But the practice it describes is as ancient as it is hard to define.įor purposes of my book I wrote that guerrilla warfare describes “the use of hit-and-run tactics by an armed group directed primarily against a government and its security forces for political or religious reasons.” At the tactical level, guerrilla warfare is often indistinguishable from light infantry warfare waged by conventional forces. “Guerrilla” literally means “small war.” The term gained currency during the Spanish resistance to French occupation from 1808 to 1814. If we are not prepared to counter insurgencies in the future, we will pay a high price, as we have already done in Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia, and other battlefields.ĭefine guerrilla warfare? Has that definition changed over the eons? Those who imagine that it is a passing fad-one that will go away with the American withdrawal from Afghanistan-are dreaming.
It always has been and always will be the dominant form of warfare. That said, there are a number of lessons one can draw from this history and at the end of my narrative I draw out a dozen “implications.” The first and most important lesson is that guerrilla warfare has been ubiquitous throughout history. There is no agenda, political or otherwise, in this book. I tried to bring them alive for the reader. I was particularly enthralled with so many great characters-such as Giuseppe Garibaldi, Edward Lansdale, Gerald Templer, Hubert Lyautey, to name just four-who are not well known to the public. I wrote Invisible Armies not to make a particular point but simply to tell a story that has never been well told before-the story of guerrilla warfare and terrorism as it has developed over the last 5,000 years, from the days of ancient Mesopotamia to modern Iraq and Afghanistan and beyond. What is the bottom line of Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present ?
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