The 33 Strategies of War (71 page)

As with any human activity, however, this positive, orderly side generates a negative, shadow side that contains its own form of power and reverse logic. The shadow side is guerrilla warfare. The rudiments of guerrilla warfare originated thousands of years ago, when smaller nations found themselves invaded by more powerful neighbors; to survive, their armies were forced to flee the invader, for any direct engagement would have destroyed them. It soon became clear that the longer they fled and eluded battle, the more they ruined the enemy's strategies and confused it by not conforming to the usual logic of engagement.

Such was the system Spain used against us. One hundred and fifty to two hundred guerrilla bands scattered all over Spain had sworn to kill thirty or forty Frenchmen a month each: that made six to eight thousand men a month for all guerrilla bands together. The order was never to attack soldiers traveling as a body, unless the guerrillas outnumbered them. But they fired on all stragglers, attacked small escorts, and sought to lay hands on the enemy's funds, couriers, and especially convoys. As all the inhabitants acted as spies for their fellow citizens, the guerrillas knew when the convoys would leave and how strong their escorts would be, and the bands would make sure they were twice the size. They knew the country very well, and they would attack furiously in the most favorable spot. Success often crowned the undertaking; but they always killed a lot of men, and the goal was achieved. As there are twelve months in the year, we were losing about eighty thousand men a year, without any pitched battles. The war in Spain lasted seven years, so over five hundred men were killed.... But that includes only those killed by the guerrillas. Add the battles of Salamanca, Talavera, and Vitoria, and several others that our troops lost; the sieges,...the fruitless attack on Cadiz; add too the invasion and evacuation of Portugal, the fevers and various illnesses that the temperature caused our soldiers to suffer, and you will see that we could add a further three hundred thousand men to that number during those seven years....... From what has been said, it will be apparent that the prime aim of this sort of war is to bring about the destruction of the enemy almost without him noticing it, and as a drop of water dripping on a stone will eventually dig a hole in the stone, patience and perseverance are needed, always following the same system. In the long run, the enemy will suffer more from this than he would from losing pitched battles.

O
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ARTISANS AND
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RREGULAR
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ORCES
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J.F.A. L
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IERE DE
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ORVEY
, 1823

The next step was to take this further: these early guerrilla warriors learned the value of operating in small, dispersed bands as opposed to a concentrated army, keeping in constant motion, never forming a front, flank, or rear for the other side to hit. The enemy would want to keep the war confined to a particular space; better, then, to extend it over as much territory as possible, melting into the countryside, forcing the enemy to disperse itself in the chase, opening itself up to raids and pinprick attacks. The enemy would naturally want a quick end to the war, so it was desirable to drag it out as long as possible, making time an offensive weapon that consumed the enemy with friction and sagging morale.

In this way, over thousands of years and through trial and error, the art of guerrilla warfare developed and was refined into its present-day form. Conventional military training and thought revolve around concentrating for battle, maneuvering within limited areas, and straining for the quick kill. Guerrilla warfare's reversal of this natural order of war makes it impossible for a conventional army to counter--hence its power. In the shadow land of reverse warfare, where none of the normal rules apply, the conventional army flounders. Done right, guerrilla warfare is virtually unbeatable.

The word "guerrilla"--"small war" in Spanish--was coined in reference to the Peninsular War of 1808-14, which began when Napoleon invaded Spain. Melting into their country's mountains and inhospitable terrain, the Spaniards tortured the French, making it impossible for them to profit from their superior numbers and weaponry. Napoleon was bedeviled by an enemy that attacked without forming a front or rear. The Cossack fighters who undid him in Russia in 1812 had learned a lot from the Spanish and perfected the use of guerrilla warfare; their harassment caused far more damage than anything the rather incompetent Russian army could inflict.

This strategy has become a more powerful and prevalent tool in modern warfare for several reasons: First, by exploiting technological advances in weaponry and explosives, a small guerrilla band can cause disproportionate damage. Second, Napoleonic warfare greatly expanded the size of conventional armies, making them much more vulnerable to hit-and-run tactics from light and mobile forces. Finally, guerrilla war has been adopted for political purposes, to great effect. By infusing local people with the fervor of a cause, a revolutionary leader can covertly multiply his strength: his civilian supporters can sabotage the enemy's invading force, provide valuable intelligence, and turn the countryside into an armed camp.

The power of guerrilla warfare is essentially psychological. In conventional warfare everything converges on the engagement of two armies in battle. That is what all strategy is devised for and what the martial instinct requires as a kind of release from tension. By postponing this natural convergence indefinitely, the guerrilla strategist creates intense frustration. The longer this mental corrosion continues, the more debilitating it gets. Napoleon lost to the Russians because his strategic bearings were pushed off course; his mind fell before his army did.

Because it is so psychological, guerrilla strategy is infinitely applicable to social conflict. In life as in war, our thoughts and emotions naturally converge on moments of contact and engagement with others. We find people who are deliberately elusive, who evade contact, extremely disconcerting. Whether because we want to grab them and pin them down or because we are so annoyed with them that we want to hit them, they pull us toward them, so that either way the elusive one controls the dynamic. Some people take this further, attacking us in ways that are evasive and unpredictable. These opponents can gain a disturbing power over our minds, and the longer they keep it up, the more we are sucked into fighting on their terms. With advances in technology that make it easier to maintain a vaporous presence, and the use of the media as both a screen and a kind of guerrilla adjunct, the power and effectiveness of this warfare in political or social battle are greatly enhanced. In heated political times, a guerrilla-style campaign--allied with some cause--can be used to wage a people's war against large entities, corporations, entrenched powers. In this kind of public combat, everyone loves to fight on the guerrillas' side because the participants are more deeply involved in the struggle, not mere cogs in a giant machine.

Franklin Roosevelt was a kind of political guerrilla warrior. He liked to fight evasively and strategized to deny the Republicans any targets to hit. He used the media to make himself seem to be everywhere and to be waging a kind of people's war against moneyed interests. In classic guerrilla manner, he also reorganized the Democratic Party to make it less centralized, more mobile and fluid for local battles. For Roosevelt, though, the guerrilla approach was not so much a coherent strategy as a style. As many do, he unconsciously sensed the power in being evasive and fought that way to great effect--but to make this strategy really work, it is better to use it consciously and rationally. Guerrilla strategy may be the reverse side of war, but it has its own logic, backward yet rigorous. You cannot just improvise it anarchically; you must think and plan in a new way--mobile, dimensional, and abstract.

The primary consideration should always be whether a guerrilla-style campaign is appropriate for the circumstances you are facing. It is especially effective, for instance, against an opponent who is aggressive yet clever--a man like Napoleon. These types cannot stand lack of contact with an enemy. They live to maneuver, outwit, and outhit. Having nothing to strike at neutralizes their cleverness, and their aggression becomes their downfall. It is interesting to note that this strategy works in love as well as in war and that here, too, Napoleon was its victim: it was by a guerrilla-style seduction--by enticing him to chase her, giving tantalizing lures but offering him nothing solid to grasp--that Empress Josephine made him her slave.

This strategy of the void works wonders on those who are used to conventional warfare. Lack of contact is so outside their experience that it warps any strategic powers they have. Large bureaucracies are often perfect targets for a guerrilla strategy for the same reason: they are capable of responding only in the most orthodox manner. In any event, guerrilla warriors generally need an opponent that is large, slow-footed, and with bullying tendencies.

Once you have determined that a guerrilla war is appropriate, take a look at the army you will use. A large, conventional army is never suitable; fluidity and the ability to strike from many angles are what counts. The organizational model is the cell--a relatively small group of men and women, tight-knit, dedicated, self-motivated, and spread out. These cells should penetrate the enemy camp itself. This was how Mao Tse-tung organized his army in the Chinese Revolution, infiltrating the Nationalist side, causing sabotage in the cities, leaving the deceptive and terrifying impression that his men were everywhere.

When U.S. Air Force Colonel John Boyd joined the Pentagon in the late 1960s to help develop jet fighters, he faced a reactionary bureaucracy dominated by commercial interests rather than military ones. The Pentagon was in dire need of reform, but a traditional bureaucratic war--an attempt to convince key staff directly and frontally of the importance of his cause--would have been a hopeless venture: Boyd would simply have been isolated and funneled out of the system. He decided to wage a guerrilla war instead. His first and most important step was to organize cells within the Pentagon. These cells were small and hard to detect, giving the reactionaries nothing to hit at when they realized they were in a war. Boyd recruited his guerrillas from among those dissatisfied with the status quo, especially the young--young people are always more receptive to change, and they love this style of fighting.

With his cells in place, Boyd had constant intelligence as to what was going on in the Pentagon and could anticipate the timing and content of the attacks on him. He could also use these cells to spread his influence through word of mouth, infiltrating ever deeper into the bureaucracy. The main point is to avoid an organization's formal channels and tendency for bigness and concentration. Opt for mobility instead; make your army light and clandestine. You can also attach your guerrilla cells to a regular army, much as the Russian Cossacks supported the armies of Alexander. This mix of conventional and unconventional can prove highly effective.

Once you have organized your cells, you must find a way to lure the enemy into attacking you. In war this is generally accomplished by retreating, then turning to strike at the enemy with constant small raids and ambushes that cannot be ignored. This was the classic strategy pursued by T. E. Lawrence in Arabia during World War I. The nineteenth-century American financial wizard Jay Gould, a man who fought many guerrilla wars in his business life, did something similar in his daily battles. His goal was to create maximum disorder in the markets--disorder he could anticipate and exploit. One of his main adversaries was the highly aggressive mogul Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, whom he engaged in a war for control of the Erie Railroad in the late 1860s. Gould maintained an incredibly elusive presence; he would work back channels to gain influence in, for example, the New York State legislature, which then enacted laws undermining Vanderbilt's interests. The furious Vanderbilt would go after Gould and counterattack, but Gould would by then have moved on to some other unexpected target. To deprive Vanderbilt of the strategic initiative, Gould upset him, fed his competitive and aggressive instincts, then goaded him further by giving him no target to counterattack.

Gould also made skillful use of the media. He might plant a newspaper article that would suddenly sideswipe Vanderbilt, portraying him as an evil monopolist; Vanderbilt would have to respond, but that would only publicize the charge--and meanwhile Gould's name would be nowhere in evidence. The media in this instance are perfect as both the smoke screen concealing guerrilla tactics and the vehicle conveying them. Use the media to goad your enemies, getting them to disperse their energies in defending themselves while you watch, or find a new target to raid and ambush. Lacking a real battle to deal with, their frustration will mount and lead them to costly mistakes.

In conventional warfare the way you supply your army is a critical issue. In guerrilla warfare, on the other hand, you live off your enemies as much as possible, using their resources, their energy, and their power as a kind of supply base. Mao supplied his army mostly with captured equipment and food. Gould actually started out by infiltrating Vanderbilt's inner circle as a financial partner, then using Vanderbilt's immense resources to fund his mayhem. Using the enemy's materiel will help you to endure the longer length of any successful guerrilla campaign. In any event, you must plan to live cheaply, marshaling what you have for the long run.

In most conflicts time is a danger, bringing Murphy's Law into play: if anything can go wrong, it will. If your army is small and relatively self-sufficient, though, there is less to go wrong, and meanwhile you are working to make sure that for the enemy the passage of time is a nightmare. Morale is sinking, resources are stretched, and even great planners like Napoleon are finding themselves with problems they could never have foreseen. The effect is exponential: as unexpected problems crop up, the enemy starts making mistakes, which lead to more problems--and so it goes.