Guerrilla warfare

Guerrilla is a term invented in Spain to describe the tactics used to resist the French regime instituted by Napoleon Bonaparte. It means "little war". It is based in small, mobile and flexible combat groups called cells, without a front line. Guerrilla tactics are based on ambush and sabotage, and their ultimate objective is usually to destabilize the government through long, low-intensity confrontation. It can be quite successful against an unpopular foreign regime, in which the guerrilla army increases the cost of maintaining a colonies above what the foreign power is willing to bear. Examples of successful guerilla warfare include Indonesia, Angola, Mozambique and Algeria. However, it has generally been unsuccessful against native regimes, who have nowhere to retreat to. The rare examples of successful guerilla warfare against a native regime include Cuba and China. More common are the unsuccessful examples which include Malaysia, Bolivia, Argentina, and the Philippines.

Guerrillas usually control rural areas with lots of places to hide, such as forests and mountains. Guerrillas rely on a friendly population to provide supply and intelligence.

Maoist theory of people's war divides warfare into three phases. In the first phase, the guerrillas gain the support of the population. In the second phase, involved escalating attacks which become more and more conventional. In the third phase, conventional means to overthrow the government.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Latin America had a number of urban guerilla movements whose strategy was to destablize democratic regimes and provoke a counter-reaction by the

military. The theory was that a harsh military regime would oppress the middle classes who would then support the guerillas create a popular uprising. Unfortunately, while these movements did destablize governments, such as Argentina and Uruguay, to the point of military intervention, the military generally then proceeded to wipe out the guerilla movements, often committing extreme human rights violations in the process.

The Vietnam War is commonly thought of as a guerilla war in the United States. However this is misleading simplication of a more

complex situation which followed the pattern outlined by Maoist theory. It is the case the Vietcong used guerilla tactics in the early phases of the war. However, by 1965 when American involvement escalated, the Vietcong where in the process of being replaced by regular units of the North Vietnamese Army. These

units were organized along traditional military lines, were supplyed

via the Ho Chi Minh trail rather than living off the land, and had

access to and in general used weapons such as artillery, which are not

normally used by guerilla forces.

Over time, more of the fighting was conducted by the North Vietnamese Army and the character of the war become increasely conventional. The

final offensive into South Vietnam in 1975 was a completely conventional

military operation with no elements of guerilla warfare.

/Talk