What Is to Be Done?

   

I should note that this was not intended to be my first post upon returning from a brief blogging hiatus, but “the best laid plans…”

Burning Questions for those defending Ukraine against the Russian invasion of a sovereign country orchestrated by the authoritarian plutocrat and sociopath, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin:

There was a “security analyst” (from Edinburgh) on CNN (I tried to find information about him on their website but was not successful, perhaps owing to the fact that it is well after midnight and I usually get up by 4:00 am so I’m getting a bit tired) who said we will soon see urban warfare as Soviet troops begin entering cities in Ukraine, which appears in fact to have already begun. The downside of course is the number of civilians who will be in harm’s way, some because of the understandable and justifiable attempt to defend their country. The kind of strategies and tactics this analyst mentioned, while not specifically those peculiar to guerrilla warfare, began to cross over into same. And some of the methods and tactics cited have even been used in deliberate and organized nonviolent actions by civilians. Be that as it may, I want to reiterate something I said a couple of days ago on my FB page: should the Ukrainians want to have some reasonable chance of stopping the massive (i.e., superior) military forces on the Russian side they will need to resort to guerrilla warfare. This raises all sorts of questions in international law around “combatant and civilian status in international armed conflicts,” which I do not want to minimize, let alone dismiss. Still, and whatever my principled preferences for negotiations and bargaining—that is, diplomacy (the path of peace)—I cannot but help settle for a realist(ic) assessment of what is occurring and likely will occur. Thus I raise the probable if not urgent importance or necessity of Ukrainians resorting, ceteris paribus, to guerrilla warfare.

    

I wonder if there are any handbooks on guerrilla warfare in Ukrainian (or in Russian). That would appear to be the next stage in this military struggle for the survival of a sovereign nation-state, “the second-largest country by area in Europe after Russia,” a would-be democratic republic that has been classified as a “hybrid regime” (part autocratic, part democratic).

“Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tactics, and mobility, to fight a larger and less-mobile traditional military.

Although the term ‘guerrilla warfare’ was coined in the context of the Peninsular War in the 19th century, the tactical methods of guerrilla warfare have long been in use. In the 6th century BC, Sun Tzu proposed the use of guerrilla-style tactics in The Art of War. The 3rd century BC Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus is also credited with inventing many of the tactics of guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla warfare has been used by various factions throughout history and is particularly associated with revolutionary movements and popular resistance against invading or occupying armies.

Guerrilla tactics focus on avoiding head-on confrontations with enemy armies, instead engaging in limited skirmishes with the goal of exhausting adversaries and forcing them to withdraw. Guerrilla groups often depend on the logistical and political support of either the local population or foreign backers who do not engage in an armed struggle but sympathize with the guerrilla group’s efforts.”

A short English language list on guerrilla warfare:

• Asprey, Robert B. War in the Shadows: The Guerrilla in History, 2 vols. (Doubleday & Co., 1975).
• Barry, Tom. Guerilla Days in Ireland (Mercier Press, 2011 [1949]).
• Beckett, Ian F.W. Encyclopedia of Guerrilla Warfare (Checkmark Books, 2001).
• Boot, Max. Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present (Liveright Publishing, 2013).
• Chaliand, Gérard. Guerrilla Strategies: An Historical Anthology from the Long March to Afghanistan (University of California Press, 1982).
• Derradji, Abder-Rahmane. The Algerian Guerrilla Campaign: Strategy and Tactics (Edwin Mellen Press, 1997).
• Derradji, Abder-Rahmane. The Algerian Guerrillas and the FLN’s March from Birth to Crisis (Scholars’ Press, 2017).
• Guevara, Che. Guerrilla Warfare (Monthly Review Press, 1961).
• Kilcullen, David. Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla (Oxford University Press, 2013.
• MacDonald, Peter. Giap: The Victor in Vietnam (W.W. Norton & Co., 1993).
• Mao, Tse-Tung [Mao, Zedong] (Samuel B. Griffith, II, trans.) On Guerrilla Warfare (University of Illinois Press, 2000).
• Peers, William R. and Dean Brelis. Behind the Burma Road (Little, Brown & Co., 1963).
• Sun, Bin (trans. with introduction and commentary by D.C. Lau and Roger T. Ames) Sun Bin: The Art of Warfare (State University of New York Press, 2003).
• Sun-tzu [Sunzi] (John Minford, trans. and ed.) The Art of War (Viking Penguin, 2002).
• Sutherland, Daniel E. A Savage Conflict: The Decisive Role of Guerrillas in the American Civil War (University of North Carolina Press, 2009).
• Taber, Robert. War of the Flea: The Classic Study of Guerrilla Warfare (Brassey’s Inc., 2002).

Wikipedia:

• Guerrilla warfare
• History of guerrilla warfare