Book description
Guerrilla insurgencies continue to rage across the globe, fueled by
ethnic and religious conflict and the easy availability of weapons. At
the same time, urban population centers in both industrialized and
developing nations attract ever-increasing numbers of people,
outstripping rural growth rates worldwide. As a consequence of this
population shift from the countryside to the cities, guerrilla conflict
in urban areas, similar to the violent response to U. S. occupation in
Iraq, will become more frequent. Urban Guerrilla Warfare traces the
diverse origins of urban conflicts and identifies similarities and
differences in the methods of counterinsurgent forces. In this
wide-ranging and richly detailed comparative analysis, Anthony James
Joes examines eight key examples of urban guerrilla conflict spanning
half a century and four continents: Warsaw in 1944, Budapest in 1956,
Algiers in 1957, Montevideo and São Paulo in the 1960s, Saigon in 1968,
Northern Ireland from 1970 to 1998, and Grozny from 1994 to 1996. Joes
demonstrates that urban insurgents violate certain fundamental
principles of guerrilla warfare as set forth by renowned military
strategists such as Carl von Clausewitz and Mao Tse-tung. Urban
guerrillas operate in finite areas, leaving themselves vulnerable to
encirclement and ultimate defeat. They also tend to abandon the goal of
establishing a secure base or a cross-border sanctuary, making
precarious combat even riskier. Typically, urban guerrillas do not
solely target soldiers and police; they often attack civilians in an
effort to frighten and disorient the local population and discredit the
regime. Thus urban guerrilla warfare becomes difficult to distinguish
from simple terrorism. Joes argues persuasively against committing U. S.
troops in urban counterinsurgencies, but also offers cogent
recommendations for the successful conduct of such operations where they
must be undertaken. Anthony James Joes, professor of political science
at Saint Joseph's University, is the author of many books, including
Resisting Rebellion: The History and Politics of Counterinsurgency, and
America and Guerrilla Warfare.
