On Guerrilla Warfare

Despite its title, this is two books in one. The editor/translator, Samuel B. Griffith II, writes an extensive and deep review of Mao's work, from the perspective of an American officer. Taking into account the timeline of his various comments, beginning when the US and Mao's communists were allies during World War II and ending when the US was entrenched in Vietnam, Griffith's remarks reveal both admiration for Mao and, later, panicked urgency. Indeed, by the time the US is in Vietnam, Griffith is calling on established nations to develop programs to eradicate guerilla movements, an interesting viewpoint considering the fact that the United States itself was born of such a movement. Mao's approach to presenting guerilla warfare is far more abstract than that of Che. To his credit, Mao explains the relationship between Guerilla units of various types and traditional established military forces. This, I believe, is a product of his experiences as first a guerilla and later a participant in a united front against Imperial Japan. The complexity of the situation in China, along with the spatial and temporal scale, make Mao's experience and assessment far more general and representative of guerilla warfare as a whole than Che's experience and assessment. Where Che dealt primarily with small insurrections/revolutions against smaller parties in smaller conflicts, Mao's guerilla experience consumed most of his lifetime and ranged from insurrection, through anti-imperialist warfare, and finally in revolution. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in an abstract approach to guerilla warfare from what probably was the most experience man in history on the topic.

This book was written by Mao Zedong (1893-1976) in 1937, as he was waging a guerrilla war against the occupying army of Imperial Japan. Having already had ten years guerrilla experience, Mao was already an expert, and in this book he beautifully explains his basic strategy and tactics. He covers everything from why guerrilla activities should be integrated with conventional military activity, how guerrilla units should be organized, and how they should operate. When first picked up this slim book, I must admit that I wasn't expecting too much. Indeed, Mao's stress on guerrilla activity as part of a larger conventional war struck me as somewhat limiting. But, as I read, I got to see the beauty and simplicity of what he was describing. Is it hyperbole to say that this book should be compulsory reading for anyone interested in guerrilla warfare - past and present? I think not. This is a great work on the subject, and should rightly be considered a military classic. I highly - indeed, very highly - recommend this book!

I think Mao intended this essay to be another one of his theoretical Marxist works (Mao thought of himself as a first-class Marxist theoretician). But without question it also served as an instruction manual for his ragtag Red Army while fighting among the tortuous terrain in northwestern China, in part against Japan, in part against Chiang. Considering his success as a practitioner of guerrilla warfare, one would have to be insane to ignore this work. I'm struck how short that chapter is on guerrilla wars in history. Mao was widely read in Chinese and world history and it would have been his style to display this knowledge in a work like this had he chosen to do so. Perhaps Americans should not think of themselves as only at the receiving end of guerrillas. Washington learned this kind of fighting during the French and Indian Wars, and he put some of this experience to good use against a British army better armed, better trained, and greater in numbers than the Continentals. He exploited geography, made surprise raids, used mobility and patience to wear out the red coats - all hallmarks of guerrillas. The all-important Battle of Trenton was such kind of unconventional warfare: an Indian raid, essentially. But it sure got results. Regular or conventional battles like Yorktown only came later, when British impatience was at the breaking point. As Franklin had predicted, the British could and did occupy all the towns - including Philadelphia, New York, and Charleston - up and down the eastern coast but they could not hold onto them. (The comparison with Iraq is irresistible. The redcoats never numbered more than 30,000 or so men, fighting among 2.5 million American civilians. Now America has 5 times as many troops in Iraq (about 150,000) as there were redcoats in the 13 colonies. But Iraq's population is 25 million! And that's not counting foreign fighters from Iraq's neighbors. American guerrillas probably had better geography than Iraqi insurgents but the Iraqis seem more eager to commit suicide missions.) Mao really could have done better than just cite Russian resistance to Napoleon as an example. (Never mind his other Chinese examples. for the moment.) Apart from Washington, the Spaniards also tore the Grand Armee to pieces with guerrillas - in fact, Spain's where the word came from. Lawrence of Arabia sabotaged Turkish railways in northwestern Arabia (rather like insurgents blowing up Iraq's pipelines) - to great effect. Of course, another great example of guerrilla warfare was the block-by-block, street-to-street fighting at Stalingrad. But always, to my mind, the Teutoberg forest was where guerrillas first made their greatest name in Western history. (I know little Greek history to comment further.) Octavian lost three Roman legions thanks to the German barbarians, and Rome hadn't suffered a panic quite like this since Spartacus. Believe it or not, Mao got his inspiration not from Lenin (though he paid much lip ser

Stanley B. Griffiths work is timeless, relevant, and is a must read for those seriously exploring the Western use of joint, interagency, and multinational force to counter guerrilla activities in Afghanistan, Iraq, Indonesia, Colombia, etc.. Griffith's 1961 introduction alone is worth the price of the book. His recommendation to study guerrilla warfare in 1940 and again in 1961 was on the mark. He cites examples of successful guerrilla operations (Frances Marion; the Spanish against Napoleon; the Russians against Napoleon; the Russians against Hitler; the Vietnamese against the French, Castro in Cuba) and the value of these historical examples to further study. He cites ten key factors worth comparing to determine which side has the advantage in a guerrilla war. His discussion of the three phases of guerrilla war, and the warning to stop them before they they advance beyond phase one is sage advice. His recommendation to locate, isolate, and eradicate is a simple pattern for developing an effective counterguerrilla strategy. He does warn that countering guerrilla operations is not solely a military activity--the political arm is the key. Perhaps it is his conclusion that historically, there has not been a counter to revolutionary guerrilla warfare which gives one pause when addressing world events in 2003. Griffith comes to these conclusions by laying out Mao's thought in simple, clear writing. Essentially, Mao recognized the fundamental disparity between agrarian and urban societies, he advocated unorthodox strategies that converted deficits into advantages: using intelligence provided by the sympathetic peasant population; substituting deception, mobility, and surprise for superior firepower; using retreat as an offensive move; and educating the inhabitants as an offensive move; and educating the inhabitants on the ideological basis of the struggle. This radical approach to warfare, waged in the mountains by mobile guerrilla bands closely supported by local inhabitants, has been adopted by other revolutionary leaders throughout the world. The challenge for those studying guerrilla warfare is still on the table: what do you do about it? A start, is reading Mao's writings which provide the first documented, systematic study of the subject.