Guerrilla Warfare

A style of war in which groups of fighters harass their enemies instead of confronting them in great battles. With few exceptions, guerrilla groups are smaller than their adversaries; therefore, guerrilla tactics rely on surprise attacks and the ability to evade detection. Guerrilla strategists stress the importance of propaganda to secure public support because sympathetic civilians provide refuge and supplies. Most campaigns follow a strategy of protracted war, which slowly erodes the enemy's military strength and will to continue.

Tactics and Strategies

“The ability to run away,” wrote Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong, “is the very characteristic of the guerrilla.” Evasion is a core principle of guerrilla fighting, for two reasons. First, it prevents larger enemies from amassing forces effectively. Guerilla forces cannot expose themselves for long without risking destruction. Second, it keeps the enemy off balance. As long as the location of guerilla units is unknown, guerillas can choose from enemy weak spots in emplacements and supply lines.

Guerrillas traditionally operate in rural areas, where it is easier to hide. They historically have used themes of land redistribution to gain support in the [Page 308]countryside. Advocates of urban guerilla warfare point out that increasing urbanization makes this tactic less useful. When guerillas operate within cities, the line between unconventional warfare and terrorism becomes blurred because urban attacks almost invariably produce civilian casualties.

A soldier surveying the area just outside Camp Delta in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The U.S. Army and members of other services are charged with guarding the Camp Delta facilities, where detainees in the war against terrorism are being held. The camp, constructed in 2002 to hold suspected terrorists captured during the war in Afghanistan, houses several hundred prisoners. Allegations of abuse against prisoners have led to controversy over the camp in recent years.

U.S. Army.

At the strategic level, guerrillas tend to prefer protracted campaigns. This is unsurprising, given their asymmetric disadvantage. Guerrillas avoid direct confrontation with the enemy because they are usually numerically inferior. To overcome conventional weaknesses, they inflict small amounts of pain over a long period. This has two purposes. In some cases, protracted warfare gradually wears away the enemy's strength and sets the stage for the destruction of its army. Mao Zedong, who, among other things, is probably the most famous theorist of guerrilla warfare, argued that the final stage in a protracted campaign is the destruction of the enemy.

In other cases, guerrilla fighting aims to reduce the will of the larger force to continue fighting. This assumes that the enemy can replenish its forces indefinitely, but not his political resolve. The U.S. experience in Vietnam is illustrative. After North Vietnam conducted the Tet Offensive in January 1968, the United States responded with a devastating counteroffensive. However, despite this battlefield success, the war was becoming unpopular at home. Irregular fighters called the Vietcong were able to hide, regroup, and continue fighting for several more years. The conflict seemed interminable, and mounting public dissent gave U.S. leaders a strong reason to withdraw.

Protracted wars are extremely painful for guerrillas, who endure prolonged deprivation. Thus, they depend crucially on the relative balance of interests; if guerrillas have much more at stake, then they may expect to reach a favorable settlement. To conduct this kind of warfare over long stretches, guerrillas require fairly sophisticated organization to maintain supplies and strategic coherence. They also need good intelligence about enemy weak points, or else attacks may prove disastrous.

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