Guerrilla warfare

John Heelan replies to the posting which began " Tim Brown, like Cameron Sawyer, rejects John Heelan's idea of the invincibility of guerrillas. His reply: "It all turns on what you mean by "win". If the objective is to defeat the other side militarily on the field of battle, then Tim is right because in the end the deciding factor is the level of technology and finance. The bigger army will always have the biggest guns.

However, if "win" means to achieve the objective of getting the other side to the negotiating table, then Tim is perhaps mistaken. Given the fragmentation of guerrilla units, even the most overwhelming fire power will never defeat them completely, unless every single guerrilla is killed- a situation unlikely to happen as the guerrilla ethic is passed, and reinforced, from generation to generation (as we Brits saw in Northern Ireland and Sharon will see in Palestine). Thus the only sure way to stamp out guerrilla warfare is by killing all the fighters and their families---suspiciously like genocide. Possibly Sharon might have to adopt this approach if a political solution is not considered possible- a new Holocaust?"

Harry Papasoteriou Says: "Leading strategic theorists such as Clausewitz and Liddell Hart argued, that guerrilla campaigns were unlikely to succeed without the cooperation of a friendly state and its regular army. The historical record substantially confirms their theoretical analyses. An early instance is Napoleon's eviction from Spain, which the Spanish guerrillas - whence the term - could not have brought about without the assistance of Wellington's Portugal-based army. The defeat of the two Cold War superpowers in Vietnam and Afghanistan has created an image of the invincible guerrilla, which obscures the extent to which the outcome of these conflicts depended on the assistance by advanced states that the guerrillas enjoyed. The United States did not lose 8.000 aircraft in Vietnam because of guerrilla-manufactured SAMs - and anyway, from 1964 a steadily increasing portion of the fighting on the Communist side was undertaken by regular North Vietnamese forces. Likewise the mujahedeen could not have defeated the Soviets without the Stingers, which were very advanced technology in the mid 80s".

Ronald Hilton - 5/9/02