Question RE: Definition Of Guerrilla Warfare

HI DU-ers....

My question to you military buffs is: What is the definition of a guerrilla war, not from the dictionary but to people who know about war and strategies etc.?

It seems to me that what we have now is a Guerrilla War in Iraq although it is never described as such in the press.

I've heard the guys attacking our soldiers described as "terrorists" "remnants from Saddam's regime" "Baath Party Loyalists" and nowadays "insurgents" or "the resistance." But they sure do avoid the G word!

This guy who covered the Irish "problems," I heard him say that no modern army has ever been successful in a guerrilla war. Is this true? Of course I know about Vietnam & the Soviets in Afghanistan...

If it is true, that explains why they will call it anything else but that!

They are avoiding the "G" word. It could be used to describe whats going on. Retribution against collaborators, attacks on military targets fits the usual description. But the random killing of civilians is not.

As far as the historical success of Guerrilla campaigns I can't really think of any. The Vietnam guerrillas were virtually wiped out during the "Tet Offensive". Although from the hysterical accounts by the press made it sound like a victory for the vanquished. The rest of the war was carried on by the NVA. They actually over ran the south after we had left.

The first guerrillas were in Spain and drove the Romans crazy but they didn't win either.

Later Spanish guerrillas harassed Napoleon's troops but it was the British who drove Napoleon out of Spain.

The IRA have carried out attacks against the British for I have no idea how long. Last I heard they were laying down their arms and Northern Ireland is still part of Briton.

So I don't really accept the idea that guerrilla warfare has been all that successful.

The other aspect is usually guerillas have a single goal or purpose. I don't think any one group is making the attacks, some are Saddams followers, some are Iraqi religous fanatics, some are from surrounding countries.

Since I'm just speculating wildly now any way. My guess is that the guys shooting down helicopters, blowing up convoys, and killing collaborators are Saddam's men. This group could fit the definition of guerillas. But my guess is their numbers are dwindling fast.

The nut cases driving car bombs into check stations and crowded streets, firing motars and rockets into hotels and killing mostly Iragis are religous fanatics both Iraqi and foreign. I don't see an end to this type of attacks until we leave and the Iragis deal with this themselves. These are not freedom fighters wanting to live in peace, they don't want to live at all, they just want us dead.

So, leave Napoleon out of it, let's go 20/21st century.

Yes a lot of Vietnamese were "wiped out.." do you consider that we won, then? What did we win exactly?

Yes Ireland is in the UK but the UK had to sit down with people they considered terrorists and accept them as a political party -- there was a time when those same people were not even allowed to be on the radio or TV there, now they are part of the establishment.

And, they had to end the military occupation of Northern Ireland....this was not a war that the Brits "won?" They won nothing militarily; they ended up negotiating the peace.

If the goal of the guerillas is to make the occupiers withdraw like in Ireland, VietNam or Afghanistan -- how can you say they are not successful?

and neither were the RVN troops.

The Viet Cong practically ceased to exist as a viable fighting force after Tet. This cause the North to send in ground troops to take their place. We lost due to a lack of will, and the South lost to the North Vietnamese army, NOT the Viet Cong.

Guerillas can't win a war. The Governments that fight them often lose the war, though.

...by simply not losing them.

The longer they 'don't lose', the more likely the opposing army will leave.

While in Vietnam, we were not defeated by the Vietcong, we were defeated by the NVA fighting guerrilla style.

For another successful guerrilla campaign, look at Yugoslavia under the Nazis... The Nazis pulled out rather than continue to fight Tito's troops... Tito's troops met the Russians at the border and told them to keep out.

Guerrilla warfare is a campaign from a position of weakness; it takes a strong 'will to win' for it to succeed.

This war will go on after we leave...after the un leaves... until a internal force powerful enough to stop it takes control, there will be guerrilla war in Iraq.

The concept of guerilla warfare as a viable strategy was first discussed by Karl von Clausewitz in his doctrinal study "On War". His direct observation of small unit actions employed against a superior force led von Clausewitz to evaluate the relative utility of irregular forces as a means of effective resistance. Von Clausewitz was, along with Napoleon, a theorist of the first order whose observations and conclusions broke with traditional military theory. In short, both of these men correctly observed strategy as a fluid set of plans designed to seize initiative with changing battlefield conditions.
In Ireland after the British repression of the 1916 Easter Rising, a young officer named Michael Collins saw the value of the concerted efforts of irregular units acting independently for the same strategic goals. The Crown employed both regular soldiers (the dreaded Black and Tans) and intelligence assets against the newly formed Irish Republican Army. Collins, a shrewed planner and spymaster, was able to obtain the names of British assets that had been planted inside various Irish factions. This group, called the Cairo Gang, was a select unit of spies and assassins. Collins dispatched hit teams and liquidated them before the group could become an effective intelligence source for the British. Michael Collins and others also organized select raids on police and military barracks to seize arms and munitions for the fight. As the British took reprisals on Ireland's civil population, Collins and others did likewise until public opinion in the UK turned against the occupation. Though the movement did not result in a complete withdrawal, it set the stage for the founding of the Free State and did cost the British a disproportionate number of casualties.
After the Russian Revolution, many Czarist army units reconstituted themselves as irregular armies to fight against the Bolshevik government. Generals Deniken and Kolchak used hit and run tactics against large formations of the Red Army. The Cossacks did likewise as well as various nationalities who sought autonomy from Moscow. During the Civil War, this caused much chaos as internal borders and zones of control shifted about. The guerilla actions of various regional armies continued until about 1922-23.
Mao Zedong introduced the modern concept of guerilla warfare. Mao combined Marxist ideology with the concept of a highly mobile army of peasant irregulars who moved at will within the countryside engaging the enemy at their advantage. Mao's operational strategy was based upon the classical Chinese theorist Sun Tzu's Art of War. Essentially, it called for limited engagements in which small isolated units of the superior army were joined in battles of limited scale and duration. The guerillas were to forage weapons and ordnance from their enemies while relying on a politically sympathetic populace for aid. From the 1930's until the post WW2 civil war, Mao used these tactics with varying degrees of success against Chinese warlords (particularly his rival, Chaing Kai Shek) and the Japanese. Mao's strategic vision is considered textbook modern guerilla warfare and inspired the majority of post WW2 guerilla movements across the world.
Guerilla warfare is not a formula for short term success. It is meant to be a slow and demoralizing war of attrition for the larger army. The essence of guerilla warfare is that the insurgents uses its size and operational mobility to seize temporary opportunities to strike military, support, and hostile civilian targets; including vehicle convoys, aircraft, supply facilities, infrastructure, and personnel. The Iraqis have done this with varying degrees of success by a combination of selective assassinations of foreign military and civil personnel, domestic collaborators, and vital targets of economic importance. If I were a commander on the side of the Iraqi insurgents, this would be my plan of operations:
1) Selected assassinations of hostile natives and/or their families who are working with the Americans or other foreign government or civilian organizations. I would make certain that the killings were low key and at the same time, I'd leave warning notes indicating similar treatment for others.
2) Selected assassinations or attacks on international and domestic aid organizations. I would actively use the Jihadist zealots as suicide bombers to damage and to destroy effective aid efforts to contribute to the physical suffering of the population. In time, the people's blame will shift toward the occupying army.
3) Actively recruit children as informers and intelligence assets in both urban and rural areas. Appeal to their sense of religion, patriotism, or their desire to be a heroic figure. Children are effective spies in a superficial and limitied capacity. Additionally, they may be called upon to become assassins or suicide bombers as needed.
4) Continue the current use of roadside mines and remotely activated bombs. These efforts require a minimal risk to insurgent personnel and are effective at lowering the morale of enemy soldiers.
5) Actively recruit foreign zealots as Jihad fighters for either guerilla or suicide missions. Insure that there are adequate resources to perform at least one small to medium scale suicide bombing per week. Start using similar techniques as Hamas, which is one bomber wearing an explosive device in an urban area. Have the vest bombers attack police stations and barracks as the opportunity arises.
6) Plant snipers inside large metropolitan areas. Have the selected personnel remain as a sleeper until such need arises. In unstable areas, have the snipers to hit targets of opportunity; be they foreign or collaborator.
7) Continually disrupt the production and transportation of oil resources. At every opportunity, damage or destroy equipment and make a concerted effort to target technical specialists for assassination.
8) Recruit personnel inside the new government or Iraqis working for foreign contractors. Use intimidation, threats, or appeals to religion/patriotism to obtain their service. Have them to steal information or commit covert acts of sabotage as they are able.
9) Above all else, avoid large scale confrontations with the enemy. Also, all units should operate on the cell level with no more than five fighters per group. No cell should know details of the other and if any is proven to be an informer, liquidate the traitor and disband the cell immediately.

Keep in mind, all of this is entirely theoretical. I am no cheerleader for the Iraqi resistance and thank God that insurgent actions seem to have calmed a bit.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sun-tzu/works/art-of-war/index.htm

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/1937/guerrilla-warfare/index.htm

And if someone really wants to get closer to the heart of things:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/index.htm

How things work.

You wrote a very detailed and intelligent post. Good work!

Since I am stuck living in the Valley these days (Shenandoah Valley for you outsiders), I might as well throw in a name you inevitably run across here. Mosby.

He fought for the wrong side, but he was talented at what he did. As a history geek, I must acknowledge that much.

http://www.mosbymuseum.org/history/john_mosby.html

Read the book(s) by che guevara.

The afganis kicked the russians ass.

Winners:
1) Mao Zedong, against the Japanese in 1945 and Chaing Kai Shek in 1949.
2) Fidel Castro, against Bautista in 1959.
3) Ho Chi Mihn, against the Japanese in 1945 and France in 1953.
4) Josip Broz Tito, against Germany and its Axis allies, 1945.
5) Sandanistas, against Anastozio Samoza, 1979.
6) Various Afghan factions, against the USSR, 1979-1988.


Losers:
1) Malayan Communist Party, 1948-60, against the UK. They were beaten by a wide variety of tactics. The best instituted by the British was to legislate that all rice sold must be cooked and that all canned food have hole punched in the top at the point of sale. This insured that insurgents were limited in access to foodstuffs.
2) Viet Cong, 1968. Despite the propaganda spin, the Tet Offensive was an abject failure for the Viet Cong. Their organization in the South threw themselves on a sword with the mass attacks that broke their operational capacity. The NVA took over after Tet and many surviving VC veterans found themselves in re-education camps after the war.
3) Drazha Mihailovic, Chetniks, against Tito and the Axis, 1941-46. Miahailovic was a Serb patriot who was against Communism and the Axis, which made his position untenable.
4) Hungarian freedom fighters, Oct-Nov 1956, against the USSR. These fighters were coalesced after a spontaneous revolt against Soviet occupation and Stalinist rule in Hungary. Their street fighting inflicted heavy casualties on the Red Army, but the overwhelming numbers in the Soviet invasion and lack of recognition from NATO insured their defeat.
5) Various post World War 2 organizations behind the Iron Curtain. In the wake of German defeat, many nationalist movements fostered by the Abwehr continued to operate. Among them were the Forest Brothers, a rural guerilla organization in the Baltic states. They attacked targets of opportunity for about 8-10 years surviving on local sympathies until they were discovered by the KGB. Ukrainian patriots continued operations until the 1960's making some areas of the region ungovernable.

Draw:
1) The Irish Republican Army, since 1916, various incarnations. The IRA has been effective in bringing the British to the negotiating table and essentially, that's it. Sectarian violence in the North has not abated and has even become worse because of Protestant escalations against Catholics. In its history, the IRA has changed focus and endured much in-fighting and factionalism.
2) Palestine Liberation Organization, since the 1960's. Same as above, except in Israel.
3) Shining Path, Peru, since the 1960's. Primarily, an urban Maoist organization with operational focus on the indigenous population. With the arrest of Abimail Guzman in 1992, they've essentially been hobbled, but are still in existence on an underground level.
4) Maoists in Nepal, since 1996. Limited operational capacity to isolated attacks on police and military targets of opportunity. The organization has effective control over much of the countryside. Their efforts have not been decisive and support outside of rural areas is not a factor in recruitment. They've initiated and broken a series of cease fires and are currently negotiating for legal political status.
5) Zapatistas, in Mexico since 1994. Guerilla warfare as PR, their insurrection a decade ago made them highly visible as an example of indigenous people suffering the effects of globalism. Limited military action since the revolt.

for the history of irregular warfare with emphasis on Vietnam.

the IRA. Yes, it's guerilla war in Iraq regardless of whether they call it that.