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Guerrilla Warfare

Guerrilla warfare is the natural method of struggle against a powerful enemy. It is obvious that the forces of the occupied population are not, at least initially, able to stand in face-to-face combat against the professional armed forces of the regime or against the occupation forces of the invader. For this reason, the guerrilla adopts the strategy of nibbling at the edges of the enemy, of harassing and tiring him rather than confronting him directly. Guerrilla warfare is above all the strategy of "hit and run," of "fighting and running away to live to fight another day." It is a warfare of deception and illusion, of surprise and the unexpected.

In undeveloped agricultural nations such as China, Cuba, El Salvador, the Philippines, Afghanistan orlhe central Asian Soviet Republics, the primary focus of the guerrilla fight is in the countryside. These nations have conditions in the rural areas which are suited for a protracted guerrilla war: rough inaccessible terrain, few avenues of transportation, a thin population distribution, and little or no system of communication. In these types of territory, rural guerrilla warfare is the most effective method of fighting the regime.

In the industrialized urban nations of North America, Europe or the Soviet Union, such a strategy is unworkable. In these societies, guerrillas must operate in the urban nerve centers to attack the occupying regime.

The primary characteristics of a successful rural guerrilla war are: mobility, surprise, local superiority in forces, intimate knowledge of the terrain, and the support of the population. These tactics have been described in numerous texts on rural guerrilla warfare.

On the whole, urban guerrilla warfare tactics do not differ in any significant way from those used by rural guerrillas. The resistance fighter who combats an industrialized, urban oppressor must depend on the same guerrilla principles of mobility, surprise, local superiority, knowledge of the terrain and the support of the population.

Nevertheless, the urban guerrilla faces problems which his rural counterpart does not. The urban fighter operates in the very center of the regime's power. The rural guerrilla can slip away from a fight knowing it may take days or even weeks for reinforcements to arrive on the scene: the urban guerrilla may be located and surrounded by the regime's police and troops in a matter of minutes. The rural fighters operate in mountains and jungles far away from prying eyes: the urban guerrilla lives and operates in the midst of large crowds of people, any one of whom may be an informer or collaborator. Thus the security problems of the urban
fighter are compounded tremendously.

The urban fighter does, however, possess some advantages. His actions and successes cannot be hid from the people by the regime's censorship, since they are immediately visible. This gives hope to the population and demonstrates that the regime is not unbeatable. More concretely, the urban fighter will find that resources such as food, shelter, clothing, weapons and ammunition are much more readily available in the city than they would be in the mountains or jungle. Also, the urban resistance fighter will find that the masses of people provide a shield into which he can melt, allowing him to remain anonymous until he strikes.

The targets of the urban guerrilla differ somewhat from (hose of (he rural fighters. While the rural units attack the enemy's troop outposts and supply convoys, the urban guerrilla allacks such centralized targets as banks and financial centers, communications hubs, power stations, military and police stations, arsenals, government offices and officials of the regime.

Mobility is an important weapon for the urban guerrilla, since he can be so easily and rapidly surrounded by the stale security forces. Such an encirclement can prove fatal to the fighters. For this reason, the urban guerrilla's actions must be meticulously planned so the guerrilla team is able to slip away before the state security forces arrive.

The automobile is an invaluable aid to the urban guerrilla, and every fighter must be familiar with methods of commandeering or expropriating cars, vans, and trucks. Often, a single operation will involve the procurement of several different vehicles.

The urban guerrilla must carry the concept of "hit and run" to the extreme. The fighters arrive at the target, launch their attack, and vanish into the streets, all in a matter of minutes.

Since the vehicles used in the operation may be described to the state security forces, the resistance fighters must make provisions to evade pursuers and roadblocks which will hinder the escape. A switch of vehicles shortly after the operation will confuse pursuers. Monitoring the radio frequencies used by the state security services will tell the fighters of roadblocks or other obstacles. The urban fighter must take every step to avoid being encircled and forced into a firelight. The urban guerrilla must also be thoroughly familiar with the terrain in which he operates. He must know every street, every alley, the location of empty or half-built structures, and even the layout of sewers and subterranean tunnel systems. The resistance fighters must be able to make their way quickly through a maze of obstacles while the state security forces stumble blindly behind
them, ready to fall into a fatal trap or ambush. Pursuers must be slowed with mines, grenades, caltrops or snipers stationed along the escape route.

Because the urban guerrilla forces are so small compared to the repressive forces available to the dictator or invader, the tactic of surprise is an urgent necessity in urban operations. Most operations will take place so quickly that the enemy will have no time to react. Guards and state security forces which are found in the area of the operation must be quickly disarmed or eliminated. The
guerrilla attack must be swift, sudden and unexpected.

For this reason, the ambush and the raid are the urban guerrilla fighter's stock in trade. Rather than attacking the regime's forces head-on and falling to his superior firepower, the guerrilla chooses moments when he has an unbeatable advantage before swiftly pouncing on the enemy, wiping him out and vanishing before reinforcements can arrive.

Because the guerrilla force as a whole is hopelessly outnumbered, no battles should be accepted by the fighters until they have a superiority offeree in the area of conflict. This is accomplished by forcing the enemy to divide his forces among many dispersed targets. By attacking at various places, the resistance network forces the enemy to garrison troops at all such potential targets as supply depots, bridges, power stations, etc., and thus to spread his forces too thinly.

A guerrilla force of forty fighters, for instance, is helpless against an army of a thousand. But if these thousand men are divided among many potential targets, the guerrilla force need face only twenty men at each target, giving them local superiority. The enemy is never able to concentrate his forces since he never knows when or where the guerrillas will strike next. He is thus forced to guard all potential targets or else leave a number of targets unguarded and vulnerable.

The support of the population is the most important weapon of the guerrilla. People who support and sympathize with the resistance provide the logistical aid that the guerrillas need, including food, sanctuary for wounded fighters, new recruits and scouts in unfamiliar terrain.

The local population is also vital to the resistance fighters in providing intelligence concerning the movements of enemy forces. Local civilians serve as the eyes and ears of the guerrilla forces, informing them of enemy troop movements in the area, details of potential targets for guerrilla raids, and other pertinent
information. At the same time, a sympathetic population serves as a shield for the resistance netwoik by refusing to give information about the movement to the enemy, or by giving false information which actually aids the resistance. The enemy is thus constantly watched by thousands of eyes and his every move known to the guerrillas, while the guerrillas themselves remain invisible to the regime's armed forces.

At the same lime, the urban guerrilla must realize that he is very vulnerable to infiltration or betrayal, and that a single civilian could cripple the resistance network greatly by passing information to the authorities. The urban guerrilla must be selective in his dealings with civilians, and his security system must be leakproof if he is to survive. The urban guerrillas, like any other guerrillas, still must swim like fishes, but now their water amounts to a mere puddle.

The most common operations carried out by urban guerrillas are raids on arsenals and medical supply houses to obtain needed weapons and materials, raids to release imprisoned guerrillas, kidnappings or executions of occupation authorities, and raids on installations such as airfields, military and police bases, power stations, and factories which are important to the regime (weapons factories, heavy industrial plants, power stations). Other actions include the armed support and protection of civilian rallies and demonstrations against the regime and the use of armed raids and sabotage as a tactical adjunct to strikes, boycotts and work slowdowns which cripple the regime.

Initially, the guerrilla movement will consist of scattered detachments which operate in a single city or area. As the resistance grows, these link up and combine operations. Coordinated strikes will paralyze the enemy's control over a region or area of the country. These regional struggles grow in time to assume the character of a full-scale war, with the guerrilla forces operating more and more as a regular army.

While this army begins a general offensive against the enemy, the civilian population fights with actions such as mass demonstrations and general strikes, which cripple and weaken the regime. The final step is the uprising which sweeps the hated regime away.