An accounting of conventional and limited war in a nuclear age must take guerrilla warfare into account as well. In a sense, whereas one side of the overall warfare coin is conventional warfare when we take the wars of the late 20th and 21st centuries into account, the other side of the coin has very much been guerrilla warfare. And in a sense, guerrilla warfare is a form of coercion, whereby the threat of damage that looms over the opposing party forces them to eventually quit or surrender. One expert wrote: “The tactic of forcing, by attacks on life and property, an enemy to commit himself to battle is often crucial to guerilla operations and – when it can be done – to counterguerrilla operations.”
As Liddell Hart noted, the term “guerrilla warfare” became popularized after popular resistance against Napoleon’s army in Spain. Since then, guerrilla warfare has very much become a “universal feature” of warfare. And just as nuclear weapons could not fully negate conventional warfare, nuclear weapons could not negate guerrilla warfare either. As Liddell Hart wrote: “The implied threat of using nuclear weapons to curb guerillas was as absurd as to talk of using a sledgehammer to ward off a swarm of mosquitos. The policy did not make sense, and the natural effect was to stimulate and encourage the forms of aggression by erosion to which nuclear weapons were an inapplicable counter.”
“Hit and run” as opposed to direct engagement is the crux of guerrilla operations, for as Liddell Hart noted: “For a multiplicity of minor coups and threats can have a greater effect in tipping the scales than a few major hits, by producing more cumulative distraction, disturbance, and demoralization among the enemy, along with a more widespread impression among the population. Ubiquity combined with intangibility is a basic secret of progress in such a campaign.”
“Dispersion” and “momentum” are what keep guerrilla operations going. “Static” and “fixed” defense “has no place” in guerrilla operations unless it is in the setting of an ambush. Altogether, the aim of such a strategy is spelled out by Liddell Hart when he wrote: “[Guerrilla] strategy must always aim to produce the enemy’s increasing overstretch, physical and moral.”
Moreover, guerillas maintain the support of the local population, whereas the occupying force does not wield such support. Liddell Hart wrote: “Guerrilla war is waged by the few but dependent on the support of the many.” He added: “Although in itself the most individual form of action, it can operate effectively and attain its end only when collectively backed by the sympathy of the masses.” Guerrilla warfare is thus most effective “if it blends an appeal to national resistance or desire for independence with an appeal to a socially and economically discontent population, thus becoming revolutionary in a wider sense.”
Nor is there any real “counterstrategy” against guerrilla warfare on the part of foreign occupiers except to fight fire with fire. The essence of guerrilla warfare is very much national or popular resistance against a foreign conqueror or foreign occupier. There is neither an effective “counterstrategy” against guerrilla warfare on the part of foreign occupiers, nor is there a proper understanding of it either. As Liddell Hart wrote:
“However tempting the idea may seem of replying to our opponents ‘camouflaged war’ activities by counter-offensive moves of the same kind, it would be wiser to devise and pursue a more subtle and far-seeing counter-strategy. In any case, those who frame policy and apply it need a better understanding of the subject than has been shown in the past.”
On the other hand, critics of guerrilla warfare have noted that guerrilla warfare can for one bring on irreparable damage from the foreign occupier, undermine basic civic authority in the way of fighting a foreign occupier, and even plunge a nation into civil war after the foreign occupier has been dealt with as in the case of Afghanistan in the 1990’s. Thus, considering that there are both critics and proponents and that there are essentially two sides to the debate with one for and one against guerrilla warfare, it is perhaps a matter of preference and taste, in the sense that it depends on whether one’s preference and taste inclines towards Western imperialism and interventionism or towards popular resistance and struggle in the non-western world.
Adam A. Azim 