Guerrilla Warfare

The first documented, systematic study of a truly revolutionary subject, this 1937 text remains the definitive guide to guerrilla warfare. It concisely explains unorthodox strategies that transform disadvantages into benefits.

New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Notable Book (Nonfiction) Named one of the Best Books of the Year by Foreign Policy A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Selection “Destined to be the classic account of what may be the oldest... hardest form of war.” —John Nagl, Wall Street Journal Invisible Armies presents an entirely original narrative of warfare, which demonstrates that, far from the exception, loosely organized partisan or guerrilla warfare has been the dominant form of military conflict throughout history. New York Times best-selling author and military historian Max Boot traces guerrilla warfare and terrorism from antiquity to the present, narrating nearly thirty centuries of unconventional military conflicts. Filled with dramatic analysis of strategy and tactics, as well as many memorable characters—from Italian nationalist Guiseppe Garibaldi to the “Quiet American,” Edward Lansdale—Invisible Armies is “as readable as a novel” (Michael Korda, Daily Beast) and “a timely reminder to politicians and generals of the hard-earned lessons of history” (Economist).

Guerrilla insurgencies continue to rage across the globe, fueled by ethnic and religious conflict and the easy availability of weapons. At the same time, urban population centers in both industrialized and developing nations attract ever-increasing numbers of people, outstripping rural growth rates worldwide. As a consequence of this population shift from the countryside to the cities, guerrilla conflict in urban areas, similar to the violent response to U.S. occupation in Iraq, will become more frequent. Urban Guerrilla Warfare traces the diverse origins of urban conflicts and identifies similarities and differences in the methods of counterinsurgent forces. In this wide-ranging and richly detailed comparative analysis, Anthony James Joes examines eight key examples of urban guerrilla conflict spanning half a century and four continents: Warsaw in 1944, Budapest in 1956, Algiers in 1957, Montevideo and São Paulo in the 1960s, Saigon in 1968, Northern Ireland from 1970 to 1998, and Grozny from 1994 to 1996. Joes demonstrates that urban insurgents violate certain fundamental principles of guerrilla warfare as set forth by renowned military strategists such as Carl von Clausewitz and Mao Tse-tung. Urban guerrillas operate in finite areas, leaving themselves vulnerable to encirclement and ultimate defeat. They also tend to abandon the goal of establishing a secure base or a cross-border sanctuary, making precarious combat even riskier. Typically, urban guerrillas do not solely target soldiers and police; they often attack civilians in an effort to frighten and disorient the local population and discredit the regime. Thus urban guerrilla warfare becomes difficult to distinguish from simple terrorism. Joes argues persuasively against committing U.S. troops in urban counterinsurgencies, but also offers cogent recommendations for the successful conduct of such operations where they must be undertaken.

Tracing the development of the Irish Republican Army following Ireland's Declaration of Independence, this book focuses on the recruitment, training, and arming of Ireland's military volunteers and the Army's subsequent guerrilla campaign against British rule. Beginning with a brief account of the failed Easter Rising, it continues through the resulting military and political reorganizations, the campaign's various battles, and the eventual truce agreements and signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. Other topics include the significance of Irish intelligence and British counter-intelligence efforts; urban warfare and the fight for Dublin; and the role of female soldiers, suffragists, and other women in waging the IRA's campaign.

'Revolution' is a word that causes fear in some, exhilaration in others, and confusion in most. Originally used to describe a restoration, it eventually came to mean a sweeping, sudden attack on an existing order. Human history has borne witness to a variety of national and social revolutions - population revolution, revolution of ideas, technological revolution, and revolution in education. Simultaneously, there has been a proliferation of literature on revolution, armed struggle, and violence aimed at unseating policies and leadership of governments and societies.Revolutionary struggles are more than simply armed internal conflict; they involve the essence of the political system. The desire to make such phenomena understandable often leads to oversimplification. Attempts to encompass their multi-dimensional nature, on the other hand, can become immersed in complexities, ambiguities, and misinterpretations. The perspective of this classic volume, available in paperback for the first time, is that revolution is here to stay. Guerrilla warfare, according to Sarkesian, is a particularly useful strategy for the weak, the frustrated, the alienated, and seekers of power against existing regimes. The collected works in this volume examine the social roots of revolution, development of strategy and tactics, practice in city and countryside, dilemmas of attackers and defenders.The actors and thinkers collected and analyzed here range from leading political analysts, anthropologists, sociologists, historians, and officials as well as practitioners of guerrilla warfare. This core text with primary sources in the area of war, revolution, and insurgence develops an understanding of revolution, traces the growth of guerilla doctrine, and studies the specifics of revolutionary and counterrevolutionary guerilla warfare.

This concise history of guerilla warfare presents profiles in combat courage from George Washington to Simón Bolívar, Mao Zedong, and beyond. The concept of guerrilla warfare is centuries old, with Sun Tzu’s writing on the subject dating back to the sixth century BC. One of the earliest recorded examples of guerrilla tactics deployed by a military leader was the campaign of Roman general Fabius Maximus, who took a course of evasion and harassment against Hannibal’s columns. Guerilla Warfare is a compendium of prominent guerrilla leaders across the globe, from thirteenth-century Scotland’s William Wallace to modern-day Sri Lanka’s Velupillai Prabhakaran. It profiles each leader to analyze their personal history, military tactics, and political strategy. All are home-grown leaders of extended guerrilla campaigns. Many became the first leaders of their liberated countries. Both victories and defeats are included here in an analysis of effective guerrilla tactics as well as counterinsurgency strategies. Today, the labels of insurgent, freedom fighter, and jihadi are fast replacing guerrilla. The old notion of the guerrilla, associated with fights for independence and the end of colonialization, has dimmed with modern and far-reaching religious insurgencies taking their place. This concise history gives a fascinating overview of a once history-altering form of warfare.

This book deals with guerrilla warfare; it does not aim at presenting a universal theory, for such a theory would be either exceedingly vague or exceedingly wrong. The present volume is the first part of a wider study which, the author believes, has not been attempted before - a critical interpretation of guerrilla and terrorist theory and practice