Guerrilla Warfare: Strategies and Tactics (From International Terrorism: The Decade Ahead, P 127-132, 1989, Jane Rae Buckwalter, ed. -- See NCJ-120184)

• NCJ Number: 120197
• Author(s): P Beachem
• Date Published: 1989
• Length: 6 pages
• Sale Source: University of Illinois at Chicago
• Publication Type: Best Practice/State-of-the-Art Review
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS. Presented at the Third Annual International Symposium on Criminal Justice Issues in 1988.

Annotation

Guerrilla warfare is part of a subversive effort to overthrow an existing political system; it uses flexibility in a span of coercion that extends from conversation through terrorism and open conventional war.

Abstract

Guerrillas are small bands that operate from base areas. Their advantages are knowledge of the population, knowledge of terrorist tactics, mobility, and numerical superiority at a selected point of action. Guerrilla groups focus on the dissatisfactions of a population and use the media as a forum to present ideas, pose questions, and publicize activities. The media also becomes a recruitment tool to expand the number of guerrillas. Since guerrilla forces are relatively small, they must only engage in military confrontations at points and times when they have numerical superiority. They act quickly and then withdraw before enemy reinforcements arrive. Mass, strike, and disperse are strategic elements of successful guerrilla operations. Guerrilla activities include intelligence operations, psychological warfare, sabotage, assassinations, and terrorist acts designed to inject fear and instability in the populace. As a guerrilla group grows in numbers and secures territory, it engages in conventional warfare, followed by consolidation and the establishment of a political organization.