Les Jones

Middle East > How War, Guerilla Warfare, and Terrorism Work

Steven den Beste explains all.

Industrial war can be summed up this way: God fights on the side which has the biggest pile of ammunition and the fastest rate of replacement of expended ammunition. Like any general principle it's not absolutely unconditionally true, but that's the norm.

In response, two new strategic doctrines of war were developed to make it possible for small logistically-poor forces to contend against large logistically-rich forces without getting instantly crushed: guerrilla warfare and terrorist warfare. Both of them seek to nullify the logistical advantage of their richer opponents by maintaining initiative, so as to control the tempo of the war at a level low enough to not exhaust the logistics of the poorer side. For the rest of this discussion I'll be concentrating on guerrillas.

Guerrillas hide among civilians, and only come out and form up when they choose to fight. The rest of the time they're invisible, which makes it impossible for their rich opponent to find them.

It's possible for guerrillas to win directly, but the doctrine doesn't assume that to be the only way victory can be achieved. The idea is to try to fight a long slow war and to build strength. Guerrillas try to maintain a force-in-being, and concentrate heavily on propaganda. By so doing they try to wear out their opponent, try to rally supporters, and try to find patrons elsewhere to support the fight. When handled ideally all these begin slow but increase in effectiveness as time goes on. As their strength builds, they can make more attacks, and get more headlines. The other side's war weariness grows. Patrons see the guerrillas winning and are more enthusiastic about providing more and better weapons and supplies to help them. Locals see them winning and are more likely to join or otherwise support them.

Anyone recognize Hezbollah in what I just wrote? That's what they've been trying to do in Lebanon.