Max Boot shares the lessons that we need to learn — but haven’t — from the history of guerrilla war:
- Guerrilla warfare is not new.
- Guerrilla warfare is the form of conflict universally favored by the weak, not an “Eastern” way of war.
- Guerrilla warfare has been both underestimated and overestimated.
- Insurgencies have been getting more successful since 1945, but they still lose most of the time.
- The most important recent development in guerrilla warfare has been the rise of public opinion.
- Few counter-insurgency campaigns have ever succeeded by inflicting mass terror — at least in foreign lands.
- “Winning hearts and minds” is often successful as an anti-guerrilla strategy, but it isn’t as touchy-feely as commonly supposed.
- Most insurgencies are long-lasting; attempts to win a quick victory backfire.
- Technology has been relatively unimportant in guerrilla war—but that may be changing.