A guerrilla war is a sustained armed resistance by relatively small, mobile, and loosely coordinated units, often composed of nonprofessional combatants against an organized military force. “Guerrilla” actions involve hit-and-run tactics of raid and ambush, highly mobile operations that do not usually defend fixed points and that are designed to avoid contact except in cases where an overwhelming local superiority might be achieved, such as against a patrol or a small outpost. It is an approach to resistance often adopted when recourse to more direct military opposition is impossible for technological or balance-of-forces reasons—a smaller or less technologically advanced force may adopt it as the only rational choice. Such approaches to war are not new, and may be a normative style of war in many ...