guerrilla warfare – Scribbles from the Ivory Tower

This post is a collection of notes on reading A. H. Nasution’s Fundamentals of Guerrilla Warfare.

While most scholarship on guerrilla warfare gravitates around Mao and Giap, the name “Nasution” does not pop up that often. Which is quite unfortunate, considering Indonesia (and by “Indonesia”, I also include colonial Indonesia, though, at that time, Indonesia was yet to be conceived) has had a long history of fighting guerrilla wars against colonists. However, it was not until circa 1928 when the resistance started to consolidate. Prior to 1928, there were only local kings and sultanates organising localised resistance against the Dutch. The experiences of fighting guerrilla wars then became ingrained in Indonesian military thinking, and Nasution’s treatise, Fundamentals of Guerrilla Warfare, was part of that process.

Continue reading “Le’ Notes #15: The Indonesian Way of Guerrilla Warfare” →

This post discusses insurgencies and how to counter them, drawing examples from the Malayan Emergency and Vietnam War.

“These guerrilla operations must not be considered as an independent form of warfare. They are but one step in the total war, one aspect of the revolutionary struggle. They are the inevitable result of the clash between oppressor and oppressed…” – Mao Tse-tung, On Guerrilla Warfare

What is the first image that comes to mind when the word “insurgent” is uttered? A middle-aged man, wearing a black balaclava and battle fatigues, armed with an AK-47 and several IEDs, squaring off against a bunch of well-equipped American soldiers? That might be the most popular description of an insurgent that we have today. For most of the time, we’ve been focused on the “big wars”. Now, let’s take some time to look at the “small wars”, when small armies hold their ground against larger armies. Though there are more examples of small wars around the world, for this post, I learned specifically about the Malayan Emergency and the Vietnam War.

We’ll learn about what insurgencies are and the different methods to counter them.

Continue reading “Le’ Notes #9: Insurgency and counter-insurgency” →