Guerrilla Warfare

Abstract

Since World War II guerrilla warfare has attracted world-wide attention. Some twenty countries have undergone extensive guerrilla activities. Almost half of -the population on the earth has been involved in this struggle. Millions of lives have been sacrificed and billions of dollars spent. Indeed guerrilla warfare is one of the most serious concerns of our time. Just what is guerrilla warfare? Who may be called a guerrilla? • Historically, the term guerrilla originated in Spain during the Peninsular War (1808-14) when the Spanish irregulars and civilians harassed the troops of Napoleon while he was trying to control the country and to expel the English from the Iberian Peninsula. Literally, it meant 'small war', and the man who participated in waging such a war was called a guerrillero; but he also called himself a partido, or a partisan. That is how the terms guerrilla and partisan became interchangeable. In the meantime, through the generations, rebels used to crown themselves with honorable names, whereas the incumbents tended to degrade them. For instance, during the last war, Russian irregulars called themselves partisans or 'fighters of freedom'; yet the Germans termed these same partisans Banditen or bandits. By the same token, Mao Tse-tung and Chin Peng and their 'liberation fighters' were labeled as 'bandits' by the Chinese Nationalists and the British, respectively. There, has been a tendency to refer to all forms of sustained disorder and rebellion, from bandits to devoted political revolutionaries, as guerrilla activity. Remarked Valeriano and Bohannan: 'Probably no areas of military thought and practice are so plagued with semantic and definitional difficulties (and misconceptions)'.1 Guerrilla warfare, like regular warfare, started in a very simple and primitive way. Slowly yet steadily, it proceeded toward its present form along with the advancing political thinking, science, and technology7. The first guerrilla war recorded in Chinese history, was around 3,600 B.C. when