War, Peace, and International Relations. An Introduction to Strategic History

its strategic importance has long been overshadowed by regular warfare between states.
But war is war, warfare is warfare, and strategy is strategy. It does not matter whether the
war, warfare or strategy in question is regular, irregular or a combination of the two. As
Stuart Kinross (2004) has argued, Clausewitz’s theory of war and strategy applies no less
to irregular than to regular warfare.

Questions

1. How do regular and irregular warfare differ?


2. In waging irregular warfare, what are the distinctive tactical and strategic
   problems for the regulars and the irregulars?


3. How can terrorism and counter-terrorism succeed or fail strategically?


4. How does the ‘New Terrorism’ differ from the ‘Old Terrorism’?

Further reading

R. B. Asprey War in the Shadows: The Classic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Persia
to the Present, rev. edn (Boston: Little, Brown, 1994).
I. F. W. Beckett Modern Insurgencies and Counter-insurgencies: Guerrillas and Their
Opponents since 1750(London: Routledge, 2001).
A. K. Cronin ‘How al-Qaeda Ends: The Decline and Demise of Terrorist Groups’, International
Security, 31: 7–48 (2006).
R. Gunaratna Inside al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror(New York: Columbia University
Press, 2002).
B. Hoffman Inside Terrorism(London: Victor Gollancz, 1998).
A. F. Krepinevich Jr The Army and Vietnam(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986).
W. Laqueur Guerrilla Warfare: A Historical and Critical Study(New Brunswick, NJ:
Transaction Publishers, 1998).

262 War, peace and international relations

Key points

1. Only after 9/11 has irregular warfare been the principal plot line in modern
   strategic history.


2. It is useful to distinguish regular from irregular warfare. Choice of the latter
   signifies weakness.


3. All war is political, but none is more so than the irregular kind (terrorism,
   insurgency and guerrilla warfare).


4. Irregular warfare differs radically from regular warfare tactically and oper-
   ationally, but not strategically.


5. Terrorists and counter-terrorists struggle to induce each other to delegitimize
   themselves politically and culturally.


6. Violent Islamic extremists can be defeated only by other Muslims. The issue
   in contention is how to reconcile the modernization of society with religious
   values.