Guerrilla wars have been fought throughout history by small peoples against invading or occupying armies, by regular soldiers operating in the enemy's rear, by peasants rising against big landowners, by bandits both "social" and asocial. They were infrequent in the eighteenth century, when strict rules for the conduct of warfare were generally observed. Guerrilla methods were used in the southern theater in the American War of Independence and in the Napoleonic age by partisans in countries occupied by the French (Spain, southern Italy, Tyrol, Russia). With the emergence of mass armies in the nineteenth century, guerrilla warfare again declined but it lingered on in the wake of major wars (the American Civil War, the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, the Boer War) and in the campaigns of national liberation movements (Italy, Poland, Ireland, Macedonia). Furthermore, guerrilla tactics played an important role in nineteenth-century colonial wars of which the campaigns of the French against Abd el-Kader and the Russians against Shamyl were the most noteworthy. In all these instances the guerrillas failed to achieve their aims except when acting in cooperation with regular armies. The imperial powers, as yet unfettered by moral scruples about the inadmissibility of imposing their rule on lesser breeds, were not deflected from their policies by pinpricks: the Russians did not withdraw from Poland, the Caucasus or Central Asia, the French did not give up North Africa, the British did not surrender India, and if the Italians attained their independence, it was not as the result of a protracted guerrilla campaign. There was not one case of outright guerrilla victory, but in some instances guerrilla campaigns indirectly contributed to eventual political success. Thus, the military outcome of the Cuban insurrection in the late nineteenth century was inconclusive, but by fighting a protracted war the rebels helped to trigger off U.S. intervention which led to the expulsion of the Spanish. The tough struggle of the Boers after their regular armies had collapsed hastened the British decision to grant South Africa a large measure of independence. In Latin America guerrilla war continued to be the prevailing form of military conflict in the absence of strong regular armies.
The First World War saw mass armies pitted against each other; the few instances of guerrilla war (Arabia, East Africa) occurred in minor theaters of war and were certainly not ideologically motivated. The Mexican, the Russian and the Chinese civil wars of the twentieth century saw a good deal of partisan warfare but mainly because neither side was strong enough to mobilize, train and equip a big regular army. Guerrilla war in these circumstances was not so much the war of the weak against the strong, but of the weak against the weak. Revolutionary movements had not yet opted for the guerrilla approach; before the Second World War the prospects for the anticolonial struggle were as yet unpromising. The Soviet Communists established a large regular army as quickly as they could after the revolution; twenty years later the Chinese Communists tried to do the same, though in their case the guerrilla phase was to last much longer.
With the Second World War there came the great upsurge in the fortunes of guerrilla warfare. Hitler's predicament resembled Napoleon's insofar as his forces were dispersed all over Europe and his lines of communication and routes of supply overextended and vulnerable. Like Napoleon before, the Germans had insufficient forces to impose full control on all the occupied territories or even to destroy partisan concentrations. On the other hand, the military importance of the Second World War partisan forces was not very great and did not decisively influence the course of the war. Their main impact was political inasmuch as they resulted in the emergence of Communist governments (Yugoslavia, Albania) or caused protracted civil wars (Greece, Philippines). The European colonial powers, gravely weakened as a result of the war, lacked the financial and military resources and the political will to retain their overseas possessions against the rising tide of independence movements. Public opinion in the metropolitan countries which had once regarded the possession of colonies as a source of pride was no longer willing to shoulder the military and financial burden; imperialism became morally reprehensible. This turn in Western public opinion was of decisive importance for the success of Asian and African national liberation movements. In the Far East and some African countries the leadership of the independence movements was taken over by Communist or pro-Communist forces. Their superior organization and an ideology which corresponded to the cultural level and the emotional needs of the population made them better equipped to act as agents of modernization than their political rivals. Nevertheless, the wars of liberation in Asia and Africa were fought without exception under the nationalist rather than the Communist banner; even in the countries of Latin America, which had been independent for almost a hundred and fifty years, the guerrilla campaigns of the 1960s had strong patriotic undertones.
Guerrilla warfare has not only been practiced since time immemorial, its doctrine too is by no means of recent date. The many illustrations provided in these pages show that the notion that the theory and practice of guerrilla warfare was invented in China in the 1930s is altogether erroneous.1 Guerrilla techniques were exhaustively described by de Jeney, Decker and other eighteenth and nineteenth-century authors. The experience gained during the Napoleonic wars provided more systematic and more detailed analyses and prescriptions. Le Miere de Corvey and in particular the Italian and Polish military writers of the 1830s and 1840s were fully aware of the political aspects of guerrilla warfare. Their writings cover almost all the problems that were to preoccupy twentieth-century guerrilla authors — the importance of bases and sanctuaries, the questions as to whether the war would be short or protracted, whether it should be "pure" guerrilla war or be conducted in coordination with regular forces, whether guerrilla units should be gradually transformed into a regular army. Even the relationship between the guerrilla forces and the political movement supporting it was discussed in the writings of Carlo Bianco and Mazzini. These precursors fell into oblivion; Mao and Ho Chi Minh, Castro, Guevara and Debray were not in the least aware of the fact that their ideas had been expounded before and even tried, albeit not very successfully. The twentieth-century guerrilla theorist discovered his strategy quite independently, based on his own experience, instinct, and, of course, native traditions of guerrilla war of which there were more than enough in both Asia and Latin America. As Eric Hobsbawm has noted, there is nothing in the purely military pages of Mao, Giap or Che Guevara which a traditional guerrillero or band leader would regard as other than simple common sense.2 If so, the novelty of twentieth-century guerrilla warfare would seem to be not so much military as political. The author of a valuable recent study has maintained that revolutionary guerrilla war evolved out of Marxist-Leninist modes of political behavior and organizational principles on one hand, and out of the exigencies of anti-Western revolt in predominantly agrarian societies on the other.3 In the light of the historical evidence this thesis is tenable only subject to far-reaching reservations. The character of guerrilla warfare, needless to say, has changed greatly over the ages, partly through technological developments, partly as a result of changing social and political conditions. But it cannot be maintained that before the 1930s guerrilla wars were apolitical and parochial.4 Too much importance has been attributed to Leninist doctrine in the guerrilla context, too little to the nationalist-populist component in the motivation and the ideology of these movements. (Populism is used in this context not in the nineteenth-century meaning of the term but as rural and urban opposition to class differentiations and the capitalist form of modernization.) Many twentieth-century guerrilla wars from Pancho Villa to the Mau Mau and IRA, from IZL, Fatah to EOKA owe little to Marxist-Leninism. Neither the Algerians in 1954 nor the Cubans in 1958 were influenced by this doctrine and even Chinese and Vietnam guerrilla warfare evolved more in opposition to classical Marxism than in accordance with its basic tenets. The impact of Marxism-Leninism among contemporary guerrilla movements has been strongest with regard to the role of the political party in mobilizing the masses, the function of propaganda in the struggle, and the emphasis placed, generally speaking, on organization. But political propaganda and organization were not altogether unknown in previous ages. More women have participated in modern guerrilla movements than in the past, but this again is by no means an unprecedented development.5
These new developments in the character of guerrilla movements should not be belittled but nor should their ideology be regarded as the master key to their understanding. Communist guerrilla movements have failed, non-Communist groups have succeeded. The importance of guerrilla movements was underrated for a long time; more recently the pendulum has swung to the other extreme, and the general tendency has been to exaggerate their historical role.
Attempts to explain the causes of guerrilla warfare and of guerrilla success have certainly enriched the political language, but they have not greatly contributed to a clarification of the issues involved. "Revolutionary warfare," defined as "partisan warfare plus political propaganda" is an unfortunate formulation which has nevertheless gained wide currency. "Subversive warfare," "internal war," "low intensity warfare," "modern unconventional warfare," "people's war," "subversive insurgency," "guerrilla insurgency," "irregular warfare" — these and many other terms have been used without adding precision or helping our understanding of the phenomenon.6 There is a wide range of theories to choose from; some take as their starting point the questionable assumption that insurgency is "deviant social behavior" — as if acceptance of foreign occupation or domestic tyrants is the norm, and the decision to oppose them a deviation. Nor is it permissible without qualification to regard political and social harmony as the norm and conflict and violence the unfortunate exception to the rale, to be explained by excessive aggression or ambition, or by deprivation, absolute or relative. The very asking of the question "Why do men rebel?" implies a great many assumptions about both human nature and the perfectibility of society. Quantitative techniques have been of little help in understanding the guerrilla phenomenon, partly because some of the essential ingredients involved cannot be measured, partly because the differences between guerrilla movements are such that even measurable factors become meaningless when added or multiplied. A formula encompassing both Mao and Castro (let alone Pancho Villa, the IRA and Mau Mau) will be of no help as an analytical tool. A comparison between China and Vietnam, or between Angola and Mozambique, or even between the IRA and the Basques may be of value and interest. Moving further afield in time or space, generalizations can be made only with the greatest of caution; for the guerrilla phenomenon presents endless variety. Some were Communist inspired, others were not; some were led by young men, some by old; some of the leaders had military experience, others lacked it entirely; in some movements the personality of the leader was of decisive importance, in others there was a collective leadership; some wars lasted for a long time, others were short; some bands were small, others big; some guerrilla movements transformed themselves into regular armies, others degenerated into banditry; some benefitted from external circumstances (such as difficulty of terrain, or the presence of dissatisfied national minorities), others on the contrary derived no advantage at all from such conditions. Some won and some lost. The possibilities are endless; so are the theories, hypotheses and concepts, monocausal and multicausal, to explain guerrilla warfare, ranging from those stressing socioeconomic conditions to others putting the emphasis on political-psychological factors. The theory that has certainly gained widest currency is the grievance-frustration concept, which has been accepted, in various forms, by liberals and Marxists alike. Men and women will not rebel, risking their lives and property, without good reason — the occupation of their country by foreign armies, economic crisis, a tyrannical political regime, great poverty, or great social discrepancy between rich and poor. The concept seems plausible enough; it can indeed be taken for granted that if people had no grievances and felt no frustration, they would engage in the pursuit of happiness. But the nature of grievances and of frustration is not at all an easy problem.* It has been argued that, if governments only fulfilled popular aspirations, they would not lose legitimacy and there would be no violent opposition and even the intellectuals would happily sing their praises. Unfortunately, the principle of virtue rewarded applies no more to politics than to private life. The state, however well-meaning, may face difficulties through no fault of its own and, as a result of this, its inhabitants will have to suffer. The resources of a government may be limited, it may have to establish priorities, thus discriminating against some people. Nor is there any reason to assume that a state or a social system can be more perfect than the individuals constituting it. It has been argued that the most traditional and the most modern societies are relatively immune to upheaval whereas those in between suffer from instability. As far as rich countries are concerned this is merely stating the obvious; the rural population in these countries is usually small and would-be guerrillas would not be welcomed with enthusiasm in the American corn belt, or among British, French, German or Danish farmers. It would be equally difficult to launch a guerrilla movement in a country in which the bulk of the population suffered from acute starvation and endemic disease, since there might not be enough men and women able to march and to fight. In actual fact, there has been a great deal of guerrilla warfare in very poor countries such as the Congo, Sudan, Oman and Eritrea.
An extremely unequal distribution of wealth and an acute economic crisis have frequently aggravated political unrest, but it so happens that neither factor was decisive in the major guerrilla wars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Agrarian grievances have played a paramount role in Mexico and the Philippines but elsewhere guerrilla war took place in countries with enough land for all (Africa) or in predominantly urban societies (Venezuela, Uruguay). Guerrilla warfare has occurred in countries with low population density and high density alike, in societies with high social mobility and low mobility with a high rate of literacy and a low rate.
Frequently the break up of traditional societies and the process of modernization has been considered the main agent: social change results in insecurity and the loss of identity, attempts at reform weaken the government's political position. This has led observers to opposite conclusions. On the one hand governments have been advised to go full steam ahead with social reform programs, on the other they have been counseled to slow down so as to reduce the impact of the negative political effects of social change. There is general agreement that socioeconomic improvement does not immediately result in increased popular support; these programs usually give tangible political results only after many years, even decades — except perhaps in the case of a radical redistribution of land. Demographic pressure, growing ecological disequilibrium and the weakening of social ties connecting hinterland and center have been mentioned as important factors conducive to insurgency and revolution. These processes are part of the general crisis in the Third World, but again there is no obvious connection between them and the spread of guerrilla warfare.
So after a great many detours and false scents, the student of guerrilla wars finds himself back at his starting point. If a government has the support of the people it will not be challenged and overthrown. Or, to put it more obscurely, social change will be peaceful if the ruling elites respond to the needs of repudiating the old institutions and relationships and creating new ones. If they fail to do so, it is argued, political violence becomes inevitable. Effective and virtuous governments have nothing to fear, corrupt and ineffective ones are doomed. But "corruption and "ineffectiveness" are by no means synonyms and in any case the relevance of this thesis to insurgency and guerrilla warfare is not at all obvious. The new institutions and relationships if established may be rejected by part of the population. There may be real but unsoluble grievances, such as the separatist demands of minorities, that would result in the crippling of society and the emergence of a nonviable state.
Other theories have put the emphasis on politics (the presence of conflicting social myths), on cultural-political-moral factors (such as the alienation of intellectuals), or on psychological moments ("terrorist personality').7
These theories help to shed some light, at best, on one or a few insurgencies and are quite inapplicable to others. In short, they are quite useless. This sad state of affairs has not escaped the attention of social scientists. One of them has concluded that the actual instances of insurgency observed in our time fail to reveal a correlation with the gravity of socioeconomic, cultural and related ills.8 Another has said that a Western doctrine on guerrilla war comparable to the principles of war between nations has not developed because the character of insurrections is largely determined by the peculiar social structure of the society in which it takes place.9 Guerrilla movements, in other words, are an awkward topic for generalization. Yet another observer decrying the "chaotic and inadequate" state of existing etiologies of internal war has pointed to more promising venues to be explored.10 At the bottom of every protest movement there is a feeling of grievance. But how to measure these grievances, how to account for the fact that at one time a major grievance may be fatalistically accepted, whereas at another time (or place) a minor grievance may produce the most violent reaction? Is it not the perception of the grievance that matters rather than the grievance per se? How to explain that conditions perceived as tolerable at one time (or in one country) become intolerable at another time (or in another country)? Such a change in attitude could be produced by a variety of circumstances — the accumulation of reasons for discontent, or a successful revolution in another country (the "echo effect") or the emergence of a new leader, or a new generation of leaders who are driven by a greater sense of justice or ambition or fanaticism than their predecessors. But if such analysis is difficult enough with regard to the spread of political violence in one specific country, it is impossible on a worldwide scale. The great differences in the prevailing conditions are too deep and too numerous to be digested in cross-national surveys.
More fruitful perhaps is the suggestion that the obstacles to internal war should be examined. Students of guerrilla war have almost invariably concentrated on insurgents rather than on incumbents, on the forces which propel societies towards violence, rather than those which inhibit it. This omission explains to a certain extent the misunderstandings that have prevailed among some Western writers. It has been argued both on the left and the right that guerrillas are "invincible" ("Regular armies have almost never succeeded in gaining the ascendancy over guerrilla operations of any importance" — Colonel Nemo).11 It is easy to understand this pessimism in the light of recent French history but it does not at all correspond with the experience gained elsewhere. Liberal democracies and in particular ineffective authoritarian regimes indeed found it impossible to cope with colonial insurrections in the 1950s and 1960s. Other political regimes have suppressed guerrilla insurgencies with great ease. Guerrilla movements are, as Mao said, the fish that needs water—the water being a minimum of freedom. Such freedom exists if the government is relatively liberal or relatively inefficient. If government control and coercion is really effective, a guerrilla movement cannot possibly develop as the Communist and Fascist experience has shown. Some governments are inhibited in their action by public opinion, others are not. The Iraqi government liquidated the Kurdish rebellion in 1974 with great ease yet the British government failed to suppress the civil war in Ulster. This did not mean that the Iraqi government had greater legitimacy or that it was more virtuous.
Dictatorships, needless to say, are not free of grievances, for all one knows they may be even more acutely felt there. Yet there is no outlet for them; the rebel will be arrested, sent to prison and perhaps shot. His arrest will not be reported by the mass media, it will have no political consequences, his sacrifice will be in vain. If intellectuals are alienated, they keep the fact strictly to themselves for fear of losing their jobs — or worse. Much of Western guerrilla literature is curiously parochial in its stress on the importance of public opinion; in a great and growing number of countries there is no public opinion — or it has no way of expressing itself. It is hardly necessary to describe in detail the means of control and coercion which make resistance in an effective dictatorship very nearly hopeless as long as the leader (or the leaders) have not lost their self-confidence and feel no compunction in using their means of repression to the full. The argument that repression is a two-edged sword, that guerrillas always benefit from government repression, that power is weakest when it uses violence (Merriam) applied perhaps to pre-modern dictatorships, and to liberal regimes whose powers of repression are strictly limited. By and large it is no longer true.
Not only have sociologists and political scientists found it impossible to come to terms with the guerrilla phenomenon, lawyers have encountered the very same difficulties. Since the Second World War many attempts have been made to establish a new basis of legality, a more humanitarian status, for guerrilla forces under the laws of war. For many decades the status of the partisan was based on the Brussels Declaration of 1874 and the Hague Convention. Guerrilla tactics, meaning hostile activities committed by small bodies of soldiers in the enemy's rear during a real war were considered legal, whereas guerrilla war was not. According to this argument organized resistance had ceased and the individuals who engaged in guerrilla war were not bound by the laws of war. Thus private individuals were entitled to commit hostilities against the enemy — international law being a law between states could not issue prohibitions to private individuals. But these individuals did not enjoy the privileges of members of armed forces and the enemy had the right to consider them as war criminals.12 The Geneva Conventions of 1949 tried to legalize the status of the partisans in internal conflicts, but the lawyers could not agree on what constitutes a state of war and the question whether insurgents could possibly be bound by a convention which they had not themselves signed.13 For a predominantly terrorist movement the acceptance of the enemy's rules of war would be a negation of their whole strategy. But even guerrilla movements with a lesser emphasis on terror might not be in a position to adhere to the rules of war, for instance with regard to prisoners. A dictatorship may want to give a reward to captured guerrillas rather than execute them, but it will be guided in its actions by expediency rather than law. Guerrilla wars are conducted brutally and Western officers and soldiers have been guilty of excesses and even torture. But in democracies such practices quickly become known, they are denounced and have to be discontinued; in the struggle between a democratic government and a guerrilla movement at least one side is bound by law; in a dictatorship neither is, hence the failure to apply the principles of international law.
There is no theory which can predict the course of guerrilla war, and there is no reason to assume that there ever will be. Concepts and definitions have been postulated but usually this was simply "retranslating from one language of definition to another without hypothesizing anything."14 One such recent conceptual scheme differentiates between "truly qualitative insurgency" and "unsophisticated armed uprisings," stressing that the basic thrust of a "qualitative insurgency" is psychological, that the guerrilla force component by its very design is not geared to win a military victory, and that there were altogether five insurgencies that correspond with this "sophisticated" pattern (China, Cuba, the two Vietnam wars and Thailand). Such schemes tend to restate the obvious in somewhat arcane language; they are quite harmless but for the tall claims made for these exercises ("A qualitative insurgency becomes an activity lending itself to systematic and reliable analysis"15).
Even the broadest formula cannot possibly cover all guerrilla wars. It may be difficult to improve on the definition provided by Professor Huntington:
Guerrilla warfare is a form of warfare by which the strategically weaker side assumes the tactical offensive in selected forms, times and places. Guerrilla warfare is the weapon of the weak. ... Guerrilla warfare is decisive only where the anti-guerrilla side puts a low value on defeating the guerrillas and does not commit its full resources to the struggle.16
This definition certainly does not apply to Castro's campaign nor can it be maintained that the French in Algeria or the Portuguese in their African colonies put a "low value" on defeating the guerrillas. Various guerrilla movements have succeeded without taking any offensive at all, simply by outlasting the enemy. Guerrilla war is decisive only when the antiguerrilla side is prevented for military or political reasons from committing its full resources to the struggle.
The concept of stages in the preparation of an insurrection figures highly in the writings of counterinsurgency specialists. It implies that the outbreak of guerrilla war is preceded by an incubation period in which the emphasis is on organization, propaganda and conspiracy. That an insurgency in modern times cannot be launched without some form of organization goes without saying: there have been few, if any "spontaneous uprisings of the people." It is also true that the guerrilla movement is particularly vulnerable in the period of early mobilization. But it is equally true that such an organization, be it Communist or nationalist, usually exists already and that not that much preparatory work is needed for launching an insurgency. There was no incubation period in Yugoslavia during the war, or in Cuba, or in many African and Latin American countries. The concept of stages is the result of the Southeast Asian experience but what may be true in Vietnam, Malaya and the Philippines does not necessarily apply to other parts of the world.
Such criticism of existing definitions and models is not based on the assumption that more refined techniques would have resulted in superior insights. The multiple "objective" and "subjective" factors involved in guerrilla warfare and their complicated interaction rule out all-embracing formulas and explanations that are scientific, in the sense that they have predictive value. To recognize these limitations is not to deny that certain patterns are common to many guerrilla movements and that a study of these patterns could be of help in understanding why guerrilla wars have occurred in some conditions but not in others, and why some have succeeded and others have failed. The following attempt to summarize experience is concerned with probabilities not certainties.
1. The geographical milieu has always been of importance. Guerrilla movements have usually preferred regions that are not easily accessible (such as mountain ranges, forests, jungles, swamps) in which they are difficult to locate, and in which the enemy cannot deploy his full strength. Such areas are ideal in the early period of guerrilla warfare, during the period of consolidation, and they retain their uses later on as hideouts in a period of danger. In such areas the guerrillas will be relatively unmolested, but at the same time there are obvious drawbacks. If the enemy has to undergo the hardships of a mountain climate, the guerrillas, too, will have to suffer. It is difficult to obtain food and other supplies in distant, sparsely populated areas. Restricting their operations to these regions the guerrillas will be safe but they will be ineffective, for they will be able to harass only isolated enemy outposts, they will not be in a position to hit at the main lines of communication and they will lose contact with the "masses." Thus the ideal guerrilla territory while relatively inaccessible should be located not too far from cities and villages. Of late, topographical conditions have lost some of their erstwhile importance. On the whole it has become easier for the antiguerrilla forces to locate the rebels. Furthermore, with the rapid progress of urbanization, the countryside has lost much of its original political importance. The village cannot encircle the city if the majority of the population resides in urban areas. For this reason, and for some others, the main scene of guerrilla operations has shifted from the countryside to the city in predominantly urban societies, with a simultaneous shift in strategy from hiding in nature to finding cover in town.
Guerrilla movements need bases and they cannot operate without a steady flow of supplies. Ideally a sanctuary should be on foreign territory outside the reach of the antiguerrilla forces. Bases are needed for guerrilla units to recover from their battles, to reorganize for new campaigns and for a great many other purposes. While movement is one of the cardinal principles of guerrilla tactics a guerrilla unit is not a perpetuum mobile. The main drawback of a base is that it offers a fixed target for enemy attack. Thus guerrillas may be compelled to change their bases from time to time, unless they have established "liberated zones" which the enemy, with his resources overextended, can no longer destroy. The question of supply was not of decisive importance before the nineteenth century, when guerrillas (as regular armies) lived off the land, when weapons were unsophisticated and could be locally manufactured. The more complicated the arms, the greater the guerrillas' dependence on supply routes, frequently from abroad. There are but two cases in recent history in which major guerrilla armies survived and expanded without outside supply of arms — China and Yugoslavia. But this was exceptional in that these guerrilla armies came into being during a general war that offered many opportunities of acquiring arms. The decisive victories of Mao's army and of Tito's partisans came only after they had the opportunity of rearming themselves from outside sources.
2. The etiology of guerrilla wars shows that it very often occurs in areas in which such wars have occurred before. The Spanish war against Napoleon took place in the same regions in which Viriathus and Sertorius had fought the Romans. Guerrilla wars had occurred before (or had even been endemic) in the Tyrol, Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, Algeria, the Philippines, north China, North Vietnam, Cuba, Mexico and other countries. This may be partly due to geographical factors, for these are all regions that favor guerrilla warfare. It is also true that the hold of the central government over peripheral areas with a long guerrilla tradition such as Oriente in Cuba, Kabylia in Algeria or Nghe An province in Vietnam has never been as strong as on more centrally located districts. Furthermore, there are cultural traditions favoring or militating against large-scale political violence. Beyond a certain stage of cultural development it is difficult for a guerrilla movement to gain mass support. Neither the middle class nor workers and peasants in civilized countries feel sufficient enthusiasm to "go to the mountains" even at a time of grave crisis. What Engels wrote in 1870 — that our tradition gives only barbarians the right of real self-defense and that civilized nations fight according to established etiquette — is a fortiori true now. Even in the case of foreign invasion and occupation the great majority of the population in a civilized country will not engage in a war risking total destruction.
3· To this extent there is a (negative) correlation between guerrilla warfare and the degree of economic development. There have been few peasant guerrilla wars in modern times in which acute agrarian demands constituted the central issue (Mexico, the Philippines). On the other hand, in many more countries the peasantry has been the main reservoir of manpower for guerrilla armies led by nonpeasant elites. The breakdown of traditional peasant society under the pressure of capitalist development, absentee landlordism, demographic pressure, falling prices for agricultural produce, natural catastrophes and other misfortunes have created in many Asian countries (and to a lesser extent in Africa and Latin America) conditions in which there has been great sympathy among poor peasants, landless laborers, but also middle peasants for popular movements promising land to the landless, even if this promise was not the immediate issue in the war. The difficulty facing the guerrilla leaders has always been to harness this revolutionary potential on a nationwide basis in view of the traditional reluctance of peasants to fight outside their neighborhood. This could mostly be achieved only in the framework of a national struggle transcending the parochial framework such as a war against a foreign enemy (China, Algeria).
4· Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries there have been three main species of guerrilla wars. They have been directed against foreign occupants, either in the framework of a general war or after the defeat of the regular army and against colonial rule. Secondly, guerrilla warfare has been the favorite tactic of separatist, minority movements fighting the central government (the Vendée, IMRO, IRA, ELF, the Basques, the Kurds, the FLQ, etc.). And thirdly, guerrilla warfare against native incumbents has been the rule in Latin America and in a few other countries (Burma, Thailand, etc.). But the national, patriotic element has always been heavily emphasized even if domestic rulers were the target; they were attacked as foreign hirelings by the true patriots fighting for national unity and independence. In China, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, the Philippines and Malaya partisan units were established to fight foreign occupants but they became civil war forces with the end of the general war. Throughout the nineteenth century the achievement of national independence has been the traditional goal of guerrilla movements; more recently social and economic programs have featured prominently. But the patriotic appeal has always played a more important role than social-revolutionary propaganda. Castro's war was fought for the overthrow of Batista's tyranny; most Latin American guerrilla movements have stressed general reform programs rather than clearly defined socialist-Communist slogans in their fight against domestic contenders. As the outcome of these wars show, guerrillas succeed with much greater ease against foreign domination than against native incumbents.
5· The character of guerrilla war has undergone profound changes during the last two centuries, but so has regular war on the one hand, and the technique of revolution on the other. However, there is no justification for regarding modern guerrilla warfare (or "people's war," or revolutionary insurgency) as an entirely new phenomenon which has little connection with the guerrilla wars of former periods. Organization (the role of the political party) and propaganda play an infinitely more important role in present day guerrilla war than in the past, and it is of course true that in some Third World countries guerrilla war is merely one stage in the struggle for power. Guerrilla war was never apolitical," it was always nationalist in character and became national-revolutionary in an age of revolution. Too much importance has been attributed to the use of Marxist-Leninist verbiage on the part of Third World liberation movements. This has led Western observers to interpret their progress either in terms of a worldwide Communist conspiracy or as a great new liberating promise. While the common denominator of most of these Third World movements is anti-imperialism and the rejection of the capitalist form of modernization, the ideology guiding them is a mixture of agrarian populism and radical nationalism (with "nationalism" and "socialism" often interchangeable). Such political movements have certain similarities with European Communism (dictatorship, the role of the monolithic party) but on a deeper level of analysis they are as distant from socialism as from liberal capitalism. Elsewhere the basic inspiration for guerrilla warfare has been sectarian-separatist (religious-tribal) with revolutionary ideology as a concession to prevailing intellectual fashions and modes of expression.
6. The leadership of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century guerrilla movements was usually in the hands of men of the people (Mina, the Empecinado, Andreas Hofer, Zapata, the Boer leaders, the IMRO). In backward countries they were traditionally led by tribal chiefs or religious dignitaries. More recently they have become, by and large, the preserve of young intellectuals or semi-intellectuals; this refers particularly to Latin America and Africa with only a very few exceptions (Fabio Vasquez, Samora Machel).
The social origin of the twentieth-century guerrilla elite in Latin America and also in Asia and the more backward European countries is usually middle class, especially the administrative stratum (the "lower mandarins") which has no independent means of its own. Equally frustrated by their own limited prospects and the real or imaginary plight of their country, they have opted for revolutionary violence, the transformation of an old-fashioned, ineffective autocracy into a more modern, more effective and by necessity also more despotic regime. To seize power, the civilian intelligentsia transforms itself into the military leadership. A formula of this kind does not apply to every single guerrilla movement, even less to all of its leaders; nor does it do justice to the idealistic motivation of leading guerrilla cadres. But in historical perspective this has been the political function of radical guerrilla movements. Students were hardly represented in the classical guerrilla movements, more recently their share has been very prominent indeed, and the greater their role, the more radical the character of the guerrilla movement; this is shown for instance by a comparison between Fatah and PFLP, between the Angolan FLNA and the MPLA. Military men have occasionally appeared as prominent guerrilla leaders: Denis Davydov, Yon Sosa and Turcio Lima in Guatemala, the young Prestes and later on Carlos Lamarca in Brazil, Grivas, Kaukji Mihailovic, the Wamphoa graduates among the Chinese Communists. Some guerrilla leaders had limited military experience, for example the Vendeans and Spanish guerrillas who fought Napoleon, the Yugoslav Communists who participated In the Spanish Civil War, Nasution, the Algerians who fought in the French army. But the most important guerrilla leaders of our time, including Mao, Tito, Giap, Castro, Guevara, as well as the foremost theoreticians among them, were self-made men in the military field. Most guerrilla leaders were in their late twenties or early thirties when they launched their campaigns, old enough to impose their authority, uniting the experience of age and the activity of youth, and capable of withstanding the exertions of guerrilla warfare. Some, however, were already in their forties (Tito, Mao), and some even older (Grivas, a few of the Boer generals, Chu Teh, Marighela). Few manual workers have joined guerrilla movements (Korea and Malaya were significant exceptions) and even fewer emerged as guerrilla leaders. Guerrilla leaders, certainly the more successful among them, have always been strict disciplinarians. What Gibbon wrote about Skanderbeg applies to most of them: "His manners were popular but his discipline was severe and every superfluous vice was banished from his camp."
7· Social composition: Attention has been drawn to the fact that peasants traditionally constituted the most important mass basis of guerrilla movements, but conditions varied considerably from country to country even in the nineteenth century and there have been further changes since. The Chouans and the Spanish guerrilla units fighting the French came almost exclusively from rural areas, and the same applied, of course, to the Boer commandos and the Zapatistas. On the other hand there was not a single peasant among Garibaldi's "Thousand." IMRO was initially overwhelmingly a rural movement, whereas the IRA derived most of its support from the cities; IZL and the Stern Gang (in contrast to Hagana) were almost exclusively city-based. Smugglers, poachers, bandits and various déclassé elements played a significant part in certain nineteenth-century guerrilla movements (southern Italy) and also in Latin America and the Far East. Usually the smaller the guerrilla army, the larger the middle-class element. This applies above all to the Cuban revolution and the various urban guerrilla groups such as the Tupamaros. Women have participated in almost all guerrilla movements. They have been most prominent in the small urban guerrilla groups (West Germany, the U.S.) and in Korea (more than a quarter of their total force). Available data are insufficient to establish whether the occupation of insurgents reflects the occupational pattern of the population as a whole. This may have been the case in some countries (Philippines, Algeria) but not in others (Latin America). A poll taken by the French during the first Vietnam war showed that almost fifty percent of their prisoners were classified as "petty bourgeois," and in African guerrilla movements, too, the urban petty bourgeoisie was apparently represented far above their share in the population. The small urban guerrilla movements are preponderantly constituted of students, or recent students, the IRA being the one major exception.
8. The motives that have induced men and women to join guerrilla bands are manifold. Historically, patriotism has been the single most important factor — the occupation of the homeland by foreigners, the resentment directed against the colonial power — often accompanied by personal grievances (humiliation, material deprivation, brutalities committed by the occupying forces). Secessionist guerrilla movements have based their appeal on the discrimination against and the persecution of ethnic or religious minorities. Guerrilla movements fighting domestic contenders stress obvious political or social grievances such as the struggle against tyranny, unequal distribution of income, government inefficiency, corruption and "betrayal," and, generally speaking, the "antipopular character of the ruling clique." Land hunger, high interest rates (Philippines), the encroachment by the haciendados on Indian land (Mexico) have been important factors in predominantly agrarian societies. On top of these causes there has been a multiplicity of personal reasons ranging from a developed social conscience to boredom, the thirst for adventure and the romanticism of guerrilla life to personal ambition — the expectation of bettering oneself socially or of reaching a position of power and influence. The dynamic character of guerrilla movements has always exerted a powerful attraction of young idealists — the prospect of activity, of responsibility for one's fellows, of fighting with equally enthusiastic comrades for the national and social liberation of the homeland. As Maguire wrote seventy years ago and Denis Davydov well before him, a partisan must be a kind of military Byron, his enterprise requires a romantic imagination. What induces guerrillas to stay on is above all ésprit de corps, loyalty to his commander and fellow soldiers. The feeling of togetherness and team spirit seems to be more important than ideological indoctrination. Guerrilla warfare usually opens larger vistas to personal initiative and daring than regular warfare; it has been said that slavish imitation produces good military tailors but not guerrilla leaders. But the motives are by no means all idealistic; guerrilla war is an excellent outlet for personal aggression, it provides opportunities for settling accounts with one's enemies, and conveys a great sense of power to those hitherto powerless. While sadism has never been official guerrilla policy, there has always been more deliberate cruelty inflicted in guerrilla wars than in the fighting of regular army units, subject to stricter discipline. This is true for the partisan wars of the Napoleonic period and also for many subsequent guerrilla wars. The gentlemanly guerrilla war has been a rare exception (the Boer War); on the other hand there were many guerrilla wars in which sadism was established practice (IMRO, IRA, Arab and African guerrillas). The cause legitimizes both the fulfillment of personal ambition and the infliction of cruelty which in other circumstances would be considered inhuman. As Le Mière de Corvey noted more than a hundred and fifty years ago, there can be no guerrilla warfare without hate and fanaticism. There is a tendency not just to employ violence but to glorify it; in this respect there are parallels between modern guerrilla movements and Fascism. Guerrilla warfare and, a fortiori, urban terror implant a pattern of dictatorial practices and brutality that perpetuates itself. Graduates of the school of violent action do not turn into practitioners of democracy and apostles of humanism after victory.
9. Organization, propaganda and terror have always been essential parts of guerrilla warfare, but their importance has greatly increased over the years and the techniques have been refined. Organization implies the existence of a political party or movement or at least a noncombatant fringe, semilegal or underground, providing assistance to the guerrillas — money, intelligence and special services. In some instances the guerrilla movement has been more or less identical with the party (Cuba, Uruguay, Algeria); elsewhere it has acted as the armed instrument of the party. Wherever guerrillas had no such connection with a political party (EOKA, the Stern Gang, many African and Latin American guerrilla movements) they could at least rely on a periphery of sympathizers, which, albeit unorganized, provided support. In most recent guerrilla wars political propaganda has been of equal or greater importance than military operations (Cuba was the most striking example). Elsewhere propaganda has played a subordinate role; this is especially true for guerrilla wars waged by secessionist movements. These had the support of their own people anyway; but no amount of propaganda would have persuaded the Turks of the justice of the Macedonian or the EOKA cause, nor would have made Ulstermen join the IRA, or persuaded the Iraqis to make common cause with the Kurds. But even secessionist guerrillas want to influence world public opinion. Public opinion is a more effective weapon than fighting against the governments of small countries dependent on the goodwill of others. Urban guerrillas will get far more publicity than rural, because there are more newspapermen and cine cameras in towns. Some countries are more in the limelight than others. An unexploded hand grenade found in an Israeli backyard will be reported, major operations resulting in dozens killed in Burma, Thailand or the Philippines may not be reported. Hence the endeavor of urban terrorists to concentrate on eye-catching operations.
Propaganda is of particular importance in civil wars when the majority of the population, as is often the case, takes a neutral, passive attitude in the struggle between incumbents and insurgents. The apathy of the majority usually favors the guerrillas more than their enemies. No guerrilla movement has obtained its objectives solely through propaganda; equally none has succeeded by terrorism alone.
Terror is used as a deliberate strategy to demoralize the government by disrupting its control, to demonstrate one's own strength and to frighten collaborators. More Greeks were killed by EOKA than British soldiers, more Arabs than Jews in the Arab rebellion of 1936-1939, more Africans than white people by the Mau Mau. The terrorist element has been more pronounced in some guerrilla movements than in others; in "urban guerrillaism" it is the predominant mode of the armed struggle, in China and Cuba it was used more sparingly than in Vietnam, Algeria or in Greece. While few guerrilla movements have been opposed in principle to terror, some, for strategic reasons, have only seldom applied it because they thought it tactically ineffective or because they feared that it would antagonize large sections of the population. It is impossible to generalize about the efficacy of terror as a weapon; it has succeeded in some conditions and failed in others. It was used with considerable effect in Vietnam and Algeria; elsewhere, notably in Greece and in various Latin American countries, it had the opposite effect. Much depends on the selection of targets, how easy it is to intimidate political opponents, whether it is just a question of "liquidating" a few enemies, or whether the political power of the incumbents is widely diffused. Guerrilla war has been defined by insurgents and counterinsurgents alike as the struggle for the support of the majority of the people. No guerrilla movement can possibly survive and expand against an overwhelmingly hostile population. But in the light of historical experience the measure of active popular support required by a guerrilla movement need not be exaggerated.
10. The techniques and organizational forms of guerrilla warfare have varied enormously from country to country according to terrain, size and density of population, political constellation, etc. Thus, quite obviously, guerrilla units in small countries have normally been small whereas in big countries they have been large. In some countries guerrilla units gradually transformed themselves into regular army regiments and divisions (Greece) and yet failed, in others they won the war though they never outgrew the guerrilla stage (Cuba) or despite the fact that militarily they were beaten (Algeria). In some guerrilla movements the personality of the leader has been of decisive importance. One need recall only Shamyl and Abd el-Kader in the nineteenth century; the same goes for more recent guerrilla wars (Tito, Castro, Grivas). On other occasions personalities have been of little consequence; the fact that the French captured some of the leaders of the Algerian rebellion did not decisively influence the subsequent course of the war. The leaders of the Vietnam Communists were expendable, Mao probably was not.
There are, by definition, no Blitzkrieg victories in guerrilla war, yet some campaigns succeeded within a relatively short period (two years) whereas others continued, on and oft, for decades. Some involved a great deal of fighting, resulting in great losses, others were, on the whole, unbloody (Cuba, Africa). There has been a tendency to explain the defeats of guerrilla movements by referring to their strategic errors. Thus the Greek Communists have been blamed for their premature decision to adopt regular army tactics, and the Huks for not carrying the war to the cities. But this does not explain why other guerrillas succeeded, despite the fact that they made even graver mistakes. Success or failure of a guerrilla movement depends not only on its own courage, wisdom and determination but equally on objective conditions and, last but not least, on the tenacity and aptitude of the enemy. Castro won because he faced Batista and similarly the Algerians were dealing with the Fourth Republic, a regime in a state of advanced disintegration. The Greek partisans and the Huks, on the other hand, had the misfortune to encounter determined opponents in the persons of Papagos and Magsaysay. But beyond all these factors, subjective and objective, there is still the element of accident which cannot possibly be accounted for, which defies measurement and prediction. Objective conditions help or hamper guerrilla movements, they make success or failure more likely. Given a certain historical process such as decolonization, the victory of a guerrilla movement, however ineffectual, is almost a foregone conclusion. But decolonization has been concluded and the old rule no longer applies as the guerrillas confront native incumbents, nor is it true with regard to separatist movements. Guerrillas have succeeded even when "objective" conditions were adverse and they have been defeated even when everything pointed to their victory. The presence of a great leader is a historical accident: without Tito the Yugoslav partisans would probably not have taken to the mountains; but for Castro the invasion of Cuba would not have taken place. The same applies, of course, to the antiguerrilla camp. Under a more forceful, more farsighted and more gifted leader than Chiang Kai-chek, the KMT might have won the war; Mao was perfectly aware of this possibility. Other accidents can be decisive for the outcome of a guerrilla war, for instance the presence of a government spy high up in the guerrilla command. During the early period of insurgency the accidental death of a leader or his arrest could be a fatal setback. Thus, the Huks never recovered from the arrest in Manila, by accident, of most of the members of the Communist party leadership. On the other hand a small, isolated guerrilla movement may achieve a breakthrough early on in its struggle owing to sheer good fortune rather than superior strategy. On at least two occasions the fortunes of the Chinese Communists were decisively affected by sudden changes in the international political constellation. The political orientation of more than a few guerrilla movements has certainly been a matter of accident; it was not from historical necessity that the Ovambo (SWAPO) should turn to the Soviet Union, whereas the Herero and Mbanderu should study Chairman Mao's Little Red Book.
11. Urban terrorism in various forms has existed throughout history; during the past decade it has become more frequent than rural guerrilla warfare. Some modern guerrilla movements were predominantly city-based; for instance, the IRA, EOKA, 1ZL and the Stern Gang, others were part urban (Algeria). Neither the nineteenth-century anarchists nor the Russian pre-revolutionary terrorists regarded themselves as guerrillas; their assassinations were largely symbolic acts of "punishment" meted out to individual members of the forces of oppression — they were not usually part of an overall strategy. Whereas guerrilla operations are mainly directed against the armed forces of the enemy and the security services, as well as installations of strategic importance, modern urban terror is less discriminate in the choice of its targets. Operations such as bank robberies, hijackings, kidnappings, and, of course, assassinations are expected to create a general climate of insecurity. Such actions are always carried out by small groups of people; an urban guerrilla group cannot grow beyond a certain limit because the risk of detection increases with the growth in numbers. A successful urban guerrilla war is possible only if the strength of the establishment has deteriorated to the point where armed bands can move about in the city. Such a state of affairs has occurred only on very rare occasions and it has never lasted for any length of time, leading within a few days either to the victory of the insurgents or the incumbents. The normal use of "urban guerrilla" is a euphemism for urban terrorism which has a negative public relations image. Thus the Tupamaros always advised their members to dissociate themselves from "traditional terrorism" and only a few fringe groups (Marighela, Baader-Meinhof) openly advocated terror. Urban terrorism can undermine a weak government, or even act as the catalyst of a general insurgency but it is not an instrument for the seizure of power. Urban terrorists cannot normally establish "liberated zones"; their operations may catch headlines but they cannot conduct mass propaganda nor build up a political organization. Despite the fact that modern society has become more vulnerable than in the past to attacks and disruptions of this kind, urban terrorism is politically ineffective, except when carried out in the framework of the overall strategy of a political movement, usually sectarian or separatist in character, with an already existing mass basis.
12. Guerrilla movements have frequently been beset by internal strife, within their own ranks or between rival groups. Internal dissension has been caused by quarrels about the strategy to be pursued (China, Greece) or by the conflicting ambitions of individual leaders (Frelimo, Columbia). The rivalry between the political and the military leadership, unless these were identical, has also been a frequent cause of friction. Contemporary Far Eastern and Southeast Asian Communist guerrilla movements have been relatively free of such internal struggle; elsewhere splits have been the rule rather than the exception. The Algerian rebels and the PAIGC succeeded in immobilizing their competitors early on in their struggle. In other countries as much effort has been devoted by the insurgents to fighting against their rivals as against the common enemy (IMRO, Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, Angola). Sometimes a division of labor between rival organizations prevented open clashes while the struggle against the common enemy lasted. This was true for instance of Mexico, Mandatory Palestine, the Palestine Arab resistance and Ulster. But once the fight against the foreign enemy has been won the struggle for power frequently results in a free-for-all between rival guerrilla groups (Congo, Angola) or sets former comrades-in-arms against each other (the Irish Civil War).
The assessment of the future prospects of guerrilla warfare has to take historical experience as its starting point: in what conditions did such warfare occur, and why did it succeed or fail? The historical record shows, to repeat once again, that nineteenth-century guerrilla wars invariably failed to achieve their objectives except with the support of a regular army, domestic or foreign. During the Second World War guerrilla movements had limited successes against overextended enemy units; but they used the war to consolidate their power and in the political vacuum after the war they emerged as the chief contenders for power (China, Yugoslavia, Albania, Vietnam).
A powerful impetus was given to guerrilla war after 1945 with the disintegration of colonial empires. The colonial powers no longer had the will to fight, and even if guerrilla operations were militarily quite ineffective, to combat them became so costly that the imperial power eventually withdrew its forces.
Guerrilla war against domestic rulers has succeeded in the past— with one exception — only during a general war or immediately following it, with the collapse of central state power. Weakened as the South Vietnam regime was by Vietcong activities, the decisive assault was launched by a regular army. Separatist guerrilla movements have not so far scored decisive victories. Their future prospects will depend to a large extent on the amount of foreign aid they receive. If their political demands are limited in character (administrative-cultural autonomy) or if their secession would not decisively weaken the state they may succeed in certain cases. If on the other hand the loss would be unacceptable, their chances must be rated low, except at a time of general crisis such as war. The appeal of a separatist guerrilla movement is of necessity limited; its survival and success depends on the assumption that the authorities will not apply extreme measures ranging from resettlement on a massive scale to physical extermination.
The conditions conducive to the success of guerrillas have become much less promising with the virtual end of decolonization and the absence of general war. Could the Cuban example be emulated elsewhere? Could, in other words, a guerrilla movement succeed in peacetime in undermining an existing government to such an extent that its collapse became a distinct possibility? Certain developments favor insurrection: urban terrorism has become transnational, supported by foreign governments or by terrorist movements abroad. At the same time, the destructive power of the weapons used by terrorists has greatly increased. While the rifle, the machine gun and the hand grenade (or the bomb) were the classical weapons of the guerrilla during the last hundred years, the guerrilla of the future will have advanced weapons such as missiles at his disposal; he may be able to manufacture a crude atomic bomb or steal one.17 But the political uses of nuclear blackmail by terrorist groups should not be exaggerated — it is not an instrument for the seizure of power.18 In any case, the destructive power of the weapons in the hands of the state has grown even more and the outcome will depend in the last resort on the will and the ability of the government to apply this force. The military balance of power has shifted to the detriment of the guerrillas; they can seldom operate in the open country, and the scope of terrorist activities in urban centers is limited (the decline of hijacking).
It has been maintained that large-scale conventional wars have become so difficult and expensive that terrorists may be employed by foreign governments to engage in surrogate warfare and that terrorism may become the conventional war of the future. This seems unlikely for both military and political reasons. Recent technological advances such as precision-guided munitions provide more destructive energy in smaller packages than ever before and have revolutionized delivery accuracy. These new weapons however are effective above all against tanks and combat aircraft. But tanks and combat aircraft were never the guerrilla's worst enemies whereas in fighting in urban areas precision-guided munitions will be of strictly limited use. It is quite likely that in a future war massed forces will count for less and small forces with great firepower will be of considerable importance. There may well be a dispersal of forces, a return, on a higher level of technological development, to the partisan tactics of the eighteenth century with comparatively small, highly mobile units raiding the enemy's rear. But it is unlikely that guerrilla units operating in peacetime will derive much benefit from these innovations. They will not be able, as a rule, to retransfer their activities from the cities to the countryside, for means of detection in the open have greatly improved. If it is true that military power will become more diffuse, it is equally true that military power without a central command, close coordination, supply and logistics is ineffective.
In peace a determined army or police force will always be able to destroy the guerrillas and terrorists. The guerrillas have to rely on the government's inability to use the full power at its disposal, the constraints imposed by world opinion and public opinion at home. But this applies only to liberal-democratic regimes. Their number has been shrinking and guerrilla or terrorist activities could well hasten this process. What Regis Debray said about the Tupamaros applies mutatis mutandis to guerrillas and terrorists operating in democratic societies in general; that digging the grave of the "system" they dig their own grave, for the removal of democratic restraints spells the guerrilla's doom. Is it safe to expect that governments will be either so inefficient or so permissive as not to employ effective antiguerrilla or antiterrorist measures in an emergency? This is becoming less and less likely. The strategy of guerrilla war may be used between sovereign states with attacks launched from sanctuaries beyond state borders. But such war by proxy will usually be dangerous for it may lead to full-scale war; it is unlikely in time of peace that the Chinese will instigate guerrilla warfare in Siberia or vice versa. A guerrilla campaign may still be possible against a small country in certain circumstances if support by a major power discreetly (or not so discreetly) is provided to various separatist or opposition groups.
Democratic regimes always seem highly vulnerable to terrorist attack. The constitutional restraints in these regimes make it difficult to combat terrorism and such failure exposes democratic governments to ridicule and contempt. If, on the other hand, they adopt stringent measures they are charged with oppression, and the violation of basic human rights. If terrorists are put on trial they will try to disrupt the legal procedure and to make fair administration of justice impossible. Having been sentenced, terrorists and their sympathizers could then claim that they are victims of gross injustice. Up to this point, the media (always inclined to give wide publicity to acts of violence), are the terrorists' natural ally. But as terrorist operations become more frequent, as insecurity spreads and as wide sections of the population are adversely affected, there is a growing demand for tougher action by the government even if this should involve occasional (or systematic) infringements of human rights. The swing in popular opinion is reflected in the media focusing no longer on the courage and unselfishness of the terrorists but on the psychopathological sources of terrorism and the criminal element — sometimes marginal, at others quite prominent, but always present in "urban guerrilla" operations. Unless the moral fiber of the regime is in a state of advanced decay, and the political will paralyzed, the urban terrorists would fail to make headway beyond the stage of provocation, in which, according to plan, public opinion should have been won over to their cause, but is in fact antagonized.
Prospects for urban terror seem a little more promising in the Third World, but only in certain rare constellations, some of which have already been discussed. The security forces in these countries are less experienced and effective than in Communist regimes, but usually they will be capable of coping with challenges of this kind unless the rebels receive powerful support from abroad. Irrespective of how brutally a guerrilla movement is suppressed it will be next to impossible to mobilize foreign public opinion against an oil-producing country or one that has good relations with its neighbors and other Third World nations. World public opinion can be mobilized only against a relatively weak country that has powerful enemies among its neighbors, and few friends.
Even if the authority of the state is fatally undermined, even if a power vacuum exists, the prospects of guerrilla or terrorist victory have dimmed, for there is a stronger contender for power — the army. Military coups have become more and more frequent: they may in future become the normal form of political change in most parts of the world.
Latin American Communist leaders have noted that the revolutionary process largely depends on enlisting the "patriotic forces" among the military on the side of the Communists.19 The same applies mutatis mutandis to the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia. But such military coups can turn right as well as left. The slogans will be nationalist-populist in any case and the difference in policy between left- and right-wing military dictatorships may not always be visible to the naked eye. Those with a more pronounced left-wing bias will steal much of the guerrillas' thunder, those inclined more to the right will effectively suppress them. The army command seizes the key positions of the state apparatus and quite frequently establishes a state party. The help of civilian (or guerrilla) political activists may be accepted in this process but they are regarded at the same time as rivals and since the army officers have no desire to share power the civilians will be kept at a safe distance from the levers of power.
During the last fifteen years some hundred and twenty military coups have taken place whereas only five guerrilla movements have come to power; three of them as the result of the Portuguese military coup in 1974; Laos and Cambodia fell after the collapse of Vietnam. The military dictator may be overthrown but the challenge will again come from within the army. Not being overextended and weakened by foreign wars, the army in Third World countries is in a strong position as a contender for domestic power.
The conditions that caused insurgencies have not disappeared — men and women are still exploited, oppressed, deprived of their rights and alienated. "Objective, revolutionary situations" still abound and will continue to exist. But the prospects for conducting successful guerrilla war in the postcolonial period have worsened, except, perhaps, to a limited extent in the secessionist-separatist context. Guerrilla war may not entirely disappear but, seen in historical perspective, it is on the decline, together with its traditional foes — colonialism on the one hand and liberal democracy on the other. Thus the function of guerrilla movements is reverting to what it originally was — that of paving the way for and supporting the regular army. In the past such assistance was military — today it is mainly political. It is holding the stirrup so that others may get into the saddle.
The transition from high to low tide in the fortunes of guerrilla war has been sudden. This is not to say that the conditions that once favored its rise may not recur — following a major war or a natural catastrophe or the weakening of the authority of the state for some other reasons. But at present the age of the guerrilla is drawing to a close. The retreat into urban terror, noisy but politically ineffective, is not a new departure but, on the contrary, the end of an era.
* The inhabitants of Calabria and Basilicata have every reason to feel aggrieved and frustrated for these are among the very poorest provinces of Italy. But they are at the bottom of the scale inasmuch as the rate of suicide and the crime rate are concerned whereas prosperous Piemont, Lombardy and Liguria are on top. Social statistics in other countries show a similar picture.