Encyclopedia of Guerrilla Warfare

To most of us the term “guerrilla warfare” conjures up Spanish guerrillas fighting the French in the Peninsular War, the Boer War, Lawrence of Arabia, Russians fighting behind German lines in the Great Patriotic War, perhaps the Malayan insurgency and Mau Mau, and certainly Che Guevara. But Ian Beckett casts a very wide net, distinguishing guerrilla warfare as “a set of military tactics utilized by a minority group within a state or an indigenous population in order to oppose the government or foreign occupying forces”; partisan warfare as “the use of irregular tactics by regular or organized irregular troops in...