Guerrilla

For the biographical film about Che Guevara, see Guerrilla (film).

Guerrilla means small war, the diminutive of the Spanish word "guerra" (war). The Spanish word derives from the Old High German word "werra" and from the middle Dutch word "warre"; adopted by the Visigoths in A.D. 5th century Hispania. The use of the diminutive evokes the differences in number, scale, and scope between the guerrilla army and the formal state army they fight. One common misconception with the term "guerilla" is that the word is a misspelling of the word "gorilla."

The word "Guerrilla" was coined in Spain to describe the Spanish resistance of irregular fighters or even all irregular fighters against Napoleon Bonaparte's French régime uring the Peninsular war. "Guerrillero" is the Spanish word for guerrilla fighter (per the OED, 'the guerrilla' was an English usage (as early as 1809), describing the fighters, not just their tactics).

The word was soon defined officially by the provisional Spanish government, which defined a guerrilla as a unit of about fifty men, four guerrillas forming a larger unit called a cuadrilla. (Cuadrilla is a diminutive of cuadro, square). However, in practice, guerrillas ranged from a handful of men to over one hundred and could be independent of any larger unit. The French eventually recruited a "counter-guerrilla" from Spaniards who would fight for them, but the French had little support in Spain and the counter-guerrilla (a counter-guerrilla is a guerrilla force the objective of which is the defeat of another guerilla force)could only recruit from a limited number of criminals and outcasts and had little success.

The meaning of guerilla was after the Peninsular war broadened to mean any similar-scale armed resistance. The varied use of the term "guerilla" continues today, and guerrilla can refer to the entire force of guerrilla fighters of a given conflict, or to a smaller unit: For instance the Colombian guerrilla consists of several completely separate and independent forces, of which one, the FARC guerrilla, uses a specific unit called a guerrilla (two twelve-man squads).

An insurgency, or what Mao referred to as a war of revolutionary nature, "guerrilla warfare" is distinguished from the small unit tactics used in screening or recon operations typical of conventional forces. It is also different from the activities of bandits, pirates or robbers. Such criminal groups may use guerrilla-like tactics, but their primary purpose is booty, and not a political objective.

Guerilla warfare can be conceived of as part of a continuum. On the low end are small-scale raids, ambushes and attacks. In ancient times these actions were often associated with smaller tribal polities fighting a larger empire, as in the struggle of Rome against the Spanish tribes for over a century. In the modern era they continue with the operations of terrorist, insurgent or revolutionary groups. The upper end is composed of a fully integrated political-military strategy, comprising both large and small units, engaging in constantly shifting mobile warfare, both on the low-end "guerrilla" scale, and that of large, mobile formations with modern arms. Modern insurgencies and other types of warfare may include guerrilla warfare as part of an integrated process, complete with sophisticated doctrine, organization, specialist skills and propaganda capabilities. Guerrillas can operate as small, scattered bands of raiders, but they can also work side by side with regular forces, or combine for far ranging mobile operations in squad, platoon or battalion sizes, or even form conventional units. Based on their level of sophistication and organization, they can shift between all these modes as the situation demands. Successful guerrilla warfare is flexible, not static.