Mao pioneered modern insurgencyBy JOHN
YAUKEY, Gannett News Service
Are they reading Mao in the guerrilla redoubts of Iraq? His lessons on how to defeat a superior military power certainly haven't been lost on the insurgents in Iraq whose tactics demonstrate they know how to rattle a superpower. Mao Tse-Tung, who brought the Communists to power in China in 1949 after decades of struggle, didn't invent insurgency warfare. But he is credited with developing its most effective modern incarnation, much of it now on display in Iraq. Mao's grass-roots marathon approach to war-making depended on using political, military, economic and social attrition rather than outright force. In its modern form, insurgency warfare is meant to convince the enemy's decision-makers that victory was too costly. Mao was virtually plagiarized by the Vietnamese in their back-to-back defeats of the French and Americans, and he remains highly relevant. The flood of papers by military scholars now dissecting the American campaign in Iraq are peppered with references to the revolutionary strategist, and not simply as historic footnotes. "Mao started this form of war…" Marine Corps. Col. Thomas X. Hammes writes in his widely acclaimed book on modern insurgency warfare, "The Sling and the Stone." "The anti-coalition forces in Iraq, the Taliban, the Chechnyans and the al-Qaida network are simply the latest to use the tactics and techniques that have been developing for decades." Most importantly, Mao understood that effective insurgency warfare was more than a nagging guerrilla campaign. At its heart, it was political. Win the hearts and minds of the people and you have created a conflict too costly in blood, money and, most importantly, political capital for your enemy to pursue. The Americans won almost every major battle in Vietnam, and yet they lost the war. Near the end, they were facing a massive, full-blown nationalist insurgency, meaning they had fully lost the support of the Vietnamese people. At that point, the choice was kill millions more Vietnamese in an untenable war, or leave. "We all heard about winning all the battles in Vietnam and then losing the war," said Brian McAllister Linn, a history professor at Texas A&M University and the author of several books on warfare. "Well, winning battles wasn't the standard for victory there." Mao also realized time could be an extremely effective weapon. He realized early that the urban proletariat didn't have sufficient force to control China so he had to win the support of the peasants. This was a slow process, but it taught Mao that even a vastly superior enemy could be worn down over time. The Bush administration is keenly aware of this dynamic in Iraq. It is working feverishly to stand up an Iraqi force so it can begin withdrawing American forces before the conflict begins losing widespread support among Americans. Tactically, Mao believed as much in retreat as aggression, and this is what the American soldiers and Marines in Iraq now face. Rarely have the insurgents in Iraq stood and fought, preferring to launch mortar rounds then melt away.
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PART 1
By John Yaukey, GNS
 American and
Iraqi forces already are struggling with a full-blown insurgency that
has cost hundreds of lives. If the Iraq's Jan. 30 elections go badly and
its political landscape falls into chaos, Americans will be facing a
debacle that easily rivals Vietnam.
PART 2
By Gordon Trowbridge, Army Times
U.S. forces in Iraq constantly
confront enemies hiding among innocents, and innocents
stumbling into a fate they don’t deserve. It's a war often fought in seconds with some of its most important decisions
made by young privates, not generals.
PART 3
By John Yaukey, GNS
As Iraqi security gain
confidence, the Pentagon will gradually scale down the U.S. force size. The
hope is that this will reduce U.S. casualties, lower the American profile
in Iraq and start reassuring Americans that there is an end in sight.
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