn eight years after the start of the war.^[3]

In the 15th century, Vietnamese leader Le Loi launched a guerrilla war against the Chinese.^[4] One of the most successful guerrilla wars against the invading Ottomans was led by Skanderbeg from 1443 to 1468. In 1443 he rallied Albanian forces and drove the Turks from his homeland. For 25 years Skanderbeg kept the Turks from retaking Albania, which due to its proximity to Italy, could easily have served as a springboard to the rest of Europe.^[5] In 1462, the Ottomans were driven back by Wallachian prince Vlad III Dracula. Vlad was unable to stop the Turks from entering Wallachia, so he resorted to guerrilla war, constantly organizing small attacks and ambushes on the Turks.^[6]

During the Deluge in Poland, guerrilla tactics were applied.^[7] In the 100 years war between England and France, commander Bertrand du Guesclin used guerrilla tactics to pester the English invaders. The Frisian warlord Pier Gerlofs Donia fought a guerrilla conflict against Philip I of Castile^[8] and with co-commander Wijerd Jelckama against Charles V.^[9][10]

During the Dutch Revolt of the 16th century, the Geuzen waged a guerrilla war against the Spanish Empire.^[11] During the Scanian War, a pro-Danish guerrilla group known as the Snapphane fought against the Swedes.

In 17th century Ireland, Irish irregulars called tories and rapparees used guerrilla warfare in the Irish Confederate Wars and the Williamite War in Ireland. Finnish guerrillas, sissis, fought against Russian occupation troops in the Great Northern War, 1700-1721. The Russians retaliated brutally against the civilian populace; the period is called Isoviha (Grand Hatred) in Finland.

In the 17th century, Marathas on the Indian peninsula under their leader Shivaji waged successful guerrilla war against the Mughal Empire then founded the Maratha Empire which lasted until superseded by the British Empire.

In the 17th and 18th century, Sikh fighters in the Punjab region waged successful guerrilla warfare against Mughal, Persian and Afghan invasions, until they founded the powerful Sikh empire under Ranjit Singh.

In the Irish War of Independence in 1919, Guerrilla warfare was used in a successful attempt to allow Ireland to set up it's own parliament and to leave Britain.

World War II

Hubal first guerilla commander of II World War

Many clandestine organizations (often known as resistance movements) operated in the countries occupied by Nazi Germany during the World War II. The first guerrilla commanders in the Second World War in Europe was Major Henryk Dobrzański "Hubal". In March 1940, a partisan unit leaded by Hubal completely destroyed a battalion of German infantry in a skirmish near the village of Huciska.^[12][13] In the former Yugoslavia, guerrillas under General Draža Mihailović, known as Chetniks, joined the Germans in a guerrilla war against communist guerrillas under Josip Broz Tito and known as Partisans, who engaged the German and Chetnik troops in a guerrilla war. By 1944 the Polish resistance was thought to number 400,000.^[14] The strength of the Soviet partisan units and formations can not be accurately estimated, but in Belarus alone is thought to have been in excess of 300,000.^[15]

On the other side of the world, guerrilla forces in Southeast Asian countries were a mill stone around the neck of the Japanese. For example, tens of thousands of Japanese troops were committed to anti-guerrilla operations in the Philippines. Not only did this cause a drain on Japanese military resources, but the guerrillas prevented the Japanese from making the most effective use of the islands' resources (food, ore, civilian labor, etc.) in their war effort.^[16][17]

Current and recent guerrilla conflicts

Present ongoing guerrilla wars, and regions facing guerrilla war activity include:

Asia:

• Arab-Israeli Conflict
• India - Communist insurgency
• Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan
• Conflict in Iraq
• Islamic and Communist Insurgencies in the Philippines
• Insurgency in Baluchistan
• South Thailand insurgency in Southern Thailand along the Malaysia-Thailand border

Africa:

• Ivorian Civil War
• Sudan
• Darfur Conflict
• Tuareg Rebellion (2007–present)
• Uganda - Lord's Resistance Army

Latin America:

• Zapatista Army of National Liberation, Mexico - have been relatively non-violent since 1994
• Internal conflict in Peru
• Colombian Armed Conflict
• Peru - Shining Path (Communist)
• Narcoterrorism Conflicts in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Europe:

• Kosovo War
• Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland
• Real IRA in Northern Ireland
• Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA) in Spain

Russia:

• Second Chechen War

Counter-guerrilla warfare

Main article: Counter-insurgency

Principles

The guerrilla can be difficult to beat, but certain principles of counter-insurgency warfare are well known since the 1950s and 1960s and have been successfully applied.

Classic guidelines

The widely distributed and influential work of Sir Robert Thompson, counter-insurgency expert of the Malayan Emergency, offers several such guidelines. Thompson's underlying assumption is that of a country minimally committed to the rule of law and better governance.

Some governments, however, give such considerations short shrift, and their counterguerrilla operations have involved mass murder, genocide, starvation and the massive spread of terror, torture and execution. The totalitarian regimes of Hitler are classic examples, as are more modern conflicts in places like Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan's anti-Mujahideen war for example, the Soviets implemented a ruthless policy of wastage and depopulation, driving over one third of the Afghan population into exile (over 5 million people), and carrying out widespread destruction of villages, granaries, crops, herds and irrigation systems, including the deadly and widespread mining of fields and pastures. See Wiki article Soviet war in Afghanistan.

Many modern countries employ manhunting doctrine to seek out and eliminate individual guerrillas. Elements of Thompson's moderate approach are adapted here:^[18]

1. The people are the key base to be secured and defended rather than territory won or enemy bodies counted. Contrary to the focus of conventional warfare, territory gained, or casualty counts are not of overriding importance in counter-guerrilla warfare. The support of the population is the key variable. Since many insurgents rely on the population for recruits, food, shelter, financing, and other materials, the counter-insurgent force must focus its efforts on providing physical and economic security for that population and defending it against insurgent attacks and propaganda.
2. There must be a clear political counter-vision that can overshadow, match or neutralize the guerrilla vision. This can range from granting political autonomy, to economic development measures in the affected region. The vision must be an integrated approach, involving political, social and economic and media influence measures. A nationalist narrative for example, might be used in one situation, an ethnic autonomy approach in another. An aggressive media campaign must also be mounted in support of the competing vision or the counter-insurgent regime will appear weak or incompetent.
3. Practical action must be taken at the lower levels to match the competitive political vision. It may be tempting for the counter-insurgent side to simply declare guerrillas "terrorists" and pursue a harsh liquidation strategy. Brute force however, may not be successful in the long run. Action does not mean capitulation, but sincere steps such as removing corrupt or arbitrary officials, cleaning up fraud, building more infrastructure, collecting taxes honestly, or addressing other legitimate grievances can do much to undermine the guerrillas' appeal.
4. Economy of force. The counter-insurgent regime must not overreact to guerrilla provocations, since this may indeed be what they seek to create a crisis in civilian morale. Indiscriminate use of firepower may only serve to alienate the key focus of counterinsurgency- the base of the people. Police level actions should guide the effort and take place in a clear framework of legality, even if under a State of Emergency. Civil liberties and other customs of peacetime may have to be suspended, but again, the counter-insurgent regime must exercise restraint, and cleave to orderly procedures. In the counter-insurgency context, "boots on the ground" are even more important than technological prowess and massive firepower, although anti-guerrilla forces should take full advantage of modern air, artillery and electronic warfare assets.^[19]
5. Big unit action may sometimes be necessary. If police action is not sufficient to stop the guerrilla fighters, military sweeps may be necessary. Such "big battalion" operations may be needed to break up significant guerrilla concentrations and split them into small groups where combined civic-police action can control them.
6. Aggressive mobility. Mobility and aggressive small unit action is extremely important for the counter-insurgent regime. Heavy formations must be lightened to aggressively locate, pursue and fix insurgent units. Huddling in static strongpoints simply concedes the field to the insurgents. They must be kept on the run constantly with aggressive patrols, raids, ambushes, sweeps, cordons, roadblocks, prisoner snatches, etc.
7. Ground level embedding and integration. In tandem with mobility is the embedding of hardcore counter-insurgent units or troops with local security forces and civilian elements. The US Marines in Vietnam also saw some success with this method, under its CAP (Combined Action Program) where Marines were teamed as both trainers and "stiffeners" of local elements on the ground. US Special Forces in Vietnam like the Green Berets, also caused significant local problems for their opponents by their leadership and integration with mobile tribal and irregular forces.^[20] The CIA's Special Activities Division created successful guerrilla forces from the Hmong tribe during the war in Vietnam in the 1960s,^[21] from the Northern Alliance against the Taliban during the war in Afghanistan in 2001,^[22] and from the Kurdish Peshmerga against Ansar al-Islam and the forces of Saddam Hussein during the war in Iraq in 2003.^[23][24] In Iraq, the 2007 US "surge" strategy saw the embedding of regular and special forces troops among Iraqi army units. These hardcore groups were also incorporated into local neighborhood outposts in a bid to facilitate intelligence gathering, and to strengthen ground level support among the masses.^[19]
8. Cultural sensitivity. Counter-insurgent forces require familiarity with the local culture, mores and language or they will experience numerous difficulties. Americans experienced this in Vietnam and during the US Iraqi Freedom invasion and occupation, where shortages of Arabic speaking interpreters and translators hindered both civil and military operations.^[25]
9. Systematic intelligence effort. Every effort must be made to gather and organize useful intelligence. A systematic process must be set up to do so, from casual questioning of civilians to structured interrogations of prisoners. Creative measures must also be used, including the use of double agents, or even bogus "liberation" or sympathizer groups that help reveal insurgent personnel or operations.
10. Methodical clear and hold. An "ink spot" clear and hold strategy must be used by the counter-insurgent regime, dividing the conflict area into sectors, and assigning priorities between them. Control must expand outward like an ink spot on paper, systematically neutralizing and eliminating the insurgents in one sector of the grid, before proceeding to the next. It may be necessary to pursue holding or defensive actions elsewhere, while priority areas are cleared and held.
11. Careful deployment of mass popular forces and special units. Mass forces include village self-defence groups and citizen militias organized for community defence and can be useful in providing civic mobilization and local security. Specialist units can be used profitably, including commando squads, long range reconnaissance and "hunter-killer" patrols, defectors who can track or persuade their former colleagues like the Kit Carson units in Vietnam, and paramilitary style groups. Strict control must be kept over specialist units to prevent the emergence of violent vigilante style reprisal squads that undermine the government's program.
12. The limits of foreign assistance must be clearly defined and carefully used. Such aid should be limited either by time, or as to material and technical, and personnel support, or both. While outside aid or even troops can be helpful, lack of clear limits, in terms of either a realistic plan for victory or exit strategy, may find the foreign helper "taking over" the local war, and being sucked into a lengthy commitment, thus providing the guerrillas with valuable propaganda opportunities as the stream of dead foreigners mounts. Such a scenario occurred with the US in Vietnam, with the American effort creating dependence in South Vietnam, and war weariness and protests back home. Heavy-handed foreign interference may also fail to operate effectively within the local cultural context, setting up conditions for failure.
13. Time. A key factor in guerrilla strategy is a drawn-out, protracted conflict, that wears down the will of the opposing counter-insurgent forces. Democracies are especially vulnerable to the factor of time. The counter-insurgent force must allow enough time to get the job done. Impatient demands for victory centered around short-term electoral cycles play into the hands of the guerrillas, though it is equally important to recognize when a cause is lost and the guerrillas have won.

Variants

Some writers on counter-insurgency warfare emphasize the more turbulent nature of today's guerrilla warfare environment, where the clear political goals, parties and structures of such places as Vietnam, Malaysia, or El Salvador are not as prevalent. These writers point to numerous guerrilla conflicts that center around religious, ethnic or even criminal enterprise themes, and that do not lend themselves to the classic "national liberation" template.

The wide availability of the Internet has also cause changes in the tempo and mode of guerrilla operations in such areas as coordination of strikes, leveraging of financing, recruitment, and media manipulation. While the classic guidelines still apply, today's anti-guerrilla forces need to accept a more disruptive, disorderly and ambiguous mode of operation.

"Insurgents may not be seeking to overthrow the state, may have no coherent strategy or may pursue a faith-based approach difficult to counter with traditional methods. There may be numerous competing insurgencies in one theater, meaning that the counterinsurgent must control the overall environment rather than defeat a specific enemy. The actions of individuals and the propaganda effect of a subjective “single narrative” may far outweigh practical progress, rendering counterinsurgency even more non-linear and unpredictable than before. The counterinsurgent, not the insurgent, may initiate the conflict and represent the forces of revolutionary change. The economic relationship between insurgent and population may be diametrically opposed to classical theory. And insurgent tactics, based on exploiting the propaganda effects of urban bombing, may invalidate some classical tactics and render others, like patrolling, counterproductive under some circumstances. Thus, field evidence suggests, classical theory is necessary but not sufficient for success against contemporary insurgencies..."^[26]

Influence on the arts

• Che, a 2007 film
• Guerrilla Girls, a feminist artist group
• "Guerrilla Radio", a song by Rage Against the Machine
• Guerrilla burlesque, a style of burlesque performance that involves descending upon audiences, uninvited.
• Tomorrow series A series of books written by John Marsden (writer) about guerrilla warfare during a fictional invasion and occupation of Australia.
• For Whom The Bell Tolls, a novel by Ernest Hemingway telling the story of Robert Jordan, a volunteer American attached to an anti-fascist guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War.
• Chetniks! The Fighting Guerrillas (1943), a 20th Century Fox movie on the guerrilla resistance movement of General Draza Mihailovich in German-occupied Yugoslavia during World War II.
• Underground Guerrillas (1943), a movie released by Columbia Pictures in the U.S., which was a re-release of the British movie Undercover (film) produced by Ealing Studios.
• Red Faction: Guerrilla, a game where the player fights as a guerrilla against an entrenched enemy.
• The "Star Wars" trilogy (Episodes IV, V, and VI) which are partly about guerrilla war tactics in space combat (in particular episode VI's attack on the second Death Star and the simultaneous attack against it's shield generator on Endor).
• Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica which focuses on the guerrilla war against the Cylons by the former citizens of the Twelve Colonies on New Caprica.
• The 1965 novel "Dune" features such warfare as conducted against House Harkonnen by the nomadic Fremen tribe, led by Paul Atreides.

See also

Asymmetric warfare Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division Basil Henry Liddell Hart Bushwhackers (Union and Confederate) and Jayhawkers (Union) of the American Civil War Cavalry in the American Civil War Combatant Commando Counter insurgency Directive control Edmund Charaszkiewicz Fabian Strategy Fictional resistance movements and groups Fitzroy Maclean Disputed Barricade: The Life and Times of Josip Broz Tito Franc-Tireurs Gladio Guerrilla communication Guerrilla gardening is political gardening, a form of nonviolent direct action, primarily practiced by environmentalists Guerrilla Warfare, by Che Guevara.

Hans von Dach, a Swiss army major famous for his book Total Resistance: A War Manual for Everyone, which teaches the readers in guerrilla warfare Irregular military Irregular Warfare List of guerrilla movements List of guerrilla fighters List of revolutions and rebellions Lord's Resistance Army LRRP and sissi, regular army units using guerrilla tactics Manhunt (military) Militia Paramilitary Partisan Petty Warfare Resistance during World War II Resistance movement Robert Asprey War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History. Spaßguerilla Special forces Unconventional warfare Vietnam War War

Footnotes

1. ^ Rogers, Horatio (ed.), A Journal Kept in Canada and Upon Burgoyne’s Campaign in 1776 and 1777 by Lieutenant James M. Hadden, Roy. Art., Jorel Munsell’s Sons, (Albany, NY, 1884), pp.71 - 77.
2. ^ Robert Brown Asprey (2008), "guerrilla warfare", Encyclopædia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/248353/guerrilla-warfare, retrieved 2008-12-17 
3. ^ Scott, Ronald McNair, Robert Bruce, King of the Scots, 1989, p. 242
4. ^ Le Loi And The Le Dynasty
5. ^ Scanderbeg
6. ^ Vlad The Impaler: Brief History
7. ^ The reign of the Vasa dynasty (1587-1668) the wars with Sweden and the events of the Swedish Deluge
8. ^ Geldersche Volks-Almanak Published 1853
9. ^ Kalma, J.J. (1970). (ed.) de Tille. ed. Grote Pier Van Kimswerd. Netherlands. pp. 50. ISBN 90-7001-013-5. 
10. ^ Kok, Jacobus (1791). "Pier Gerlofs Donia". Vaderlandsch Woordenboek. 24 (P–R). Amsterdam: Johannes Allart. pp. 17–21. 
11. ^ Geuzen, or Gueux (Dutch history)
12. ^ *Marek Szymanski: Oddzial majora Hubala, Warszawa 1999, ISBN 83-912237-0-1
13. ^ *Aleksandra Ziółkowska Boehm: A Polish Partisan's Story (to be published by Military History Press)
14. ^ Poland - World War II
15. ^ The Partisan War
16. ^ Schmidt LS. American Involvement in the Filipino Resistance. 1982.
17. ^ Keats J. They Fought Alone. 1990.
18. ^ Robert Thompson (1966). "Defeating Communist Insurgency: The Lessons of Malaya and Vietnam", Chatto & Widus, ISBN 0-7011-1133-X
19. ^ ^{a b} Learning from Iraq: Counterinsurgency in American Strategy - Steven Metz. US Army Strategic Studies Institute monograph, December 2006, http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=752, retrieved June 1, 2007
20. ^ Michael Lee Lanning and Daniel Craig, "Inside the VC and NVA", and "Inside the LRRP's"
21. ^ Shooting at the Moon: The Story of America's Clandestine War in Laos, Steerforth Press, 1996 |isbn=9781883642365
22. ^ Bush at War, Bob Woodward, Simon and Shuster, 2002
23. ^ Operation Hotel California: The Clandestine War inside Iraq, Mike Tucker, Charles Faddis, 2008, The Lyons Press |isbn=9781599213668
24. ^ Plan of Attack, Bob Woodward, Simon and Shuster, 2004 isbn=9780743255479
25. ^ Learning from Iraq, op. cit.
26. ^ [1]PDF (146 KiB) Counter-insurgency Redux", David Kilcullen

Further References:

• Robert Asprey, War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History.
• Fitzroy Maclean, Disputed Barricade: The Life and Times of Josip Broz Tito.
• Peter MacDonald, Giap: The Victor in Vietnam.
• Keats J. 1990. They Fought Alone. Time Life. ISBN 0809485559
• Schmidt LS. 1982. American Involvement in the Filipino Resistance on Mindanao During the Japanese Occupation, 1942-1945. M.S. Thesis. U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. 274 pp.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Guerrilla warfare

Look up guerrilla in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Spanish Anthem of the traditional Guerrilleros unit
• Tribute to Mexican Women Guerrilleras. On the Freedom Country
• abcNEWS: The Secret War - Pakistani militants conduct raids in Iran
• abcNEWS Exclusive: The Secret War - Deadly guerrilla raids in Iran
• Insurgency Research Group - Multi-expert blog dedicated to the study of insurgency and the development of counter-insurgency policy.
• Guerrilla warfare on Spartacus Schoolnet
• Encyclopaedia Britannica, Guerrilla warfare
• Mao on Guerrilla warfare
• Relearning Counterinsurgency Warfare
• Guerrilla Warfare
• Che Guevara on Guerrilla WarfarePDF (254 KiB)
• Counter Insurgency Jungle Warfare School (CIJWS)India

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