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TACTICAL THOUGHT
2014 September 29 th
Result and conclusions
The descriptions are of both an explanatory and umbrella character, where the terms
subversion and Insurgency cover all power aspects from nonviolence to divisional
warfare with ground forces. Thompson uses the term “Guerrilla War” and “war of
movement” to separate ambushes from attacks with formations. The potential of
explaining content covers aspects of strategy and, to a degree, operational art and
tactics. Fighting power factors are covered as physical factors but the focus is on
conceptual factors. Moral factors are dealt with. The descriptions cover characteristics
of subversion and insurgencies and also regarding the need to re-design regular military
units for Counterinsurgency operations.
Greater demands on junior officers and capabilities to operate “like guerrillas” are
advocated by Thompson. Attitude aspects are included. Participating actors are
described both from the attacker and defender positions. The description leans primarily
on an administrative/political and civil focus. The military focus of the phenomena is,
however, clearly elaborated on when speaking of such operations. The descriptions do
not demand understanding of sub-terms as Thompson explains them as they occur. The
descriptions are clear and have good potential of being understood easily.
Roger Trinquir
Roger Trinquir, together with David Galula, represents one of the most prominent Cold
War writers of Irregular Warfare, or “Modern warfare” (La Guerra Moderne), the title
of his well-known book, which has seen growing interest since western countries’
renewed concern about Counterinsurgency. 384 Trinquir uses the terms, Subversive
Warfare or Revolutionary Warfare, claiming them to be a new kind of warfare. 385
Characteristics are argued to be “an interlocking system of actions – political, economic,
psychological, military – that aim at the overthrow of the established authority in a
country and its replacement of another regime” 386 .
Trinquir says; “on so vast a field of action, traditional armed forces no longer enjoy
their accustomed decisive role…..combat actions carried out against opposing armed
forces, are of limited importance and are never the total conflict”. 387
Trinquir labels this arguably new kind of war; “Modern War” and states that studies
about subversive warfare have been frequent, but that these studies rarely go beyond the
stage of Guerrilla Warfare, which comes closest to the traditional form. 388 According to
Trinquier, mostly the offensive form of Guerrilla Warfare has been studied.
384 Roger Trinquir, Modern Warfare: A French View on Counterinsurgency (Westport, CT: Preager,
1964, reprinted 2006).
385 Ibid. p. 5.
386 Ibid. p. 5.
387 Ibid. p. 5.
388 Ibid. p. 6.
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