Guerrilla warfare

Not to be confused with Gorilla.

"Guerrilla" and "Guerrilla War" redirect here. For other uses, see Guerrilla (disambiguation) and Guerrilla Warfare (disambiguation).

Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians including recruited children, use ambushes, sabotage, terrorism, raids, petty warfare or hit-and-run tactics in a rebellion, in a violent conflict, in a war or in a civil war to fight against regular military, police or rival insurgent forces.^[1]

Guerrilla warfare during the Peninsular War, by Roque Gameiro, depicting a Portuguese guerrilla ambush against French forces

Although the term "guerrilla warfare" was coined in the context of the Peninsular War in the 19th century,^[2] the tactical methods of guerrilla warfare have long been in use. In the 6th century BC, Sun Tzu proposed the use of guerrilla-style tactics in The Art of War. The 3rd century BC Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus is also credited with inventing many of the tactics of guerrilla warfare through what is today called the Fabian strategy. Guerrilla warfare has been used by various factions throughout history and is particularly associated with revolutionary movements and popular resistance against invading or occupying armies.

Guerrilla tactics focus on avoiding head-on confrontations with enemy armies, typically due to inferior arms or forces, and instead engage in limited skirmishes with the goal of exhausting adversaries and forcing them to withdraw, see also attrition warfare. Organized guerrilla groups often depend on the support of either the local population or foreign backers who sympathize with the guerrilla group's efforts.

Etymology

 

Spanish guerrilla resistance to the Napoleonic French invasion of Spain at the Battle of Valdepeñas

The Spanish word guerrilla is the diminutive form of guerra ('war'); hence, 'little war'. The term became popular during the early-19th century Peninsular War, when, after the defeat of their regular armies, the Spanish and Portuguese people successfully rose against the Napoleonic troops and defeated a highly superior army using the guerrilla strategy in combination with a scorched earth policy and people's war (see also attrition warfare against Napoleon). In correct Spanish usage, a person who is a member of a guerrilla unit is a guerrillero ([geriˈʎeɾo]) if male, or a guerrillera ([geriˈʎeɾa]) if female. Arthur Wellesley adopted the term "guerrilla" into English from Spanish usage in 1809,^[2] to refer to the individual fighters (e.g., "I have recommended to set the Guerrillas to work"), and also (as in Spanish) to denote a group or band of such fighters. However, in most languages guerrilla still denotes a specific style of warfare. 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.^[3]

History

Main article: History of guerrilla warfare

 

Soviet partisans on the road in Belarus, 1944 counter-offensive

Prehistoric tribal warriors presumably employed guerrilla-style tactics against enemy tribes:

Primitive (and guerrilla) warfare consists of war stripped to its essentials: the murder of enemies; the theft or destruction of their sustenance, wealth, and essential resources; and the inducement in them of insecurity and terror. It conducts the basic business of war without recourse to ponderous formations or equipment, complicated maneuvers, strict chains of command, calculated strategies, timetables, or other civilized embellishments.^[4]

Evidence of conventional warfare, on the other hand, did not emerge until 3100 BC in Egypt and Mesopotamia. The Chinese general and strategist Sun Tzu, in his The Art of War (6th century BC), became one of the earliest to propose the use of guerrilla warfare.^[5] This inspired developments in modern guerrilla warfare.^[6]

In the 3rd century BC, Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, used elements of guerrilla warfare, such as the evasion of battle, the attempt to wear down the enemy, to attack small detachments in an ambush^[7] and devised the Fabian strategy, which the Roman Republic used to great effect against Hannibal's army, see also His Excellency : George Washington: the Fabian choice.^[8]

In the medieval Roman Empire, guerrilla warfare was frequently practiced between the eighth through tenth centuries along the eastern frontier with the Umayyad and then Abbasid caliphates. Tactics involved a heavy emphasis on reconnaissance and intelligence, shadowing the enemy, evacuating threatened population centres, and attacking when the enemy dispersed to raid.^[9] In the later tenth century this form of warfare was codified in a military manual known by its later Latin name as De velitatione bellica ('On Skirmishing') so it would not be forgotten in the future.^[10]

The Normans often made many forays into Wales, where the Welsh used the mountainous region, which the Normans were unfamiliar with, to spring surprise attacks upon them.^[11]

Since the Enlightenment, ideologies such as nationalism, liberalism, socialism, and religious fundamentalism have played an important role in shaping insurgencies and guerrilla warfare.^[12]

In the 17th century, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, founder of the Maratha Empire, pioneered the Shiva sutra or Ganimi Kava (Guerrilla Tactics) to defeat the many times larger and more powerful armies of the Mughal Empire.^[13]

Kerala Varma (Pazhassi Raja) (1753–1805) used guerrilla techniques chiefly centred in mountain forests in the Cotiote War against the British East India Company in India between 1793 and 1806. Arthur Wellesley (in India 1797–1805) had commanded forces assigned to defeat Pazhassi's techniques but failed. It was the longest war waged by East India Company during their military campaigns on the Indian subcontinent. It was one of the bloodiest and hardest wars waged by East India Company in India with Presidency army regiments that suffered losses as high as eighty percent in 10 years of warfare.^[14]

 

Siege of the Fortaleza San Luis by the Dominican rebels by Melanio Guzmán

The Dominican Restoration War was a guerrilla war between 1863 and 1865 in the Dominican Republic between nationalists and Spain, the latter of which had recolonized the country 17 years after its independence. The war resulted in the withdrawal of Spanish forces and the establishment of a second republic in the Dominican Republic.^[15]

 

Seán Hogan's flying column of the IRA's 3rd Tipperary Brigade, during the Irish War of Independence

The Moroccan military leader Abd el-Krim (c. 1883 – 1963) and his father^[16] unified the Moroccan tribes under their control and took up arms against the Spanish and French occupiers during the Rif War in 1920. For the first time in history, tunnel warfare was used alongside modern guerrilla tactics, which caused considerable damage to both the colonial armies in Morocco.^[17]

In the early 20th century Michael Collins and Tom Barry both developed many tactical features of guerrilla warfare during the guerrilla phase of the 1919–1921 Irish War of Independence. Collins developed mainly urban guerrilla-warfare tactics in Dublin City (the Irish capital). Operations in which small Irish Republican Army (IRA) units (3 to 6 guerrillas) quickly attacked a target and then disappeared into civilian crowds frustrated the British enemy. The best example of this occurred on Bloody Sunday (21 November 1920), when Collins's assassination unit, known as "The Squad", wiped out a group of British intelligence agents ("the Cairo Gang") early in the morning (14 were killed, six were wounded) – some regular officers were also killed in the purge. That afternoon, a Royal Irish Constabulary force consisting of both regular RIC personnel and the Auxiliary Division took revenge, shooting into a crowd at a football match in Croke Park, killing fourteen civilians and injuring 60 others.^[18][19]

In West County Cork, Tom Barry was the commander of the IRA West Cork brigade. Fighting in west Cork was rural, and the IRA fought in much larger units than their fellows in urban areas. These units, called "flying columns",^[20] engaged British forces in large battles, usually for between 10 – 30 minutes. The Kilmichael Ambush in November 1920 and the Crossbarry Ambush in March 1921 are the most famous examples of Barry's flying columns causing large casualties to enemy forces.

 

Lakhdari, Drif, Bouhired and Bouali. Female Algerian guerillas of the Algerian War of Independence, c. 1956.

The Algerian Revolution of 1954 started with a handful of Algerian guerrillas. Primitively armed, the guerrillas fought the French for over eight years. This remains a prototype for modern insurgency and counterinsurgency, terrorism, torture, and asymmetric warfare prevalent throughout the world today.^[21] In South Africa, African National Congress (ANC) members studied the Algerian War, prior to the release and apotheosis of Nelson Mandela;^[22] in their intifada against Israel, Palestinian fighters have sought to emulate it.^[23] Additionally, the tactics of Al-Qaeda closely resemble those of the Algerians.^[24]

The Mukti Bahini (Bengali: মুক্তিবাহিনী, translates as 'freedom fighters', or liberation army), also known as the Bangladesh Forces, was the guerrilla resistance movement consisting of the Bangladeshi military, paramilitary and civilians during the Bangladesh Liberation War that transformed East Pakistan into Bangladesh in 1971. An earlier name Mukti Fauj was also used.

Theoretical works

The growth of guerrilla warfare was inspired in part by theoretical works on guerrilla warfare, starting with the Manual de Guerra de Guerrillas by Matías Ramón Mella written in the 19th century:

...our troops should...fight while protected by the terrain...using small, mobile guerrilla units to exhaust the enemy...denying them rest so that they only control the terrain under their feet.^[25]

More recently, Mao Zedong's On Guerrilla Warfare,^[26] Che Guevara's Guerrilla Warfare,^[27] and Lenin's Guerrilla warfare,^[28] were all written after the successful revolutions carried by them in China, Cuba and Russia, respectively. Those texts characterized the tactic of guerrilla warfare as, according to Che Guevara's text, being "used by the side which is supported by a majority but which possesses a much smaller number of arms for use in defense against oppression".^[29]

Foco theory

Main article: Foco

 

A Tuareg rebel fighter with a DShK on a technical in northern Niger, 2008

Why does the guerrilla fighter fight? We must come to the inevitable conclusion that the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer, that he takes up arms responding to the angry protest of the people against their oppressors, and that he fights in order to change the social system that keeps all his unarmed brothers in ignominy and misery.

— Che Guevara^[30]

In the 1960s, the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara developed the foco (Spanish: foquismo) theory of revolution in his book Guerrilla Warfare,^[31] based on his experiences during the 1959 Cuban Revolution. This theory was later formalised as "focal-ism" by Régis Debray. Its central principle is that vanguardism by cadres of small, fast-moving paramilitary groups can provide a focus for popular discontent against a sitting regime, and thereby lead a general insurrection. Although the original approach was to mobilize and launch attacks from rural areas, many foco ideas were adapted into urban guerrilla warfare movements.

Strategy, tactics and methods

See also: Strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare

 

Boer guerrillas during the Second Boer War in South Africa

 

The Estonian Forest Brothers relaxing and cleaning their guns after a shooting exercise in Veskiaru, Järva County, Estonian SSR, in 1953

Strategy

Guerrilla warfare is a type of asymmetric warfare: competition between opponents of unequal strength.^[32] It is also a type of irregular warfare: that is, it aims not simply to defeat an invading enemy, but to win popular support and political influence, to the enemy's cost. Accordingly, guerrilla strategy aims to magnify the impact of a small, mobile force on a larger, more cumbersome one.^[33] If successful, guerrillas weaken their enemy by attrition, eventually forcing them to withdraw.

Tactics

See also: Asymmetric warfare

Tactically, guerrillas usually avoid confrontation with large units and formations of enemy troops but seek and attack small groups of enemy personnel and resources to gradually deplete the opposing force while minimizing their own losses. The guerrilla prizes mobility, secrecy, and surprise, organizing in small units and taking advantage of terrain that is difficult for larger units to use. For example, Mao Zedong summarized basic guerrilla tactics at the beginning of the Chinese Civil War as:

"The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue."^[34]

At least one author credits the ancient Chinese work The Art of War with inspiring Mao's tactics.^[35] In the 20th century, other communist leaders, including North Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh, often used and developed guerrilla warfare tactics, which provided a model for their use elsewhere, leading to the Cuban "foco" theory and the anti-Soviet Mujahadeen in Afghanistan.^[36]

Unconventional methods

Guerrilla groups may use improvised explosive devices and logistical support by the local population. The opposing army may come at last to suspect all civilians as potential guerrilla backers. The guerrillas might get political support from foreign backers and many guerrilla groups are adept at public persuasion through propaganda and use of force.^[37] Some guerrilla movements today also rely heavily on children as combatants, scouts, porters, spies, informants, and in other roles.^[38] Many governments and states also recruit children within their armed forces.^[39][40]

Comparison of guerrilla warfare and terrorism

No commonly accepted definition of "terrorism" has attained clear consensus.^[41][42][43] The term "terrorism" is often used as political propaganda by belligerents (most often by governments in power) to denounce opponents whose status as terrorists is disputed.^[44][45]

While the primary concern of guerrillas is the enemy's active military units, actual terrorists largely are concerned with non-military agents and target mostly civilians.^[46]

See also

• Counter-insurgency
• Free war
• Freedom Fighters (disambiguation)
• "Yank" Levy
• Insurgency weapons and tactics
• List of guerrilla movements
• List of guerrillas
• List of revolutions and rebellions
• Militia
• New generation warfare
• Partisan (military)
• Resistance during World War II
• Special forces
• Civilian Irregular Defense Group program
• United Nations Partisan Infantry Korea
• Violent non-state actor
• Viet Cong
• TM 31-210 Improvised Munitions Handbook

Notes

1. Asprey 2023.
2. OED 2023.
3. etymonline 2023.
4. Keeley 1997, p. 75.
5. Leonard 1989, p. 728.
6. Snyder 1999, p. 46.
7. Laqueur 1977, p. 7.
8. Ellis 2005, pp. 99–102.
9. McMahon 2016, pp. 22–33.
10. Dennis 1985, p. 147.
11. Hooper & Bennett 1996, pp. 68-.
12. Hanhimäki, Blumenau & Rapaport 2013, pp. 46–73.
13. Duff 2014.
14. Wilson 1883.
15. Pons 1998.
16. islamicus 2023.
17. Boot 2013, pp. 10–11, 55.
18. Ferriter 2020.
19. historyireland 2003.
20. Chisholm 1911, p. 585.
21. Horne 2022.
22. Drew 2015, pp. 22–43.
23. Chamberlin 2015.
24. Boeke 2019.
25. Kruijt, Tristán & Álvarez 2019.
26. Mao 1989.
27. Guevara 2006.
28. Lenin 1906.
29. Guevara 2006, p. 16.
30. Guevara 2006, p. 17.
31. Guevara 2006, p. 13.
32. Tomes 2004.
33. Creveld 2000, pp. 356–358.
34. Mao 1965, p. 124.
35. McNeilly 2003, pp. 6–7.
36. McNeilly 2003, p. 204.
37. Detsch 2017.
38. Child Soldiers International 2016.
39. United Nations Secretary-General 2017.
40. Child Soldiers International 2012.
41. Emmerson 2016.
42. Halibozek, Jones & Kovacich 2008, pp. 4–5.
43. Williamson 2009, p. 38.
44. Sinclair & Antonius 2012, p. 30.
45. Rowe 2002, pp. 3–4.
46. Tamer 2017.

References

• Asprey, Robert Brown (2023). "guerrilla warfare". Entry within britannica.
• Boeke, Sergei (2019). "Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb". International Relations. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/obo/9780199743292-0267. ISBN 978-0-19-974329-2. Retrieved 17 July 2021.
• Boot, Max (2013). Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present. Liveright. pp. 10–11, 55. ISBN 978-0-87140-424-4.
• Chamberlin, Paul Thomas (2015). The global offensive : the United States, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the making of the post-cold war order. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-021782-2. OCLC 907783262.
• Child Soldiers International (2012). . Archived from the original on 8 March 2019. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
• Child Soldiers International (2016). . Archived from the original on 8 March 2019. Retrieved 19 January 2018.
• Creveld, Martin van (2000). "Technology and War II:Postmodern War?". In Charles Townshend (ed.). The Oxford History of Modern War. New York, USA: Oxford University Press. pp. 356–358. ISBN 978-0-19-285373-8.
• Dennis, George (1985). Three Byzantine Military Treatises. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks. p. 147.
• Detsch, J (2017). . Al-Monitor. Archived from the original on 12 July 2017. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
• Drew, Allison (2015). "Visions of liberation: the Algerian war of independence and its South African reverberations". Review of African Political Economy. 42 (143): 22–43. doi:10.1080/03056244.2014.1000288. hdl:10.1080/03056244.2014.1000288. ISSN 0305-6244. S2CID 144545186.
• Duff, James Grant (2014). The History Of The Mahrattas. Pickle Partners Publishing. p. 376. ISBN 9781782892335.
• Ellis, Joseph J. (2005). His Excellency : George Washington. New York: Vintage Books. pp. 92–109. ISBN 9781400032532 – via Internet Archive.
• Emmerson, B (2016). "Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism" (PDF). www.un.org. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
• etymonline (2023). "guerrilla". Origin and meaning of guerrilla by Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved 14 July 2023.
• Ferriter, Diarmaid (2020). "Diarmaid Ferriter: Bloody Sunday 1920 changed British attitudes to Ireland". The Irish Times.
• Guevara, Ernesto Che (2006). Guerrilla Warfare – via Internet Archive.
• Halibozek, Edward P.; Jones, Andy; Kovacich, Gerald L. (2008). The corporate security professional's handbook on terrorism (illustrated ed.). Elsevier (Butterworth-Heinemann). pp. 4–5. ISBN 978-0-7506-8257-2. Retrieved 17 December 2016.
• Hanhimäki, Jussi M.; Blumenau, Bernhard; Rapaport, David (2013). (PDF). An International History of Terrorism: Western and Non-Western Experiences. Routledge. pp. 46–73. ISBN 9780415635417. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 February 2014.
• historyireland (2003). "Bloody Sunday 1920: new evidence".
• Hooper, Nicholas; Bennett, Matthew (1996). Cambridge illustrated atlas, warfare : the Middle Ages, 768-1487. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-44049-3 – via Internet Archive.
• Horne, Alistair (2022). "A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954–1962. Rev. ed". The SHAFR Guide Online. doi:10.1163/2468-1733_shafr_sim220070002. Retrieved 17 July 2023.
• islamicus (2023). . Islamicus. Archived from the original on 14 June 2023.
• Keeley, Lawrence H. (1997). War Before Civilization. Oxford University Press.
• Kruijt, Dirk; Tristán, Eduardo Rey; Álvarez, Alberto Martín (2019). Latin American Guerrilla Movements: Origins, Evolution, Outcomes. Routledge. ISBN 9780429534270.
• Laqueur, Walter (1977). Guerrilla : a historical and critical study. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 9780297771845 – via Internet archive.
• Lenin, V. I. (1906). . Archived from the original on 11 May 2023 – via Internet archive.
• Leonard, Thomas M. (1989). Encyclopedia of the developing world.
• Mao, Zedong (1965). Selected Works: A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire. Vol. I. Foreign Languages Press – via Internet Archive.
• Mao, Zedong (1989). On Guerrilla Warfare. Washington: U.S. Marine Corps – via Internet Archive.
• McMahon, Lucas (2016). "De Velitatione Bellica and Byzantine Guerrilla Warfare" (PDF). The Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU. 22: 22–33. (PDF) from the original on 7 August 2021.
• McNeilly, Mark (2003). Sun Tzu and the Art of Modern Warfare. p. 204.
• OED (2023). "guerrilla". Oxford English Dictionary.
• Pons, Frank Moya (1998). The Dominican Republic: a national history. Markus Wiener Publishers. ISBN 978-1-55876-192-6. Retrieved 15 August 2011.
• Rowe, P (2002). "Freedom fighters and rebels: the rules of civil war". J R Soc Med. 95 (1): 3–4. doi:10.1177/014107680209500102. PMC 1279138. PMID 11773342.
• Snyder, Craig (1999). Contemporary security and strategy.
• Sinclair, Samuel Justin; Antonius, Daniel (2012). The Psychology of Terrorism Fears. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 978-0-19-538811-4.
• Tamer, Dr. Cenk (25 September 2017). "The Differences Between the Guerrilla Warfare and Terrorism".
• Tomes, Robert (2004). (PDF). Parameters. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 June 2010.
• United Nations Secretary-General (2017). "Report of the Secretary-General: Children and armed conflict, 2017". www.un.org. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
• Williamson, Myra (2009). Terrorism, war and international law: the legality of the use of force against Afghanistan in 2001. Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7546-7403-0.
• Wilson, William John (1883). History of Madras Army. Printed by E. Keys at the Govt. Press – via Internet Archive.

Attribution:

•   This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Flying column". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 585.

Further reading

• Asprey, Robert. War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History
• Beckett, I. F. W. (15 September 2009). Encyclopedia of Guerrilla Warfare (Hardcover). Santa Barbara, California: Abc-Clio Inc. ISBN 978-0874369298. ISBN 9780874369298
• Derradji Abder-Rahmane, The Algerian Guerrilla Campaign Strategy & Tactics, Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997.
• Hinckle, Warren (with Steven Chain and David Goldstein): Guerrilla-Krieg in USA (Guerrilla war in the USA), Stuttgart (Deutsche Verlagsanstalt) 1971. ISBN 3-421-01592-9
• Keats, John (1990). They Fought Alone. Time Life. ISBN 0-8094-8555-9
• Kreiman, Guillermo (2024). "Revolutionary days: Introducing the Latin American Guerrillas Dataset". Journal of Peace Research.
• MacDonald, Peter. Giap: The Victor in Vietnam
• The Heretic: the life and times of Josip Broz-Tito. 1957.
• Oller, John. The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution. Boston: Da Capo Press, 2016. ISBN 978-0-306-82457-9.
• Peers, William R.; Brelis, Dean. Behind the Burma Road: The Story of America's Most Successful Guerrilla Force. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1963.
• Polack, Peter. Guerrilla Warfare; Kings of Revolution Casemate,ISBN 9781612006758.
• Thomas Powers, "The War without End" (review of Steve Coll, Directorate S: The CIA and America's Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Penguin, 2018, 757 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXV, no. 7 (19 April 2018), pp. 42–43. "Forty-plus years after our failure in Vietnam, the United States is again fighting an endless war in a faraway place against a culture and a people we don't understand for political reasons that make sense in Washington, but nowhere else." (p. 43.)
• Schmidt, LS. 1982. "American Involvement in the Filipino Resistance on Mindanao During the Japanese Occupation, 1942–1945" 5 October 2015 at the Wayback Machine. M.S. Thesis. U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. 274 pp.
• Sutherland, Daniel E. "Sideshow No Longer: A Historiographical Review of the Guerrilla War." Civil War History 46.1 (2000): 5–23; American Civil War, 1861–65
• Sutherland, Daniel E. A Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role of Guerrillas in the American Civil War (U of North Carolina Press, 2009). online
• Weber, Olivier, Afghan Eternity, 2002

External links

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Guerrilla warfare.

 

Look up guerrilla in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• abcNEWS: The Secret War on YouTube – Pakistani militants conduct raids in Iran
• – 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 Educational
• Encyclopædia Britannica, Guerrilla warfare
• Casebook on Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare United States Army Special Operations Command
• Counter Insurgency Jungle Warfare School (CIJWS)India