Irregular Warfare Quotes

The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerilla wins if he does not lose.

This is a totally different war than any we've ever fought before.

The terrorists' only rules? That there are no rules, and this gives them a major advantage.

Twenty-first century war adds new risks: more and more often there are no front lines, no central command, no rules of engagement - only a chaotic collision of politics, power, faith and bloodlust. Victims are as likely to be civilians as soldiers.

The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea.

Throughout most of our species’ long and bloody slog, warfare has primarily been carried out by bands of loosely organized, ill-disciplined, and lightly armed volunteers who distained open battle in favor of stealthy raids and ambushes: the strategies of both tribal warriors and modern guerrillas and terrorists. In fact, conventional warfare is the relatively recent invention.

Asymmetrical warfare is a euphemism for terrorism, just like collateral damage is a euphemism for killing innocent civilians.

[Francisco Franco] said they should resort to guerrilla war. Which has a history in Spain.

There is in guerrilla warfare no such thing as a decisive battle; there is nothing comparable to the fixed, passive defense that characterizes orthodox war.

To make war upon rebellion is messy and slow, like eating soup with a knife.

The failings in Afghanistan don't fall on the shoulders of the American service personnel trying to complete their mission. The failure falls on military leadership unable to adapt to irregular warfare, and a Congress that blindly continues to fund failure.

There are very interesting books about these events, for instance one by a very well-known American historian named William R. Polk called Violent Politics. It's a record of what are basically guerrilla wars from the American Revolution right up through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Demoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination. This is the war of the future.

The Special Operations community is rooted in unconventional warfare.

Guerrilla war is a kind of war waged by the few but dependent on the support of many.

Time and again, attempts by machine-age armies to impose their will on irregular forces supported by a sympathetic population failed.

In Afghanistan this week, outnumbered Northern Alliance rebels on horseback defeated Taliban forces armed with tanks. Experts say the victory is just like the story of David and Goliath and David's friend, the Stealth Bomber.

A colonial war is a very dirty kind of war. You're not fighting armed forces. You're fighting mostly unarmed people. And to fight that kind of war requires professional killers, which means mercenaries.

Guerrilla warfare is used by the side which is supported by a majority but which possesses a much smaller number of arms for use in defense against oppression.

William R. Polk discusses the Spanish guerrilla war against Napoleon [ Bonaparte] and other cases where the conflict turns into a political war, and the invader, who usually has overwhelming power, loses because they can't fight the political war.

You can't talk about defeating insurgencies in the same way that you can with a conventional army.

Clearly-drawn front lines have become a thing of the past due to complex locations with ubiquitous enemy threats.

The simple and terrifying reality, forbidden from discussion in America, was that despite spending $600 billion a year on the military, despite having the best fighting force the world had ever known, they were getting their asses kicked by illiterate peasants who made bombs out of manure and wood.

If we were fighting an army, the work would be comparatively easy. We are fighting a secret revolutionary organization.