Technically, this refers to the concept of three levels of warfare through which forces may move. _Main forces_ are regular military formations, organized and equipped for field battle; they are capable of defeating anything except another main force that attempts to stand against them, and establishing the conditions enabling control of an area.

Guerilla forces are irregular military formations, equipped for light infantry tactics and organized to allow dispersal to evade pursuit. They can deny control of an area to the enemy, but cannot (as long as they remain guerilla forces) control an area themselves. They can inflict attrition upon but cannot defeat all but the smallest units of main forces.

Terrorist forces fight dispersed as small bands. They can strike and destroy targets but they cannot deny control of an area to any force. Their attritional capability is limited: they can at best destroy key targets or create a general atmosphere of trepidation. They may also engage in propaganda and training --- another term for this sort of force is a "cadre."

Generally speaking, the object of an insurgency is to become the government. This generally must involve the defeat of the forces of the existing government. Normally, insurgents begin as terrorists; when they have gained enough propaganda victories to attract rebels to their ranks, they become the cadres around which guerilla forces coalesce. These guerilla forces deny the government forces control of an area through attritional tactics. Eventually they succeed in creating a "liberated zone" where the government forces only venture in large units, and hence are unable to disperse to patrol effectively. In these 'liberated zones" the guerillas coalesce into main force units. Eventually, the main force units are stronger than the government and take contrl of the country by superior force, helped by defections from the ranks of the demorailized regime forces to their own.

This assumes that everything goes right for the insurgency. Of course, things do not always go right for the insurgency: most rebellions in fact fail. The regime may through skilled police work roll up the terrorist network before it survives long enough to form guerilla units. They may search for and dstroy guerilla units or their essential supply bases before the guerillas can become main forces. Or, they may defeat the insurgent main forces in battle.

An insurgency defeated at one level may sometimes be able to retreat to a lower level. The defeated insurgent main forces may disperse and function as guerillas. Defeated guerillas may disperse and function as terrorists. This of course demands consdierable morale on the part of the insurgents; and defeated rebels often suffer a loss of morale. The insurgency may simply disintegrate.

Certain factors may favor the insurgents. A foreign ally may speed up the steps of the insurgent campaign through providing supplies, bases, and possibly invading the country of the regime. And foreign allies can also aid the regime, providing supplies, building bases, and perhaps sending their own armies in-country to fight the insurgents.

The reason why terrorists tend to be braver and crazier than most guerillas and guerillas braver and crazier than most regulars is simply because the terrorists are the cadre forces; they are by definition the ones most committed to an insurgent victory, and they are the ones most willing to fight against long odds. They, after all, may begin an insurgency against a whole state as nothing more than a few men with theories smuggled in by train or dropped from an airplane.

There is a lot of mythology surrounding successful rebellions, which impedes genuine awareness of their histories. This is because most regimes began, at some point, as successful insurgencies.

For instance, most Americans are unaware that one of the main reasons the American Revolution succeeded was French (and to some extent Dutch and Spanish) support. We are unaware of it because we don't like to talk about it -- Washington's bravery and leadership make us feel good, the French support makes us feel like the minor clients of a Great Power that we in fact were in the Revolution. We don't like to remember that we were once small, weak and vulnerable.

For another instance, many academics, who when _they_ were in school had a romantic image of the Viet Cong, are unaware that the Viet Cong rebellion in fact _failed_, and that South Vietnam fell not to a guerilla uprising but to an invasion by conventional main-force type units. The survivors of the Viet Cong, rather than enjoying their victory, were mostly hustled off to re-education camps, while the North Vietnamese proceded to take over the running of the Southern government.

As a result, a lot of nonsense gets written about guerilla warfare -- in particular, it tends to be assumed that whichever side is more popular automatically wins and then in retrospect that whichever side won must have been more popular. (This is incidentally untrue as regards the American Revolution -- the Colonies were roughly split 1/3 evenly between Patriots, Loyalists, and neutrals). It _is_ true that _after_ there is a clear winner most of the people will claim to have been on the winner's side all along -- their motives for doing so are, however, fairly obvious.

In truth guerilla warfare, like any other form of warfare, is determined by factors such as logistics, correlation of forces, and skill of command.

Sincerely Yours,
Jordan

Jordan,

Again an excellent Post. Very informative.

Thanks,
Ted

I read this book and when I woke up I was Gordon Gekko and Charlie Sheen was humping my leg!

Swaz