John Brown as guerrilla terrorist

John Brown is usually not considered to have been a terrorist, and even recent analyses of his activities consider him to be a guerrilla fighter or insurgent in his activities in Kansas. Brown, however, meets the criteria of a terrorist more than a guerrilla fighter when his activities in the Kansas Territory are considered. His raid on Harpers Ferry, however, is more in line with guerrilla operations or insurgent activities.     

现代反恐怖作战反游击战理论初探

世纪之交 ,美俄等军队进行的几场反恐怖战争 ,其对手在处于劣势时 ,通常以游击战术与之对抗。因此 ,美俄军队在反恐怖作战中 ,也运用反游击战手段反制恐怖武装 ,其高技术条件下的反游击战战略战术对取得战争胜利起到了至关重要的作用。     

The National resistance army (NRA) as a guerrilla force

Africa has had no shortage of guerrilla movements since 1975. However, very few have been successful that have not fought against European colonial rule or white minority regimes. Fundamentally, without external support, these movements have been almost universally failures. One major exception to this rule was the National Resistance Army of Uganda, which overthrew the regime led by General Tito Okello in 1986. What made the National Resistance Army a success and distinct from other guerrilla armies were its sound leadership, its superior organization and its creative strategy.     

Reluctant guerrillas in early nineteenth century China: the White Lotus insurgents and their suppressors

ABSTRACT

At the turn of the nineteenth century, China’s Qing dynasty (1644–1912) was hit by a sectarian rebellion. Commonly considered a breakpoint marking the end of the dynasty’s golden age spanning most of the eighteenth century, the war to suppress the rebels, referred to as the White Lotus War (1796–1804) in this article (‘White Lotus’ was the umbrella name used by both the authorities and some sectarians for their teaching), exposed many structural drawbacks of the Qing political and military systems and depleted the dynasty’s financial resources, which had never been recovered. Reluctant in embracing guerrilla warfare in the beginning, the insurgents quickly turned themselves into master guerrillas. Shuttling in two massive mountain ranges in central China, they managed to prolong their rebellion and fought some successful battles against their suppressors. Superior in manpower, weaponry, and logistical support, the government forces had to adapt to guerrilla warfare, albeit passively and ineptly. This article gives a brief introduction to this little-known episode of guerrilla war at the turn of the nineteenth century in Qing China, expounds the strengths and weaknesses of both sides, and sheds light on the roots of the war’s long duration and the grim consequences to the Qing state.     

Review Article: Reading Guerrilla Radio in Wartime Liberia

Numerous writers have acknowledged the importance of radio communications and hate propaganda in the Liberian civil war (1990–1997), but none have explored the subject in depth. A wide variety of related issues have been neglected, including military efforts to seize control of broadcast facilities, the deliberate manipulation of public information and perceptions, and the implications of both for wartime atrocities and post-war justice. In the following essay, I identify and discuss six general strands of thought on guerrilla radio broadcasting and communications in wartime Liberia. The first looks to the relationship between mass media and the state in the pre-civil war era. The second covers the cooption of the wartime free press. Three further themes – Charles Taylor's cultivation of personal power, the relevance of broadcasting for rebel command and control capabilities, and Taylor's media dominance during the 1997 Presidential campaign – demonstrate the strategic and public roles of radio communications and broadcasting. Finally, I look to written survivor memoirs for elite responses to wartime media monopolies, guerrilla propaganda, and psychological warfare. I conclude with some notes on indicators for future research, and their implications for historical and contemporary issues in Liberia.     

Women combatants and the liberation movements in South Africa

This article examines women's role as combatants in national liberation forces in South Africa. Three categories – guerrilla girls, combative mothers and the in-betweeners – are introduced to underscore the varied ways in which women have participated in combat within the national liberation movements. Factors such as age and one's ability to leave the country affected whether women could participate in combat as ‘guerrilla girls’ or if it limited them to fighting apartheid violence from home, or if there were women who can be defined as having fallen somewhere in between these categories. These categories are used to theorise women's combat roles in the anti-apartheid struggle, thus broadening and challenging the dominant notions of combat that often hide women's contributions in war. In this regard, different periods of struggle, physical location, as well as age, determined the methods of activism available to men and women.     

Poachers turned gamekeepers: A study of the guerrilla phenomenon in Spain, 1808–1840

This article modifies the associations made by historians and political scientists of Spanish guerrilla warfare with revolutionary insurgency. First, it explains how the guerrilla phenomenon moved from a Leftist to a reactionary symbol. Second, it compares the insurgency and counter-insurgency features of the Carlist War (1833–1840) with those of the better-known Peninsular War (1808–1814). Third, it shows how erstwhile guerrilla leaders during the Carlist War made their expertise available to the counter-insurgency, in a socio-economic as well as military setting. This article revises the social banditry paradigm in nineteenth-century Spain in the under-researched context of Europe bloodiest nineteenth-century civil war.     

Professionalization and suicidal defence planning by the Irish army, 1921–1941

Recently declassified war plans reveal the Irish Army preparing a conventional defence against expected British invasion in 1940–41. Irish Army planners realized such a defence would have been suicidal in the face of overwhelming British military superiority, yet they rejected the obvious alternative of preparing a defence which incorporated their operational experience of guerrilla warfare from the Anglo‐Irish War of 1919–21. This was because in building a professional organization in the 1920s and 1930s, Army leaders formed beliefs about military professionalism by imitating the British Army. This, in turn, led them to believe that guerrilla warfare was not the business of professional armies.     

Memory,magic and militias: Cora Indian participation in Mexico’s wars,from the reforma to the revolution (1854-1920)

ABSTRACT

Mexico’s Cora Indians have played an outsized role in national history, thanks to their skilful use of guerrilla tactics and success in forging strategic alliances with outside forces in defence of their cultural, territorial and political autonomy. Cora participation in elite struggles between Liberals and Conservatives (1850–73), and subsequently in the Mexican Revolution (1910–20), helped to shape the way that both conflicts played out in Western Mexico. Such participation also allowed Cora communities to keep hold of traditional landholdings in the face of political and economic reform, while sowing the seeds for the foundation of the Mexican state of Nayarit.     

With an eye to history: The origins and development of ‘Stay-Behind’ in Norway

Based on full access to Norwegian archives up to 1970, the article describes the origins and development of ‘stay-behind’– an organized preparedness, under the aegis of the Norwegian Intelligence Service, for intelligence and sabotage behind enemy lines in case of a Soviet occupation. Initiated by Defence Minister Jens Christian Hauge, wartime leader of the Norwegian military resistance, the set-up built on lessons learnt during the German occupation, when effective resistance was hampered by inexperience and improvisation. Secrecy and security, and national Norwegian control albeit with cooperative links with British and American secret services, were distinctive features of the networks that came into being from 1948 onwards. NATO began to take an interest from 1952, but SACEUR's main concern was for ‘retardation’– guerrilla and sabotage activities to delay Soviet forces even before entering NATO territory.     

潜载/舰载作战系统的对抗效能分析

首先分析了潜艇与水面舰艇对抗时的相对效能,然后强调了潜艇隐蔽作战方式的重要性．最后,对提高潜载作战系统效能关键技术的发展提出了建议．     

Conceptualisation of Guerrilla Warfare

Guerrilla warfare is not a new phenomenon and history is witness to its repeated occurrence. In the modern era it acquired prominence during the Napoleonic Wars which led to an examination of its role by leading nineteenth-century thinkers, including Clausewitz, Jomini, Marx and Engels. Over the course of the subsequent century, the concept and practice of guerrilla warfare was integrated within social, economic and political programmes that aimed to overthrow established authority and transform society through an armed struggle. The link that was forged in the mid-nineteenth century by Italian and Polish revolutionaries like Carlo Bianco and Mazzini achieved fruition in the writings and practice of Mao Tse-Tung in the twentieth century. This paper traces conceptualisation, evolution and articulation of guerrilla warfare.     

A Clash of Wills: Hizballah's Psychological Campaign Against Israel in South Lebanon

This article analyzes Hizballah's war against Israel in south Lebanon as a psychological contest where public opinion, perception, and persuasion were the real determinants of victory. Hizballah successfully mobilized popular support for its war by communicating nationalist and religious themes to different sectarian groups in Lebanon. At the same time, it used classic guerrilla warfare as a carefully calibrated psychological tool to erode the morale of Israeli forces, their Lebanese allies, and the Israeli public's support for the war. Hizballah's sophisticated media capability, particularly combat video footage aired on its satellite TV station and the Internet, played a critical role in amplifying the effects of its attrition campaign. By orchestrating information-age media and guerrilla tactics, this strategy has important implications for the future of irregular warfare.     

Orde Wingate, ‘Guerrilla’ Warfare and Long-range Penetration, 1940–44

Major General Orde Wingate was a highly controversial figure in his time and remains so among historians. However, his eccentric and colourful personality has drawn attention away from the nature of his military ideas, the most important of which was his concept of long-range penetration, which originated from his observations of his operations in Italian-occupied Ethiopia in 1941, and evolved into the model he put into practice in the Chindit operations in Burma in 1943–44. A review of Wingate's own official writings on this subject reveals that long-range penetration combined local guerrilla irregulars, purpose-trained regular troops and airpower into large-scale offensive operations deep in the enemy rear, with the intention of disrupting his planning process and creating situations regular forces could exploit. This evolved organically from Major General Colin Gubbins' doctrine for guerrilla resistance in enemy occupied areas, and bears some resemblance to the operational model applied by US and Allied forces, post September 2001.     

The French navy and the Algerian war

The French Navy's part in the Algerian War has been overlooked, but was vitally important. It took two main forms. The first, and primary, mission was to cut off the Algerian nationalists from outside support by a rigorous coastal blockade. Maritime surveillance in the Mediterranean and along the Algerian littoral achieved this. Inshore patrol vessels, supported by larger warships, sealed the routes by which the nationalists sought to infiltrate weapons and newly-trained guerrilla fighters from camps and arms dumps in Tunisia and Morocco. The French Navy intercepted cargo ships that sailed from East Bloc ports, attempting to smuggle arms into the Algerian nationalists. The most celebrated successes were the seizures of the Athos, Slovenija and Lidice in 1958–59. The Navy's second mission involved the deployment ashore, from April 1956, of the marine infantry (the demibrigade of Fusiliers-Marins). These units participated in the sweeps by French army units and engaged insurgent bands. They also garrisoned and protected installations, port facilities and transport networks in Algeria's coastal hinterland.     

Understanding Proto-Insurgencies

Abstract

Why do some small terrorist and guerrilla groups succeed in becoming full-blown insurgencies while many others fail? Proto-insurgencies face many difficulties in creating an insurgent movement: they must create a politically salient identity, harness a compelling cause, create an effective sanctuary, and defeat both violent and peaceful organizational rivals, all while evading the police and security services of the much more powerful state. Outside support is a mixed blessing for proto-insurgents. Often, the ultimate success of the proto-insurgency in becoming a full-blown insurgency depends on the mistakes of the government it opposes.     

A predisposition to brutality? German practices against civilians and francs-tireurs during the Franco-Prussian war 1870–1871 and their relevance for the German ‘military Sonderweg’ debate

ABSTRACT

The German Sonderweg thesis has been discarded in most research fields. Yet in regards to the military, things differ: all conflicts before the Second World War are interpreted as prelude to the war of extermination between 1939–1945. This article specifically looks at the Franco-Prussian War 1870–71 and German behaviour vis-à-vis regular combatants, civilians and irregular guerrilla fighters, the so-called francs-tireurs. The author argues that the counter-measures were not exceptional for nineteenth century warfare and also shows how selective reading of the existing secondary literature has distorted our view on the war.     

Survival and effectiveness of a weapon system against a superior force (guerrilla warfare)

Stochastic models are developed for a weapon system which attacks at a certain rate, but withdraws when attacked (guerrilla warfare). The models yield as output the distributions and mean values in closed form of the survival period and number of attacks made. As input are, for the weapon system, attack rate or amount of ammunition and time horizon, and, for the opponent, kill rate and probability of killing the weapon system, given the opponent has been attacked (strike back performance of the opponent). One model allows, however, for strike back also by the weapon system, when attacked by the opponent. This model is then used to determine, when the weapon system should strike back. The models are based on the Poisson and the binomial processes. Consistency among the models is shown and an example is provided.     

A lost work of El Lobo: Lieutenant-Colonel Charles T.R. Bohannan's unpublished study of guerrilla warfare and counterinsurgency in the Philippines, 1899–1955

Charles Ted Rutledge Bohannan (1914–1982) became an integral agent of US counterinsurgency operations during the early Cold War, contributing to both the success of the COIN effort to defeat the communist Huk insurgents in the Philippines and the stalled COIN efforts in Vietnam. In the early 1960s, he wrote a short and compact analysis of the US and Filipino experience of guerrilla warfare, from the Philippine–American war until the defeat of the Huk Rebellion. It was never published. Reprinted here, Bohannan's analysis of lessons learned makes a substantial contribution to the history of American ideas of unconventional warfare by an expert who contributed these lessons to the successful defeat of an insurgency in South East Asia.     

Fighting on Their Own Terms: The Tactics of the Irish Republican Army 1919-1921

Abstract

The 1919-1921 Anglo-Irish War represents one of the earliest instances of a successful insurgent movement in the twentieth century. By combining a fluid organizational structure with effective hit-and-run tactics and accurate intelligence, the Irish Republican Army was able to defeat militarily the security forces of Great Britain. Combined with a successful propaganda campaign, these tactics allowed the IRA to drive the British to the negotiating table, where its representatives secured greater autonomy than Ireland had known in centuries. The outcome of the Anglo-Irish War demonstrates the success which a well-organized guerrilla campaign can achieve, and the tactics used by the IRA must therefore be understood by any serious student of small warfare.