Two of the greatest leaders in the study of warfare were Antoine Henri Jomini and Karl Von Clausewitz.
Jomini was an officer in the French army during the time of Napoleon. He attained the rank of general and in the remaining 54 years of his life, after the Napoleonic wars, he served as a military consultant and scholar.
Before his death in 1869, he had written 27 volumes on the wars of Fredrick the Great, The French Revolution, and Napoleon. His greatest work was titled Summary of the Art of War.
Jomini said there were fundamental principles for successful war making and that these principles are un-affected by time, place, and weaponry. He contended that these principles are applicable in any wartime situation.
His 4 rules were as follows:
- Maneuver to bring the major part of your forces to bear on the enemies decisive areas and communications.
- Maneuver to bring your major forces against only part of the enemy’s forces.
- Maneuver to bring your major forces to bear upon the decisive area on the battlefield or of the enemy’s lines.
- Maneuver to bring your mass to bear swiftly and simultaneously.
Bottom Line: Bring your army’s weight to bear at the right time and the right place.
Jomini said your military should include maneuvering whereby your army can successfully dominate three sides of a rectangular zone held by your enemy. To Jomini war was primarily a matter of maneuvering to gain territory in places, not a matter of annihilating the enemy forces.
The other leading scholar in wartime tactics was Major General Karl Von Clausewitz, born in 1780, Clausewitz was admitted to the Berlin war academy for young officers and became the organizer of the Prussian army.
His major work was titled On War, published in 1831. Clausewitz first principle was that war is essentially an act of violence. Its outcome is not determined by specific calculation but by immaterial and moral factors.
He contended great leaders are a matter of insightful genius, not following rules of effective strategy and tactics. The object of war, according to Clausewitz, is to compel your opponent by violent means to bend his will to yours.
Bottom Line: Destroy his armed forces, not seize territory, or key locations. (Totally the opposite of Jomini.)
Clausewitz also argued that wars could be determined by political implications, although, in most cases, wars are won by attacking the enemy’s armed forces.
In certain wars, public opinion can play a major role. Public opinion, put upon the government of the warring power, can cause that government to fold and surrender to its’ enemy. The Vietnam War and recently, Afghanistan, are good examples of this.
The works of Jomini and Clausewitz became standard reading for America’s service academies.
The US Military Academy at West Point, New York was established in 1802. A handful of engineering officers and cadets were assigned to the post.
65 of the original 89 graduates served during the War of 1812 and formally became members of the Army Corp of Engineers during that war.
West Point went on to become the premier military and engineering school in the nation. By 1846, it had graduated almost 1,000 cadets and by 1860, more than 76% of US army officers were West Point graduates.
Now with the military strategies of Jomini and Klauswitz in mind (tactics vs. kill them all let God sort them) I think we should look at which approach seems to work best.
The French were in Indochina (Vietnam) long before we were and warned us not to go there. (Charles Degaulle)
The Soviets were in Afghanistan for ten years and were defeated by the Afghans, yet we went there as well.
What did the North Vietnamese and the Afghans have in common, that allowed them to beat the most powerful militaries in the world?
A combination of the strategies of Jomini and the ruthlessness of Klauswitz.
In other words, guerilla warfare.
https://www.thoughtco.com/guerrilla-warfare-definition-tactics-examples-4586462
Guerrilla warfare is waged by civilians who are not members of a traditional military unit, such as a nation’s standing army or police force.
This type of warfare is typified by sabotage, ambushes, and surprise raids on unsuspecting military targets. Often fighting in their own homeland, guerrilla combatants use their familiarity with the local landscape and terrain to their advantage. (Jomini)
Guerrilla tactics are characterized by repeated surprise attacks and efforts to limit the movement of enemy troops. (Jomini)
Guerrilla groups also use tactics of propaganda to recruit fighters and win the support of local populations. (Klauswitz)
The use of guerrilla warfare was first suggested in the 6th century BC by Chinese general and strategist Sun Tzu, in his classic book, The Art of War.
In 217 BC, Roman Dictator Quintus Fabius Maximus, often called the “father of guerrilla warfare,” used his “Fabian strategy” to defeat the mighty invading army of Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca.
In the early 19th century, citizens of Spain and Portugal used guerrilla tactics to defeat Napoleon’s superior French army in the Peninsular War.
More recently, guerrilla fighters led by Che Guevara assisted Fidel Castro in overthrowing Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista during the Cuban Revolution of 1952.
Largely due to its use by leaders like Mao Zedong in China and Ho Chi Minh in North Vietnam, guerrilla warfare is generally thought of in the West only as a tactic of communism.
However, history has shown this to be a misconception, as a multitude of political and social factors have motivated citizen-soldiers.
Guerrilla warfare is generally considered a war motivated by politics—a desperate struggle of common people to right the wrongs done to them by an oppressive regime that rules by military force and intimidation.
All you have to do is look at the Civil War in Missouri and the campaigns of Missouri guerillas like William Clarke Quantrill, Bloody Bill Anderson, The James boys and Cole younger and his brother.
Why were they so successful against 80,000 Union troops here in Missouri?
When asked what motivates guerrilla warfare, Cuban Revolution leader Che Guevara gave this famous response:
“Why does the guerrilla fighter fight? We must come to the inevitable conclusion that the guerrilla fighter is a social reformer, that he takes up arms responding to the angry protest of the people against their oppressors, and that he fights in order to change the social system that keeps all his unarmed brothers in misery.”
History, however, has shown that public perception of guerrillas as heroes or villains depends on their tactics and motivations.
While many guerrillas have fought to secure basic human rights, some have initiated unjustified violence, even using terrorist tactics against other civilians who refuse to join their cause.
For example, in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s, a civilian group calling itself the Irish Republican Army (IRA) conducted a series of attacks against British security forces and public establishments in the country, as well as Irish citizens who they believed to be loyal to British Crown.
Characterized by tactics such as indiscriminate bombings, often taking the lives of uninvolved civilians, the IRA’s attacks were described as acts of terrorism by both the media and the British government.
Guerrilla organizations run the gamut, from small, localized groups (“cells”) to regionally dispersed regiments of thousands of well-trained fighters. The groups’ leaders typically express clear political goals.
Along with strict military units, many guerrilla groups also have political wings assigned to develop and distribute propaganda for recruiting new fighters and winning the support of the local civilian population.
In his 6th century book The Art of War, Chinese General Sun Tzu summarized the tactics of guerrilla warfare:
“Know when to fight and when not to fight. Avoid what is strong and strike at what is weak. Know how to deceive the enemy: appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.”
Reflecting General Tzu’s teachings, guerrilla fighters use small and fast-moving units to launch repeated surprise “hit-and-run” attacks.
The goal of these attacks is to destabilize and demoralize the larger enemy force while minimizing their own casualties. In addition, some guerrilla groups hope that the frequency and nature of their attacks will provoke their enemy to carry out counter-attacks so excessively brutal that they inspire support for the rebel cause.
Facing overwhelming disadvantages in manpower and military hardware, the ultimate goal of guerrilla tactics is typically the eventual withdrawal of the enemy army, rather than its total surrender.
Guerrilla fighters often attempt to limit the movement of enemy troops, weapons, and supplies by attacking enemy supply line facilities like bridges, railroads, and airfields.
You can’t take on a tank or an A10 with a deer rifle, but you can attack the fuel depot and supply lines that provide logistics for these weapons.
In an effort to blend in with the local population guerrilla fighters rarely wear uniforms or identifying insignia. This tactic of stealth helps them utilize the element of surprise in their attacks.
Dependent on the local population for support, guerrilla forces employ both military and political arms.
The political arm of a guerrilla group specializes in the creation and dissemination of propaganda intended not only to recruit new fighters but also win the hearts and minds of the people.
While they both employ many of the same tactics and weapons, there are important differences between guerrilla fighters and terrorists.
Most importantly, terrorists rarely attack defended military targets. Instead, terrorists usually attack so-called “soft targets,” such as civilian aircraft, schools, churches, and other places of public assembly. The September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing are examples of terrorist attacks.
Unlike terrorists, guerrilla fighters rarely attack civilians. In contrast to terrorists, guerrillas move and fight as paramilitary units with the objective of seizing territory and enemy equipment.
Throughout history, evolving cultural ideologies such as liberty, equality, nationalism, socialism, and religious fundamentalism have motivated groups of people to employ guerrilla warfare tactics in efforts to overcome real or imagined oppression and persecution at the hands of a ruling government or foreign invaders.
While many battles of the American Revolution were fought between conventional armies, civilian American patriots often used guerrilla tactics to disrupt the activities of the larger, better-equipped British Army.
In the Revolution’s opening skirmish—the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775—a loosely-organized militia of Colonial American civilians used guerrilla warfare tactics in driving back the British Army.
We hid behind trees and rocks and refused to line up opposite of the enemy on the battlefield. Drove the British nuts!
American General George Washington often used local guerrilla militias in support of his Continental Army and utilized unconventional guerrilla tactics such as spying and sniping.
In the final stages of the war, a South Carolina citizen militia (Francis Marion, the swamp fox) used guerrilla tactics to drive British commanding General Lord Cornwallis out of the Carolinas to his ultimate defeat in the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia.
In modern times, we have seen the effectiveness of guerilla tactics.
In late 1979, the military of the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in an effort to support the communist Afghan government in its long-running battle with anticommunist Muslim guerrillas.
Known as the Mujahideen, the Afghan guerrillas were a collection of local tribesmen who initially fought the Soviet troops from horseback with obsolete World War I rifles and sabers.
Think about that. WWI rifles and horses against the Soviets, the second most powerful army and air force on the planet at that time.
The conflict escalated into a decade-long proxy war when the United States began supplying the guerrillas with modern weapons including advanced anti-tank and anti-aircraft guided missiles.
Over the next 10 years, the guerillas used their U.S.-supplied weapons and superior knowledge of the rugged Afghan terrain to inflict ever more costly damage on the far larger and better equipped Soviet army.
Already dealing with a deepening economic crisis at home, the Soviet Union withdrew its troops from Afghanistan in 1989.
The guerillas now took control of Afghanistan and formed the Taliban government.
With recent events, we know the rest of that story.
So folks, what we should have learned from this whole Afghanistan mess is that guerilla tactics work.
Lacking the numerical strength and weapons to oppose a regular army in the field, guerrillas avoid pitched battles.
Instead, they operate from bases established in remote and inaccessible terrain, such as forests, mountains, and jungles, and depend on the support of the local inhabitants for recruits, food, shelter, and information.
The guerrillas may also receive assistance in the form of arms, medical supplies, and military advisers from their own or allied regular armies.
The tactics of guerrillas are those of harassment. Striking swiftly and unexpectedly, they raid enemy supply depots and installations, ambush patrols and supply convoys, and cut communication lines, hoping thereby to disrupt enemy activities and to capture equipment and supplies for their own use.
Because of their mobility, the dispersal of their forces into small groups, and their ability to disappear among the civilian population, guerrillas are extremely difficult to capture.
Isis in the Middle East, Hamas in Lebanon, the Chechens in Georgia Armenia, and Azerbaijan, the list goes on and on.
What should we have learned from our recent conflicts in the middle east and elsewhere in the world?
It does not take a huge army and massive weapons to win a war.
Guerilla tactics work.
Maybe, just maybe, we should start studying our history before we become involved in the next conflict.