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TACTICAL THOUGHT
2014 September 29 th
Thus, he indirectly deals with Irregular Warfare as a function of a power struggle. He
does not however, elaborate on the military-police labouring tasks or the difficulties of
both overt and covert warfare. He has a clear political focus and not a “this is
war/warfare” attitude. Finally, he does however discuss a “non-centre of gravity”
theory, as a mark of the “Postmodern Maoist” Insurgency concept, argued so far as not
to be understood in governmental as well as military circles.
Result and conclusions
The description is a predominantly explanatory description. The potential of explaining
content covers aspects such as strategy, operational art and tactics. Fighting power
factors are covered as are mainly physical and conceptual factors. The description
explains characteristics with a lower-end violence focus. Attitude aspects are included.
Participating actors are described with a focus on both sides of the parties. The
description leans primarily on the political/civilian focus of the phenomena. The
description is civilian comprehensive, but limited for the military part though it has
clear explanatory articulations, with good understanding potentiality not needing any
complementary sub-definitions.
Gil Merom
Gil Merom does not use the term Irregular Warfare but relies on the label Small Wars.
He writes in the introduction of his well-known “How Democracies lose Small Wars”
from 2003, as follows; “a small war has the following distinct characteristics: It
involves sharp military asymmetry, an insurgent that fights guerrilla war, and an
incumbent that uses ground forces for Counterinsurgency warfare. The incumbent can
be an indigenous government that fights on its own or with external participation, or a
foreign power that imposes itself on the population”. 494 The definition does not include
moral aspects though the whole book extensively deals with this aspect. Merom also
mentions explanations from Eliot A. Cohen, Charles Callwell, Loren B. Thompson,
Andrew F. Keprinevich and Walter Laqueur.
Result and conclusions
The description is mostly an explanatory description with an umbrella character. The
potential of explaining content covers aspects such as strategy, and operational art and
tactics and the terms “Guerrilla War” and “Counterinsurgency War” indicate all aspects.
Fighting power factors are covered only in physical factors, referring to “ground forces
for COIN”. The description explains characteristics only for “military asymmetry”.
Attitude aspects are not included. Participating actors are described with a focus on the
incumbent. The description leans primarily on a military focus of the phenomena.
Merom´s definitions and explanations focus mainly on the guerrilla aspect, for the part
which is militarily weaker than an incumbent, (which can be either the existing
government or a foreign power), which in turn uses ground forces for
Counterinsurgency Warfare.
494 Gil Merom, How Democracies lose Small Wars (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 4.
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