Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare From Ancient Times to the Present
Page 67
Guinea Bissau Military Junta 6/7/1998 5/10/1999 337 0.923 0
Algeria GSPC/Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb 1998 Ongoing 3
Russia Chechnya/North Caucasus 1999 Ongoing 3
Liberia LURD, MODEL 4/25/1999 8/11/2003 1569 4.299 0
Pakistan Jaish-e-Mohammed 2000 Ongoing 3
Israel Palestinians (Second Intifada) 9/28/2000 2/8/2005 1594 4.367 2
Saudi Arabia/Yemen Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia & Islamic Jihad of Yemen/AQAP 2000 Ongoing 3
USA/Afghanistan Taliban/Haqqani Network/Hizb-I Islami Gulbuddin 2001 Ongoing 3
USA/Iraq/Western Europe Ansar al-Islam 2001 Ongoing 3
Ivory Coast Forces Nouvelles 2002 Ongoing 3
Pakistan Tehrik-i-Taliban 2002 Ongoing 3
Sudan/Chad Darfuri Rebels 2003 Ongoing 3
Iraq AQI/JAM/Kata’ib Hizballah/Baathist Nationalists 2003 Ongoing 3
Iran PRMI/Jundallah (Baluch) 2003 Ongoing 3
Greece Revolutionary Struggle 2003 Ongoing 3
Thailand South Thailand rebels 2004 Ongoing 3
Yemen/KSA Houthi Rebels 2004 Ongoing 3
Uzbekistan Islamic Jihad Union 2004 Ongoing 3
Israel Hezbollah (Second Lebanon War) 7/12/2006 8/14/2006 33 0.090 1
Mali Tuareg Insurgents 5/2007 2/2009 642 1.759 1
Pakistan Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan 2007 Ongoing 3
Libya Transitional National Council 2/15/2011 10/23/2011 250 0.685 0
Syria Free Syrian Army 2011 Ongoing 3
Mali Tuareg/Ansar-al-Dine 2012 Ongoing 3
SUMMARY OF DATABASE
RESOLVED INSURGENCIES
Insurgent Victories 96 (25.20%)
Draws/Compromises 42 (11.02%)
Incumbent Victories 243 (63.78%)
COUNTING 61 ONGOING CONFLICTS AS INCUMBENT VICTORIES
Insurgent Victories 96 (21.72%)
Draws/Compromises 42 (9.50%)
Incumbent Victories 304 (68.78%)
BY TIME PERIOD INSURGENT VICTORIES DRAWS INCUMBENT VICTORIES
Pre-1945 50 (20.49%) 21 (8.61%) 173 (70.90%)
Post-1945 (resolved) 46 (39.60%) 21 (15.33%) 70 (51.09%)
DURATION (RESOLVED) (YEARS)
Average Duration Pre-1945 5.489
Average Duration Post-1945 9.677
Average Duration (Overall) 6.97
BY LENGTH OF INSURGENCY TOTAL RESOLVED INCUMBENT VICTORIES DRAWS INSURGENT VICTORIES
Insurgencies <10 Years 293 196 (66.89%) 34 (11.60%) 63 (21.50%)
Insurgencies >20 Years 32 21 (65.63%) 3 (9.38%) 8 (25.00%)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This is a Council on Foreign Relations book. During the six years that I worked on this volume, from 2006 to 2012, I had the inestimable good fortune to be the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow in National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. It could not have been written otherwise. The Council’s president, Richard Haass, and two directors of studies, James Lindsay and Gary Samore, were always supremely supportive of me and my work. I am deeply grateful to them, and to all my Council colleagues (especially Amy Baker, Janine Hill, and all the other members of the Studies Department; Irina Farkianos, vice president for national programs; and Patricia Dorff, the editorial director), as well as to the Council’s distinguished roster of members, for creating such a congenial atmosphere for producing serious writing and analysis. I learned a lot, in particular, from the visiting military fellows who spend a year at the Council in between service on the front lines. The Council is a vibrant intellectual community that has made an important and enduring contribution to the development of American foreign policy since the 1920s, and I am honored to be a small part of it.1
One of the benefits of being at the Council is having a research associate, and I have benefited immensely from the first-rate young men and women who helped me while I was laboring on this book: Sarah Eskries-Winkler, Michael Scavelli, Rick Bennet, and Seth Myers. While I did all of my own research and writing, they helped by tracking down books, making logistical arrangements, preparing budgets, and performing a thousand other tasks. Rick and Seth played a particularly important role by helping to compile the Invisible Armies database.
I am also grateful for the financial, intellectual, and moral support of a number of generous individuals who have made my work at the Council possible. They include Roger Hertog and the Hertog Foundation; Robert Rosenkranz, Alexandra Munroe, Dana Wolfe, and the Rosenkranz Foundation; Heather Higgins and the Randolph Foundation; Marin Strmecki and Nadia Schadlow and the Smith Richardson Foundation; Dianne J. Sehler and the Bradley Foundation; and Steven Winch—along with some others who prefer to remain anonymous. Roger Hertog was particularly helpful in sharing his high-level contacts when I needed to make a research trip to Israel. In Israel, Daniel Polisar, the president of the Shalem Center, and his assistant, Jordana Barkats, went out of their way to arrange interviews with a who’s who of the Israeli security establishment. Robert Rosenkranz and Alexandra Munro, for their part, were extraordinarily generous in allowing me to stay at their house in London while doing research in the British archives.
Several friends and colleagues took time to read all or part of this manuscript. Thanks to Barry Strauss, Robert Utley, Peter Mansoor, Arthur Waldron, Reuel Gerecht, Rufus Phillips, Rick Bennet, and especially to Mallory Factor, who made critical comments that I took to heart. I am also grateful to Steve Biddle and Jeff Friedman for their feedback on the database, and to two anonymous reviewers who offered a detailed critique of the manuscript at the Council’s request.
During the past nine years (2003–12) I made more than a dozen trips to Afghanistan and Iraq to do “battlefield circulations” and talk with senior military and civilian officials. The information I gained not only contributed to the treatment of Iraq and Afghanistan in this book but also shaped my views about low-intensity conflict in general. I am grateful to the senior commanders who made these visits possible, especially Generals David Petraeus, Ray Odierno, Stanley McChrystal, and John Allen. Their subordinates were invariably accommodating and welcoming; I can remember many fascinating discussions of counterinsurgency tactics in war-zone chow halls and inside moving armored vehicles. In addition I am grateful to the Special Operations Forces that hosted me in the Philippines and in Colombia; to the American Jewish Committee for including me in two trips for American security analysts to Israel while that country was at war (against Hezbollah and Hamas); and to Lee Smith for arranging a fascinating visit to Lebanon.
I owe thanks to all the librarians and archivists at all the institutions I visited during the course of my research: they were unfailingly professional, helpful, and deeply informed. I owe a special debt to Miles Templer, Field Marshal Templer’s son, for opening his home to me so that I could examine his father’s papers. The librarians at the Council were also helpful in allowing me to borrow books from other institutions—and never complaining about my ridiculously long lists of requests.
My agents and friends, Glen Hartley and Lynn Chu, were a font of good advice and invaluable support—as always. It was a pleasure to work with Robert Weil and the entire team at W. W. Norton, especially his assistants, Phil Marino and William Menaker. Bob is an old-fashioned editor who still believes in meticulously marking up manuscripts with a pencil, and I benefited immensely from his discerning eye, both in the early days when I was struggling to find the right narrative approach and at the end of the process when I had to make revisions to an already completed manuscript. I have never worked with a better editor and doubt I ever will. David Lindroth drew the handsome maps. Seth Myers acquired the illustrations.
Finally I owe a considerable debt of gratitude to my loved ones—especially my children, to whom this work is dedicated—for putting up with my lengthy absences from home and general air of distraction while working on this book.
NOTES
EPIGRAPHS
1 Miot de Mélito, Memoirs, 557. The count was a courtier who served Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon’s brother an
d onetime king of Spain.
2 Trinquier, Modern Warfare, 74. Trinquier was a veteran of the French Indochina and Algerian wars.
PROLOGUE
1 Guardian, Oct. 23, 2010.
2 Brunais’s patrol: Based on the author’s personal observations.
3 According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, there were 161 conflicts raging around the world in 2010, almost all of them internal wars involving low-intensity tactics. The same database lists 363 nonstate armed groups.
4 Weinstein, Rebellion, 5.
5 Histories of guerrilla warfare: See, e.g., Asprey, Shadows; Laqueur, Guerrilla Warfare; Ellis, Barrel; Polk, Violent Politics; Arnold, Jungle; O’Neil, Insurgency. Histories of terrorism: Burleigh, Blood; Carr, Infernal Machine; Carr, Lessons; Bowden, Terror; Laqueur, Terrorism.
6 Laqueur, Terrorism, 6. For definitions I also draw on Hoffman, Terrorism; Kalyvas, Logic; Chaliand, Terrorism; Cronin, Ends; Richardson, Terrorists; Bowden, Terror; O’Neill, Insurgency.
7 Burke, Select Works, 315.
8 Crossman, “Ethics.”
9 Heer, Extermination, 112–13.
10 Osanka, Guerrilla Warfare, xvi.
BOOK I: BARBARIANS AT THE GATE
1 For an attempt to translate the events of the Jewish war into modern dates, see Levick, Vespasian, 40–42.
2 Roman army: Goldsworthy, Roman Warfare; Hackett, Warfare; Heather, Fall; Campbell, Roman Army.
3 Ambush: Josephus, War, in Complete Works (“continued”: 2.19.6; “unexpected”: 2.19.7; “covered,” “fell,” “contrivance”: 2.19.8; “calamity”: 2.20.1); Suetonius, Twelve Caesars, 284 (eagle); Gichon, “Campaign”; Goodman, Rome, 9–10.
4 End of revolt: Josephus, War, 2.19.8 (“flight”), 6.5.1 (“ground”), 6.8.5 (“blood”); Suetonius, Twelve Caesars; Tacitus, Histories; Cassius Dio, Roman History; Goodman, Rome; Price, Under Siege; Levick, Vespasian.
5 Hanson, No Other, 94.
6 Thucydides, Peloponnesian, 3.82–83.
7 Aetolions: Ibid., 3:94–98, 250–53.
8 Alexander in Central Asia: The best account is Holt, Land of Bones (“thick”: 76). See also Arrian, Campaigns; Curtius, History; Diodorus, Historical Library; Plutarch, Lives; Green, Alexander; Fuller, Generalship; Stein, Alexander’s Track; Worthington, Alexander.
9 Maccabees: Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, in Complete Works; 1 and 2 Maccabees; Hayes, Jewish People; Bright, Israel; Shanks, Ancient Israel; Hearn, Maccabees; Scolnic, Brother’s Blood.
10 Diaspora revolt: Cassius Dio, Roman History, 68.32; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 4.2; Bloom, Revolts. Bar Kokhba revolt: Cassius Dio, Roman History, 69.12–13; Yadin, Bar-Kokhba; Hayes, Jewish People, 211–15; Goodman, Rome, 464–69; Isaac, Limits, 84; Bloom, Revolts.
11 David: I Samuel 16–31; Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 6.12–13; Bright, History of Israel, 193–95; Shanks, Ancient Israel, 85–98; McKenzie, King David, 70–110; Gabriel, Military History, 234–35.
12 LeBlanc, Constant Battles, 128–56; Gat, War, 157; O’Connell, Of Arms, 26–33.
13 Spalinger, Ancient Egypt, 36 (force size), 83–100; Hackett, Warfare, 29–32; Ferrill, Origins, 54–57.
14 Tatersall, Beginnings, 91.
15 Diamond, “Vengeance.”
16 Edwards, West Indies, 1.527 (“dastardly”).
17 Malone, Skulking, 24.
18 Keegan, Warfare, 9.
19 Underhill, Newes, 36.
20 Keeley, War before, 65.
21 Ibid., 195, 93.
22 Ferrill, Origins, 23–24; Keeley, War before, 37; Guilaine, Origins, 67–72.
23 Mann, 1491, 43.
24 Sargon: Hamblin, Warfare (cup bearer: 73–74; “king of the world”: 76; weapons: 98; “bread and beer”: 96; “mass slaughter”: 79; “show mercy”: 76, 99; “annihilated”: 78; “all the lands”: 80; “lawless”: 103; “serpent”: 103); Yadin, Art, 1.48 (“revolutionary”); Liverani, Akkad; Sasson, Civilizations, vol. 2; Frayne, Royal Inscriptions; Westenholz, Legends (wicker basket: 41; “ruin”: 71; “lion”: 99); Lewis, Legend; Meador, Inanna; Hallo, Exaltation; Snell, Near East; Bradford, Arrow.
25 Invasion of Mesopotamia: Hamblin, Warfare (wall: 110–11; “no cities”: 155; “enemy”: 120; “ruined”: 121; “corpses,” “goats”: 122).
26 Xenophon, Cyropaedia, 1.1.5.2.
27 Herodotus, Histories, 1.201–16; Farrokh, Shadows, 48–49.
28 Scythians: Herodotus, Histories, 4.64–65 (“drinks,” “arms”); Hildinger, Warriors, 5–14; Barfield, Frontier, 20–28; Grousset, Empires, 6–15; Sinor, Cambridge History, 97–110.
29 Herodotus, Histories, 4.120.
30 Ibid., 4.126–27.
31 Ferrill, Origins, 69; Saggs, Assyria, 262.
32 Herodotus, Histories, 1.95. See also Hackett, Warfare, 36–53; Saggs, Assyria; Holland, Persian Fire, 1–7; Bradford, With Arrow, 41–49.
33 Strauss, Spartacus; Shaw, Spartacus.
34 “Bleaching”: Tacitus, Histories, 1.62. “Hiss”: Florus, Epitome, 2.30.
35 Polybius, Histories, 10.15.4.
36 Price, Under Siege, 175.
37 Tacitus, Agricola, 81.
38 Death of Vetilius: Appian, Wars, 63.266. Platius’s losses: 64.270. “Agile”: 62.263. Death of Viriathus: 74.311–14; Richardson, Romans in Spain, 65.
39 “Marched”: Josephus, War, 5.9.1. “Begged”: 5.9.3.
40 Herod: Richardson, Herod; Perowne, Herod; Hanson, Ancient Strategy, 175–76.
41 Scheidel, Economic History, 45–49.
42 Goodman, Rome, 397.
43 Josephus, War, 2.12.1; Goodman, Rome, 386.
44 Josephus, War, 6.6.2.
45 Madden, Empires.
46 Tabachnick, Enduring Empire, 129.
47 Madden, Empires, 178.
48 Gibbon, Decline, 1.1.
49 Goldsworthy, Rome Fell, 16.
50 Gibbon, Decline, 1.170.
51 Mitchell, Later Roman Empire, xiv, notes that scholarship since the 1960s “has changed our perceptions of the later Roman Empire ineradicably, and to a large extent supplanted the paradigm of decline and fall, established by Gibbon.” See also Heather, Fall, 141; Jones, Later Roman Empire, 1027. Goldsworthy, Rome Fell, 11–25, notes the historical pendulum swinging back to “decline and fall.”
52 Goldsworthy, Rome Fell, 258.
53 “Guerrilla mode”: Ellis, Barrel, 39.
54 Huns: Ammianus, History, 31.2.1–12 (“beasts,” “very quick,” “indomitable”); Jordanes, Origins, 36.188 (“treachery”); Priscus, “Court” (“haughty”); Schaff, Select Library, 6.130, 161 (“these brutes”); Thompson, Huns; Man, Attila (impalement: 128–29); Howarth, Attila; Matyszak, Enemies, 270–81; Hildinger, Warriors, 57–74; Kennedy, Mongols (stirrups: 28–30); Mitchell, Later Roman Empire, 197–202; Goldworthy, Rome Fell, 22 (“After 217”), 314–35.
55 Heather, Fall, 346.
56 Ibid., 446–47.
57 Goldsworthy, Rome Fell, 415.
58 Keegan, Warfare, 387.
59 Hanson, Carnage.
60 Keegan, Warfare, 221.
61 “Without fighting”: Sawyer, Seven Classics, 161. “Deception”: 158.
62 “Gongs”: Ibid., 266. “Capturing”: 265. Drummer, “climb”: 267.
63 Chinese armies: Ibid., 10–11; Peers, Soldiers, 36; Graff, Military History, 29–31.
64 Graff, Military History, 13–14.
65 Debate: Cosmo, Ancient China, 210–15; Barfield, Perilous Frontier, 54.
66 Han: Lewis, Chinese Empires (market: 83); Loewe, Everyday Life; Chang, Rise (50 million: 1.177; 500,000: 1.85); Hardy, Establishment (120,000 mandarins: 101).
67 Sinor, Cambridge History, 1–18; Soucek, Inner Asia, xi–xii.
68 Graff, Military History, 57.
69 Sima, Records, 2.196.
70 Ibid., 129–30. “Girdles”: 145.
71 Barfield, Perilous Frontier, 49; Kierman, Chinese Ways, 81; Chang, Rise, 1.158.
72 Cosmo, Ancient China, 203.
73 Sima, Record
s, 2.129.
74 Ambush: Sima, Records, 1.78–79, 2.138–39 (“gifts”: 138); Barfield, Frontier, 35–36; Cosmo, Ancient China, 191–92; Sinor, Cambridge History, 121–22.
75 Sima, Records, 2.139; Barfield, Frontier, 45–48; Cosmo, Ancient China, 192–94; Lewis, Chinese Empires, 132–33; Graff, Military History, 64; Chang, Rise, 1.145; Sinor, Cambridge History, 122–25; Yu, Trade, 40–51.
76 Barfield, Frontier, 51; Yu, Trade, 36–37.
77 Sima, Records, 2.149.
78 Ibid., 194.
79 Cosmo, Ancient China, 213.
80 Chang, Rise, 1.129.
81 Wu: Chang, Rise, 1.89–96, 1.145 (“avenge”); Pan Ku, History, 2.27.
82 Sima, Records, 2.67, 247–51; Perdue, Marches West, 35; Cosmo, Ancient China, 232.
83 Cosmo, Ancient China, 203–4; Lewis, Chinese Empires, 139.
84 Chang, Rise, 1.86.
85 Lewis, Chinese Empires, 138.
86 Goldsworthy, Roman Warfare, 105–9; Hackett, Warfare, 165–67, 170–73; Holland, Rubicon, 161–62; Mackay, Ancient Rome, 98, 125–26.
87 “Hardship,” “exhausted”: Sima, Records, 2.64–65. “Hide currency”: 2.69. Revenues: Barfield, Frontier, 57.
88 Chang, Rise, 1.2, 155, 224.
89 Barfield, Frontier, 58–63; Graff, Military History, 65.
90 Wright, “Equation Revisited,” concludes “that an overall preponderance of the evidence does point to some strong connection between the two groups.”
91 Perdue, China Marches West, 282–87; Lorge, War, 164–66; Barfield, Frontier, 293–94; Graff, Military History, 127–29.
92 Waldron, Great Wall.
93 May, Mongol, 21.
94 Graff, Military History, 67.
95 Kennedy, Mongols, 16–21.
96 Uyar, Ottomans; Crowley, 1453.
97 Uyar, Ottomans, 5.
98 Parker, Illustrated History, 84–87; Prestwich, Edward I, 44.
99 “Burning”: Barber, Black Prince, 50. “Revenue”: 52.
100 John, Chronicles, 334.
101 Scott, Robert, 4.
102 Barrow, Robert, 88.
103 Murray, Rob Roy, 39.
104 Wallace: Chronicle of Lanercost, 175–76; John, Chronicle, 2.332; Bower, History, 194–95; Fisher, Wallace, 226–53; Mackay, Wallace, 245–68 (“half living”: 265).