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TACTICAL THOUGHT
2014 September 29 th
The third question; “What are typical traits argued for Irregular Warfare” addressed
to the collection of texts can be answered with the following summary. First, one trait is
that the activity is labelled and explained in slightly different ways. The political and
civilian perspective, the violence spectrum from subversion to mobile warfare, the role
of the police and the argued necessity of organization and administration can be seen as
other typical traits.
Discussion of the result
The texts with their descriptions and explanations all have in common that they are
written during the same time period of 1960-71, a period dominated by the
revolutionary wars in Indo-china, Algeria, Malaya, Kenya and the growing fear of
terrorism in the European mainland. The writers, except the historian professor
Hahlweg, who can be seen as the link to Clausewitz and 19 th century views of
“kleinkriege”, are all military professionals. Some of them, such as Trinquier and
Thompson had extensive experience of working both as “irregulars” and “counterirregulars”
in the field. Galula stands out as an example of an early warrior scholar and
so might McCuen also be seen, despite not being as influenced as his French
counterpart. Strictly historical academic perspectives stand side by side with
practitioners’ emotional or more theoretical attempts, to not only explain but also solve
the “Irregular riddle”. Of these, only Kitson is still alive, possibly to be asked if his
articulations have been correctly understood. The result shows a fairly similar direction
in expressions and explanations. Differences in details might be addressed at the
different aims of the authors’ analyses and discussions rather than at their different
views of what the phenomenon of Irregular Warfare is all about. These differences and
many more not here expressed are in spite of or possibly due to, still drawing attention
to several similar core aspects of Irregular Warfare.
Period Three; “From 9/11 to 2010”
James Corum
James Corum defines Insurgency in his book Bad Strategies (2008) as; ”an attempt to
overthrow an established government by violent means”. 404 The term Irregular Warfare
is not used, but Insurgency is addressed as a form of warfare; “Insurgency is also a
highly political form of warfare”. 405 Corum includes very different forms of
insurgencies, from terrorist campaigns to Conventional Warfare. 406 All insurgents are
said to have the same goal, to attain power. The range of influence activities is
mentioned, from propaganda and organizing the people to military means. A
characteristic is described as; “a war of choice for non-state groupings mounting
challenges against governments”. 407
404 James S. Corum, Bad Strategies (St. Paul: Zenith Press, 2008), p. 18.
405 Ibid. p. 18.
406 Ibid. p. 18.
407 Ibid. p. 19.
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