Three parallel wars were fought in the latter half of the twentieth century in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. These wars were long and brutal, dividing international opinion sharply between US support for dictatorial regimes and the USSR's sponsorship of guerrilla fighters. This fascinating study of the 'guerrilla generation' is based on in-depth interviews with both guerrilla comandantes and political and military leaders of the time. Dirk Kruijt analyses the dreams and achievements, the successes and failures, the utopias and dystopias of an entire Central American generation and its leaders. Guerrillas ranges widely, from the guerrilla movement's origins in poverty, oppression and exclusion; its tactics in warfare; the ill-fated experiment with Sandinista government in Nicaragua; to the subsequent 'normalization' of guerrilla movements within democratic societies. The story told here is vital for understanding contemporary social movements in Latin America.

The 1st Battalion, The Rhodesian Light Infantry, was one of the most innovative and successful counter-insurgency units in modern history. Formed as a commando battalion in 1964 after the dissolution of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, the RLI was an all-white unit made up of South Africans and men from the UK, Europe and US. It was a key weapon in independent Rhodesia's struggle against the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army and Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army during the bloody Rhodesian Bush War. This comprehensive study explores the unit's dramatic history, revealing the RLI's fearsome airborne and combat capacity, which gave the unit, at times, near total tactical superiority against its opponents.

This work covers how the British devised techniques for fighting guerrillas and terrorists. It shows how traditional policies were supplemented by lessons from World War II, not least the use of special forces, such as the SOE, SIS and SAS. The role of the Special Air Service is covered in detail. The study reveals how key players in the Foreign Office, Colonial Office, War Office, The Cabinet, the Intelligence Services, Colonial Police, RAF and the Army made the advances that produced methods which are used around the globe to this day.

Modern Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies explores how unconventional warfare tactics have opposed past and present governments all over the world, from eighteenth-century guerrilla warfare to the urban terrorism of today. Insurgency remains one of the most prevalent forms of conflict and presents a crucial challenge to the international community, governments and the military.
In addition to examining the tactics of guerrilla leaders such as Lawrence, Mao, Guevara and Marighela, Modern Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies also analyses the counter-insurgency theories of Gallieni, Callwell, Thompson and Kitson. It explores such conflicts as:
* the American War of Independence
* Napoleon's campaign in Spain
* the wars of decolonisation
* the superpowers in Vietnam and Afghanistan
* conflicts in Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone and Colombia.

Series Information:
Warfare and History

Far from being an anachronism, much less a kit-bag of techniques, people's war raises what has always been present in military history, irregular warfare, and fuses it symbiotically with what has likewise always been present politically, rebellion and the effort to seize power. The result is a strategic approach for waging revolutionary warfare, the effort "to make a revolution." Voluntarism is wedded to the exploitation of structural contradiction through the building of a new world to challenge the existing world, through formation of a counterstate within the state in order ultimately to destroy and supplant the latter. This is a process of far greater moment than implied by the label "guerrilla warfare" so often applied to what Mao and others were about. This volume deals with the continuing importance of Maoist and post-Maoist concepts of people's war. Drawing on a range of examples that include Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, the Caucasus, and Afghanistan, the collection shows that the study of people's war is not just an historical curiosity but vital to the understanding of contemporary insurgent and terrorist movements. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Small Wars & Insurgencies.

Few publications cover the full span of the history of revolutionary movements in Latin America. In Revolution and Revolutionaries, editor Daniel Castro examines all aspects of guerrilla warfare-from revolutionary programs to the repressive tactics used by various governments to rid themselves of the threats presented by revolutionary movements. In addition to illustrating specific cases of guerrilla struggles, Revolution and Revolutionaries also analyzes the political and social conditions that made the outbreak of revolutionary movements throughout the region unavoidable. Finally, Castro examines the remaining guerrilla movements still active in Latin America as the century comes to a close. Revolution and Revolutionaries revives the debate about the viability of revolutionary violence in Latin America, and will interest those studying Latin American history and sociology, and political science.

As the author makes clear, every book has a history; Guerrilla Warfare is no exception. Together with its sequel Terrorism (and two companion readers) it was part of a wider study: to give a critical interpretation of guerrilla and terrorism theory and practice throughout history. It did not aim at providing a general theory of political violence, nor did it give instructions on how to conduct guerrilla warfare and terrorist operations. Its aim remains to bring about greater semantic and analytic clarity, and to do so at psychological as well as political levels.

While the word guerrilla has been very popular, much less attention has been given to guerrilla warfare than to terrorism - even though the former has been politically more successful. The reasons for the lack of detailed attention are obvious: guerrilla operations take place far from big cities, in the countryside, in remote regions of a nation. In such areas there are no film cameras or recorders.

In his probing new introduction, Laqueur points out that a review of strategies and the fate of guerrilla movements during the last two decades show certain common features. Both mainly concerned nationalists fighting for independence either against foreign occupants or against other ethnic groups within their own country. But despite the many attempts, only in two placesAfghanistan and Chechnya were the guerrillas successful.

According to Laqueur historical experience demonstrates that guerrilla movements have prevailed over incumbents only in specific conditions. Due to a constellation of factors, ranging from modern means of observation to increase in firepower. The author suggests that we may witness a combination of political warfare, propaganda, guerrilla operations and terrorism. In such cases, this could be a potent strategy for unsponsored revolutionary change. But either as social history or military strategy this work remains a crucial work of our times.

This highly illustrated title traces the development of mercenary soldiering from individuals and small units in the African wars of the 1960s-90s to today's state-employed corporate military contractors. The phenomenon of mercenary soldiering has constantly recurred in the news since the 1960s and has always attracted lively interest. The concept of 'mercenaries' began in the former Belgian Congo during the 1960s when men such as Mike Hoare and Bob Denard assembled hundreds of military veterans to 'do the fighting' for a particular leader or faction. This idea soon evolved into small teams of individuals training and leading local forces with varying success; wars in Rhodesia and on South Africa's borders attracted foreign volunteers into national armed forces, and veterans of these conflicts later sought employment elsewhere as mercenaries. The wars in the former Yugoslavia also attracted foreign fighters inspired as much by political and religious motives as by pay. This picture then evolved again, as former officers with recent experience set up sophisticated commercial companies to identify and fill the needs of governments whose own militaries were inadequate. Most recently, the aftermath of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has seen such contractors taking on some of the burden of long-term security off major national armies, while the subsequent rise of ISIS/Daesh has added a parallel strain of ideological volunteers. The author is well placed to describe how the face of mercenary soldiering has evolved and changed over 60 years. Using first-hand accounts, photos and detailed illustrations, this book presents a compelling snapshot of the life, campaigns and kit used by mercenary operatives engaged in fighting within both larger and more specific conflicts around the world.

" Following the Japanese invasion of the islands in 1942, North Luzon was the staging area for several Filipino-American guerrilla bands who sought to gather intelligence and to destroy enemy military installations or supplies. Bernard Norling focuses on the Cagayan-Apayao Forces, or CAF, commanded by Maj. Ralph Praeger. Their bravery was unquestionable, but by September 1943 all but one member of Troop C had been claimed by combat, enemy capture, or disease. The only survivor, Capt. Thomas S. Jones, remembered, ""Defeat is a terrible thing.... It brings down with it the whole structure about which a nation or an army has been built. It subjects men to the most severe of moral tests at a time when they are physically least able to meet them."" Based primarily upon unpublished sources, The Intrepid Guerrillas of North Luzon includes the diary of Praeger's executive officer, Jones, and draws on transcripts of radio communications between Praeger and General MacArthur's headquarters in Australia. The struggles of the men of the CAF tell a harrowing tale of valor, determination, and occasional successes mixed with the wildcat schemes, rivalries, mistrust, and betrayals that characterized the intramural relations of guerrilla forces all over the Pacific islands.

Pathological Counterinsurgency critically examines the relationship between elections and counterinsurgency success in third party campaigns supported by the United States. From Vietnam to El Salvador to Iraq and Afghanistan, many policymakers and academics believed that democratization would drive increased legitimacy and improved performance in governments waging a counterinsurgency campaign. Elections were expected to help overcome existing deficiencies, thus allowing governments supported by the United States to win the "hearts and minds" of its populace, undermining the appeal of insurgency. However, in each of these cases, campaigning in and winning elections did not increase the legitimacy of the counterinsurgent government or alter conditions of entrenched rent seeking and weak institutions that made states allied to the United States vulnerable to insurgency. Ultimately, elections played a limited role in creating the conditions needed for counterinsurgency success. Instead, decisions of key actors in government and elites to prioritize either short term personal and political advantage or respect for political institutions held a central role in counterinsurgency success or failure. In each of the four cases in this study, elected governments pursued policies that benefited members of the government and elites at the expense of boarder legitimacy and improved performance. Expectations that democratization could serve as a key instrument of change led to unwarranted optimism about the likely of success and ultimately to flawed strategy. The United States continued to support regimes that continued to lack the legitimacy and government performance needed for victory in counterinsurgency.

Militias have proven to be a consistent and enduring challenge to achieving peace in war zones around the world. Whether armed by embattled governments in defence of their territory or fostered by external actors in the interests of greed or grievance, these groups occupy an uncertain and deeply controversial position in the changing landscape of conflict. Linked variously to atrocities against civilians or international criminal elements, part of what distinguishes them from more traditional combatants is their willingness to engage in violent tactics that defy international norms as well as a proclivity to embrace expediency in alliance-making. As such, their diversity of form, unorthodox nature and sheer numbers make achieving short-term stability and an enduring peace a consistently difficult proposition. Bringing together the lessons learned from four intensively researched case studies - the Democratic Republic of Congo, Timor-Leste, Afghanistan and Sudan - the book argues that the overly rigid 'cookie-cutter' approach to demilitaristation, developed and commonly implemented presently by the international community, is ineffective at meeting the myriad of challenges involving militias. In doing so, the authors propose a radical new framework for demilitarization that questions conventional models and takes into account on-the-ground realities.

This study of firearms analyzes the employment of such weaponry, dated more than 40 years after use in Europe, towards the close of the 1360s.

Cinematic representations of unconventional warfare have received sporadic attention to date. However, this pattern has now begun to change with the rise of insurgency and counter-insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the growing importance of jihadist terrorism in the wake of 9/11. This ground-breaking study provides a much-needed examination of global unconventional warfare in 20th-century filmmaking, with case studies from the United States, Britain, Ireland, France, Italy and Israel. Paul B. Rich examines Hollywood's treatment of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency in the United States; British post-colonial insurgencies in Malaya and Kenya and British special operations in the Second World War; the Irish conflict before and during the Troubles; French filmmaking and the reluctance to deal with the bitter war in Algeria in the 1950s; Italian neorealism and its impact on films dealing with urban insurgency by Roberto Rossellini, Nanni Loy and Gillo Pontecorvo, and Israel and the upsurge of Palestinian terrorism. Whilst only a small number of films on these conflicts have been able to rise above stereotyping insurgents and terrorists - in some cases due to a pattern of screen orientalism - Cinema and Unconventional Warfare in the Twentieth Century stresses the positive political gains to be derived from humanizing terrorists and terrorists movements, especially in the context of modern jihadist terrorism. This is essential reading for academics, postgraduates and advanced undergraduates interested in 20th-century military history, politics and international relations, and film studies.

The first English-language book to examine the crucial part air power played in the Soviet-Afghan War. The Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan was fought as much in the air as on the ground. From the high-level bombing raids that blasted rebel-held mountain valleys, to the Mi-24 helicopter gunships and Su-25 jets that accompanied every substantial army operation, Soviet control of the air was a crucial battlefield asset. Vital to every aspect of its operations, Mi-8 helicopters ferried supplies to remote mountain-top observation points and took the bodies of fallen soldiers on their last journey home in An12 'Black Tulips'. But this was not a wholly one-sided conflict. Even before the Afghan rebels began to acquire man-portable surface-to-air missiles such as the controversial US 'Stinger,' they aggressively and imaginatively adapted. They learnt new techniques of camouflage and deception, set up ambushes against low-level attacks, and even launched daring raids on airbases to destroy aircraft on the ground. Featuring information previously unknown in the West, such as the Soviets' combat-testing of Yak-38 'Forger' naval jump jets, Soviet-expert Mark Galeotti examines the rebel, Kabul government and the Soviet operation in Afghanistan, drawing deeply on Western and Russian sources, and including after-action analyses from the Soviet military. Using maps, battlescenes and detailed 'Bird's Eye Views', he paints a comprehensive picture of the air war and describes how, arguably, it was Soviet air power that made the difference between defeat for Moscow and the subsequent stalemate that they decided to disengage from.

'A magnificent story, brilliantly told. Read it!' ANTHONY HOROWITZ SIX GENTLEMEN, ONE GOAL - THE DESTRUCTION OF HITLER'S WAR MACHINE. In the spring of 1939, a top secret organisation was founded in London: its purpose was to plot the destruction of Hitler's war machine through spectacular acts of sabotage. The guerrilla campaign that followed was to prove every bit as extraordinary as the six gentlemen who directed it. One of them, Cecil Clarke, was a maverick engineer who invented a lethal bomb. Another, William Fairbairn, was the world's leading expert in silent killing. Led by dapper Scotsman Colin Gubbins, and aided by a group of formidable women, these six men and their sabotage attacks single-handedly changed the course of the war. 'Terrific . . . a great read' IAN HISLOP 'Could not be faster-moving or more exciting' LITERARY REVIEW Previously published in hardback as The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.

Following on from Ethics Education in the Military (eds. Paul Robinson, Nigel de Lee and Don Carrick: Ashgate 2008) which surveyed and critically analyzed the existing theory and practice of educating soldiers, sailors and airmen in the ethics of 'old fashioned' warfaring, this volume considers the extent to which such theory and practice is adequate to prepare members of the military to meet the more complex ethical challenges faced when engaging in irregular warfare in the 21st century. In recent years, events in Iraq and Afghanistan have highlighted the requirement that Western military personnel, drawn from the armed forces of many different countries, should behave in an ethical manner at all times. The contributors to this volume come from various disciplinary backgrounds, several are serving or former military officers and most are actively engaged in ethics education. The volume advances theoretical understanding of different approaches to ethics education and provides practical conclusions.

In the mountains and jungles of occupied Burma during World War II, British special forces launched a series of secret operations, assisted by parts of the Burmese population. The men of the SOE, trained in sabotage and guerrilla warfare, worked in the jungle, deep behind enemy lines, to frustrate the puppet Burmese government of Ba Maw and continue the fight against Hirohito's Japan in a theatre starved of resources. Here, Richard Duckett uses newly declassified documents from the National Archives to reveal for the first time the extent of British special forces' involvement - from the 1941 operations until beyond Burma's independence from the British Empire in 1948. Duckett argues convincingly that `Operation Character' and `Operation Billet' - large SOE missions launched in support of General Slim's XIV Army offensive to liberate Burma - rank among the most militarily significant of the SOE's secret missions. Featuring a wealth of photographs and accompanying material never before published, including direct testimony recorded by veterans of the campaign and maps from the SOE files, The SOE in Burma tells a compelling story of courage and struggle in during World War II

Insurgency has been the most prevalent form of conflict in the modern world since the end of the Second World War. Accordingly, it has posed a major challenge to conventional armed forces, all of whom have had to evolve counter-insurgency methods in response. The volume brings together classic articles on the counter-insurgency experience since 1945.

The persecution of the Yezidis, a religious community originating in Upper Mesopotamia, has been ongoing since at least the 10th century. On 3 August 2014, Islamic State attacked the Yezidi community in Sinjar, Kurdistan. Thousands were enslaved or killed in this genocide, and 100,000 people fled to Mount Sinjar, permanently exiled from their homes. Here, Thomas Schmidinger talks to the Yezidis in Iraq who tell the history of their people, why the genocide happened and how it affects their lives today. This is the first full account of these events, as told by the Yezidis in their own words, to be published in English. The failure of the Kurdistan Peshmerga of the PDK in Iraq to protect the Yezidis is explored, as is the crucial support given by the Syrian-Kurdish YPG. This multi-faceted and important history brings the fight and trauma of the Yezidis back into focus, calling for the world to remember their struggle.

This Element introduces the concept of oligopoly of coercion to interpretate the interaction between drug trafficking and reconfiguration of the state in Colombia. Three elements are central to this interpretation: corruption in oligopolies of coercion must be understood as a payment by drug traffickers for acting like a parallel state; the state criminalizes more drug as merchandise than drug as capital - its equivalent in money; the politics and war around drug trafficking in Colombia should be understood as the way in which peripheral societies access global markets through the ruling institutions of private armies. With these elements, the author focuses on the dynamics of the reconfiguration of the state in Colombia after the cocaine boom in the mid-70s and the evolution of the private armies in Colombia.

Between 1941 and 1944, the Germans and the Italians imposed a brutal occupation of Greece. This, as well as the outbreak of famine, drove many Greeks to join a variety of resistance movements in the mountains. The British government anticipated the German occupation of Europe and created the Special Operations Executive (SOE). One directorate of the SOE was responsible for partisan activity in the mountains and another directorate focused on encouraging espionage and sabotage in Greek cities. Over 3000 Greeks and British operated espionage networks that made a significant contribution to the war effort in the Mediterranean. Unfortunately the work of the spy and saboteur working in the shadows remained classified until the end of the twentieth century. The release of SOE documents in the twenty-first century provides an amazing insight into how intelligence operations were a critical part of the Allied victory of the Second World War. The aim of the book is to bring to life the stories of the ghosts of the shadow war.

Michael Napier details the critical role of air power in the skies over Afghanistan, from the ten-year occupation by the USSR in the 1980s through to the US and NATO campaign from 2001 to 2021. US and British forces, strongly supported by air power, invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 in response to the Al Qaida attacks on 9/11. What began as a small-scale operation of 2,500 troops with the limited objective of destroying Al Qaida became ever larger, growing to over 100,000 troops ten years later. This experience matched that of the Soviets after their invasion in late 1979, when they saw a massive increase in resistance by Mujahidin. Afghan Air Wars details how Soviet aircraft including the MiG-21, MiG-23, Su-17 and Su-25, as well as Mi-8 and Mi-24 helicopters supported Soviet offensives in the Panjshir Valley and other regions. Despite these high-octane operations and overwhelming air superiority, Soviet forces eventually withdrew. Some 20 years later, US and NATO air forces were deployed in similar roles. F-15E, F-16, F/A-18, A-10, Mirage, Harrier and Tornado aircraft all saw action in the skies over Afghanistan as did the CH-47 Chinook and AH-64 Apache helicopters. Mike Napier fully details their series of operations in a hostile environment as well as the advent of high-resolution targeting pods and Precision Guided Munitions (PGM) which enabled aircraft to stand off from threat areas and also to deploy their weapons with deadly accuracy. The conflict also saw the groundbreaking introduction of Remotely Piloted Vehicles (RPV) into routine air operations. Afghan Air Wars is richly illustrated with over 240 images – both official photos and privately taken, in-theatre images which have not been previously published. It also includes first-hand accounts by aircrews involved to create a unique and comprehensive picture of the part played by air power over Afghanistan in the last 40 years.