In the introduction to his 1961 translation of Mao Zedong’s On Guerrilla Warfare, retired Marine General and Navy Cross recipient Samuel B. Griffith II quoted from a Newsweek magazine article dated 3 Jul 1961:
“Pentagon– A new and fiendishly ingenious anti-guerrilla weapon is being tested by the Navy. It’s a delayed-action liquid explosive, squirted from a flame-thrower-like gun, that seeps into foxholes and bunkers. Seconds later, fed by oxygen from the air, it blows up with terrific force.”
Griffith angrily responded to the article, writing:
“Apparently we are to assume that guerrillas will conveniently ensconce themselves in readily identifiable ‘foxholes and bunkers’ awaiting the arrival of half a dozen admirals armed with ‘flame-throwing guns’ to march up, squirt, and retire to the nearest officer’s club. To anyone even remotely acquainted with the philosophy and doctrine of revolutionary guerrilla war, this sort of thing is not hilariously funny. There are no mechanical panaceas.”
Griffith’s translation of Mao’s text is a disturbing and enlightening read. The conclusion to be drawn is not only that American military and political leadership failed to understand the nature of guerrilla warfare in every war since the end of WWII, but more interestingly that the Iraqi insurgents have an equal misunderstanding of the war they are fighting and what it can or will bring them.
The major issues of the Chinese Civil War, Vietnam War, and Iraq War are identical: an imperialist foreign power invades an agrarian society in order increase its wealth and strengthen its influence in the region. Yet because the Iraqi insurgent leadership views the current conflict as an extension of the medieval crusades with no strategy other than destruction, the only endstate they can offer, either through victory or defeat, is chaos.
While the Chinese and Vietnamese insurgencies were revolutionary nationalist movements, the Iraqi insurgency by comparison is not and therein lies its fundamental flaw, or critical vulnerability. Indeed, unlike China or Vietnam, there is no history of revolution or nationalism in Iraq, only the taking of power by strongmen. Any revolutionary movement in Iraq was crushed by Saddam Hussein in order to ensure his own survival in power. What is more, because it has no national aspirations, the Iraqi insurgency also lacks a unified goal, except for getting the Americans to leave. And given that the idea of a “nation of Iraq” is a western created concept that ignores Iraq’s diversity and significant history, it is difficult to envision a unified Iraqi nation-state founded by the Islamic fundamentalists.
The Chinese and Vietnamese insurgencies were guided by communism, a political ideology. The Iraqi insurgency is inspired by radical Islam, which has been politicized, but at its heart is still a regionally oriented religion. And while communism can become the symbolic religion of its followers and can be followed with religious intensity, it is neither a religion nor a cultural identity. Islam is at the core of the Iraqi insurgency, and is a fundamental difference in the way it conducts its operations from these insurgent precedents. It is indeed to the Iraqi insurgency’s detriment that its fighters are not seeking rewards in this lifetime.
Overall Iraqi insurgent strategy is inherently tied to the politics of Iraq and ultimately to those of America as well. As part of the surge, in the 2007 “Anbar Awakening”, local sheiks formed neighborhood defense forces and cooperated with American forces in preventing insurgent groups from operating in their villages. As the American economy falls into recession, it takes front stage in the presidential election race- the war in Iraq is no longer the most important issue on the minds of American voters.
Similar to the Vietnamese at Dien Bien Phu and the Americans caught in the Tet Offensive, the period from April to November 2008 represents an opportunity for the Iraqi insurgency to make a strategic attack which would cause the American electorate to elect an antiwar, withdrawal candidate. I will not speculate on what form this attack will take, or whether the insurgents will recognize this opportunity on a macro or micro level, yet it is easy to imagine a devastating attack which would turn the American voter clearly away from a “stay the course candidate.”
In the end, the Iraqi insurgency will continue only due to one of two potential reasons: a lack of political will by Iraqis to invest in a national government or by the Americans to help facilitate it effectively. (1,300 Iraqi soldiers and policemen dismissed over the weekend for refusing to fight in Basra?) As a guerrilla organization, the Iraqi insurgents lack strategic leadership and a viable political vision of the type of society they want to replace the current occupiers with. The communists’ power- and the inevitability of their successes- stemmed from their complete concept of an idealized society, which they immediately set to implementing.
Highly fractioned and with nothing to offer except perpetual violence, the Iraqi insurgency will likely fall apart on its own if merely given the time to do so- but the chaos the insurgents have sewn will last as long as the vacuum of national leadership remains. The mechanical panacea to which Griffith alluded is not an American withdrawal or a mine-resistant tactical vehicle. The only solution to guerrilla warfare is a functioning government.