- #Guerrilla warfare definition us history manual
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Guerrilla tactics were presumably employed by prehistoric tribal warriors against enemy tribes. This directly inspired the development of modern guerrilla warfare. The Chinese general and strategist Sun Tzu, in his The Art of War (6th century BC) or 600 BC to 501 BC, was the earliest to propose the use of guerrilla warfare. Sebastiaan Vrancx and Jan Brueghel the Elder's painting depicts "An assault on a convoy" during the Dutch Revolt - effectively an instance of guerrilla warfare, though the term did not yet exist. Those texts characterized the tactic of guerrilla warfare as, according to Che Guevara's text, being "used by the side which is supported by a majority but which possesses a much smaller number of arms for use in defense against oppression".
#Guerrilla warfare definition us history manual
This recent growth was inspired in part by theoretical works on guerrilla warfare, starting with the Manual de Guerra de Guerrillas by Matías Ramón Mella written in the 19th century and, more recently, Mao Zedong's On Guerrilla Warfare, Che Guevara's Guerrilla Warfare and Lenin's text of the same name, all written after the successful revolutions carried by them in China, Cuba and Russia respectively. While the tactics of modern guerrilla warfare originate in the 20th century, irregular warfare, using elements later characteristic of modern guerrilla warfare, has existed throughout the battles of many ancient civilizations but in a smaller scale. 124 At least one author credits the ancient Chinese work The Art of War (dating from at least 200 BC) with providing instruction in such tactics to Mao. Mao Zedong summarized basic guerrilla tactics at the beginning of the Chinese " Second Revolutionary Civil War" as: "The enemy advances, we retreat the enemy camps, we harass the enemy tires, we attack the enemy retreats, we pursue." : p. Ĭommunist leaders like Mao Zedong and North Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh both implemented guerrilla warfare giving it a theoretical frame which served as a model for similar strategies elsewhere, such as the Cuban " foco" theory and the anti- Soviet Mujahadeen in Afghanistan. This type of war can be practiced anywhere there are places for combatants to cover themselves and where such advantage cannot be made use of by a larger and more conventional force. However, this is not a primary feature of a guerrilla war. It is often misunderstood that guerrilla warfare must involve disguising as civilians to cause enemy troops to fail in telling friend from foe. All of that is to weaken the enemy's strength, to cause the enemy eventually to be unable to prosecute the war any longer, and to force the enemy to withdraw. Not limiting their targets to personnel, enemy resources are also preferred targets.
Tactically, the guerrilla army would avoid any confrontation with large units of enemy troops, but seek and eliminate small groups of soldiers to minimize losses and exhaust the opposing force. The Guerrilla focuses on organizing in small units, depending on the support of the local population, as well as taking advantage of terrain more accommodating of small units. The strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare tend to focus around the use of a small, mobile force competing against a larger, more unwieldy one.
#Guerrilla warfare definition us history series
Strategy, tactics and organization Part of a series onįemale Soviet partisans operating under Sydir Kovpak in German-occupied Ukraine
Making an objective definition of the difference between "a guerrilla" and "a terrorist" has proven a difficult task. "Guerrillas" usually carries positive connotations, and is often used by such fighters themselves and by their sympathizers, while their foes in many cases call them " terrorists".
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The use of the diminutive evokes the differences in number, scale, and scope between the guerrilla army and the formal, professional army of the state. However, in most languages guerrilla still denotes the specific style of warfare. The term "guerrilla" was used in English as early as 1809, to refer to the fighters (e.g., "The town was taken by the guerrillas"), and also (as in Spanish) to denote a group or band of such fighters. This term became popular during the early-19th century Peninsular War, when the Spanish people rose against the Napoleonic troops and fought against a highly superior army using the guerrilla strategy. In correct Spanish usage, a person who is a member of a guerrilla is a guerrillero ( ) if male, or a guerrillera if female.
The term, the diminutive form of "war" in Spanish, is usually translated as "little war", and the word, guerrilla ( Spanish pronunciation: ), has been used to refer to the concept since the 18th century, and perhaps earlier.