Lessons from Mao’s ‘On Guerilla Warfare’

We have reached near universal consensus that war will now be fought across five domains: land, air, sea, space and cyber. Undoubtedly, we are in the midst of a new arms race driven by the belief that those nations who wield better technology will win a conventional war, while witnessing the diminishing importance of old intangibles such as ‘grit’, ‘determination’ and ‘heart’.

While this belief may hold true for a conventional war fought between two countries of similar economic might and robustness, Australia should not fall into this incorrect line of thought.

Just this year, the US began its departure from Afghanistan after 20 years of fighting. Amazingly, the economic, military and technological might of the US could not suppress a zealous band of fighters with Soviet-era weaponry. While the Taliban did indeed lose considerable manpower throughout the fighting, it was the US that left the country without having beaten its adversary.

Likewise in southern Lebanon and Gaza, the Israeli Defence Force has not been able to tie down the civilian population resulting in ongoing and emboldened guerrilla insurgency in the areas and even evacuation of Jewish residents, as in the case of Gaza.

While the two situations are very different (comparing tribal Pashtuns to metropolitan Arab jihadis), the fundamental concept remains the same: they are ungovernable.

No amount of technological superiority from the invading force can:

1. Dislodge the enemy from their position;
2. Supplant their ideology; and
3. Tie down the population.

As such, I began wondering how this might apply to Australia. Australia is indeed surrounded by militaries who greatly outnumber our own and engulfed by larger and more diversified economies, who carry a colonial chip on their shoulder.

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This reaffirmed to me the importance of going back to the basics of warfare. In the event of a warlike scenario where Australia has been overwhelmed and invaded, we must become ungovernable.

Indeed, when I was discussing this idea with my brother, he reminded me of the British Dad’s Army policies of the Second World War. Behind the comedy television show was a stark reality: a demographic of patriots that could not fight with the army, but could undertake extreme violence on the homeland to repel invaders and make their island ungovernable.

This edition of Defence Connect Insight is a literature review of Mao’s On Guerrilla Warfare.

Mao compiled On Guerrilla Warfare in 1937 following the Japanese invasion of China, and was written as a simple document to explain the practicalities of guerrilla warfare and how one might even undertake their own guerrilla insurrection.

It was a brilliant book, and beyond a few necessary considerations for changing technology, is still applicable in modern warfare. It was simple to read and cheap, but most importantly – for the first time in 70 years, this seems like an important book for every Australian to read.

Chapter 1: What is guerrilla warfare?

The similarities between China and Australia are curiously numerous. Though Australia isn’t a peasant nation with a large population, Australia like China faces far better equipped enemies with stronger national objectives, cohesion and central command. Further, we both have large countries with unique terrain which afford the guerrilla fighter the ability to harness “terrain, climate, and society … [as] obstacles to his progress and may be used to advantage those who oppose him”.

However, Mao outlines that guerrilla war on its own is simply bound for failure, and it must be underpinned by collaboration with conventional military forces and a “clearly defined political goal”. For Australia, as was the case with China, this political goal would be the emancipation of the country from an invading force.

To achieve this, the guerrilla must begin:

1. "Arousing and organising the people.
2. Achieving internal unification politically.
3. Establishing bases.
4. Equipping forces.
5. Recovering national strength.
6. Destroying the enemy’s national strength.
7. Regaining lost territories."

Regarding our observation of Hezbollah and Hamas, one crucial strategic element of their application of guerrilla jihadism is the syncretisation of the military and civilian, where they become one and the same. In a warfare scenario, this makes it impossible for Israel to discriminately attack them under jus in bello and the laws of armed conflict (LOAC).

Likewise, Mao intimately describes the symbiosis of guerrilla and civilian: “Because guerrilla warfare basically derives from the masses and is supported by them, it can neither exist nor flourish if it separates itself from their sympathies and co-operation.”

Indeed, for Australia to become ungovernable, guerrillas must freely move among the civilian population and become indistinguishable from them as does Hamas and Hezbollah.

Mao continues, giving inspiration to those guerrilla leaders who seek to rouse support among the civilian populace. They must be “resolute, loyal, sincere, and robust” and “able to cope with counter propaganda.” 

He gives three key lessons to the guerrilla, that guerrilla war be based on “alertness, mobility, and attack. It must be adjusted to the enemy[’s] situation, the terrain, the existing lines of communication, the relative strengths, the weather and the situation of the people. In guerrilla warfare, select the tactic of seeming to come from the east and attacking from the west; avoid the solid, attack the hollow; attack; withdraw; deliver a lightening blow, seek a lightening decision. When guerrillas engage a stronger enemy, they withdraw when he advances, harass him when he strops; strike him when he is weary; pursue him when he withdraws”.

Despite this, Mao acknowledges that every era, people and terrain need their own conception of guerrilla war. In an era of synthetic aperture radar satellites, thermal imagining from UAVs, detection of radar pulses from radios by ISR aircraft; the old concept of a nature-based guerrilla war is simply unachievable. Instead, the conception of the modern guerrilla must be in the cities in order to make Australia’s population centres ungovernable, and hide from our technologically advanced enemy.

Chapter 2: The relation of guerrilla hostilities to regular operations

This chapter describes how one might be able to form their own guerrilla insurrection. As previously noted, Mao reiterates the importance of symbiosis between the people and the guerrilla movement. Essentially, that the guerrilla and population are of the same genesis.

The biggest discrepancy that Mao identifies between the guerrilla and the regular soldier though is that the guerrilla relies on “constant activity and movement”. Unlike conventional fighting forces, Mao outlines that there is “no such thing as a decisive battle". This is because the role of the guerrilla is to harass and tie down the enemy, not to win a pitched battle. Indeed, this exemplifies in the importance of decentralised command on the guerrilla, to which guerrilla squads must be afforded the flexibility to execute quick and mobile attacks. Namely, the guerrilla’s primary area of operation must be the enemy’s rear flank, constantly attacking their supply and communications chains.

To summarise this objective, Mao argues that “to clarify the relationship between the mobile aspect of orthodox war and guerrilla war, we may say that general agreement exists that the principal element of our strategy must be mobility”.

Chapter 3: Guerrilla warfare in history

Mao continues by analysing historical scenarios in which guerrilla warfare had been successful, from the Napoleonic invasions of Russia through to the Russian Revolution. He, however, provides great emphasis on situations in which insurrections were unable to repel invaders to learn from their mistakes.  One such example of this is how the Abyssinians were not able defeat the Italians, a curious case which demonstrates Mao’s theory that “the cause of defeat – aside from the most important political reasons that there were dissenting political groups, no strong government party, and unstable policy – was the failure to adopt a positive policy of mobile warfare”.

This is a brilliant insight on the importance of political unity among guerrilla fighters. In the event of Australian insurrection against a foreign invader, it is critical that those among the population who do decide to volunteer encourage those around them with optimism to support traditional Australian values. Lest, it is likely that the insurrection fall apart due to apathy.

Chapter 4: Can victory be attained by guerrilla operations?

In this chapter, Mao analyses the specific pathways to victory from guerrilla warfare. Much like any adversaries that Australia might face, Mao reminds his readers that the Japanese Imperial army is spread too thin across China's vast landscape. Simply, all that the Chinese guerrilla must do to win is continuously harass the invading force to wear them down.

Mao described the conditions in which China will be able to overcome Japan:

“China is a country half colonial and half feudal, it is a country that is politically, militarily, and economically backward. This is an inescapable conclusion. It is a vast country with great resources and tremendous population, a country in which the terrain is complicated and the facilities for communication are poor. All these factors favour a protracted war, they all favour the application of mobile warfare and guerrilla operations. The establishment of innumerable anti-Japanese bases behind the enemy’s lines will force him to fight unceasingly in many places at once, both to his from and his rear. He thus endlessly expends his resources.”

While the differences between 1937 China and modern Australia are obvious, there are a few key similarities here which favour the ability for Australians to conduct a protracted guerrilla war against an invading force and still be successful.

Australia is an extremely urbanised country, which is critical backdrop for modern guerrilla operations. This gives our guerrillas the opportunity for mobility and lethality by operating under the cover of the civilian population. This has the additional benefit of encouraging the civilian population to join the insurgency. However, Australia’s size and rural population centres will force an invader to spread their resources thinly across the landscape. While the bulk of military and paramilitary forces would still be concentrated within cities, an invader must tie down regional centres as well as agricultural centres, energy generators and mines to support the nation and military. This provides the guerrilla ample opportunity in Australia to conduct harassing attacks on the enemy's communications and logistics lines in the country – allowing guerrilla forces to isolate and kill any enemy forces in Australia’s interior.

Chapter 5: Organisation for guerrilla warfare

In chapter five, Mao describes how one might organise their guerrilla insurrection, describing that the bulk of fighting forces come from:

1. "From the masses of the people.
2. From the regular army units temporarily detailed for the purpose.
3. From regular army units permanently detailed.
4. From the combination of a regular army unit and a unit recruited from the people.
5. From the local militia.
6. From deserters from the ranks of the enemy.
7. From former bandits and bandit groups."

Interestingly, Mao’s threshold for who can become a guerrilla is remarkably low, arguing that anyone who is armed can be a guerrilla. This low barrier to entry helps the growth of a civilian insurrection, where he further argues that those who are already trained in warfare should continue to train and build other guerrilla units. This insight raises the question, should the Australian Defence Force be prepared to train civilians into a mobile and lethal fighting force?

This fighting force must be made up of both genders as well as both the young and old, according to Mao. This is an critical lesson, as the notion of the “fighting aged male” should be given considerably less limelight in the analysis of the notional guerrilla fighter – as it is a likely assumption that most fighting aged males will have already been removed from their locality, likely to an internment camp or for manual labour.

Ideally, Mao outlines, there would be a handful of technologically advanced western weapons systems per platoon – supported by myriad hunting rifles and melee weapons at the start of an insurgency. Throughout the insurgency, the bulk of the guerrilla’s advanced weapons systems will be sourced from the enemy who have been neutralised. However, it is critical that in each area of operations that the guerrilla and civilian build their own means of creating and replenishing arms and political propaganda.

Crucially, Mao argues that radio and telephone equipment is not required by smaller groups and lower ranking officials. As such, their commanders must use their decentralised command to make decisions on harassing and inflicting damage on the enemy. This suggestion is more critical now than ever, as modern ISR ELINT equipment allows UAV and manned aircraft to identify the location of enemy radio transmissions, which would result in mass casualties among Australian guerrilla forces.

Chapter 6: The political problems of guerrilla warfare

Mao explains that guerrilla fighters must be cognisant and aware of their political objectives at all times, because if the objectives are even momentarily forgotten, apathy may threaten the whole operation. As such, the leaders must be ever vigilant to remind their insurgents of the political objective of the activity. To achieve this, Mao recommends: 

“The fundamental problems are: first, spiritual unification of officers and men within the army; second spiritual unification of the army and the people; and, last, destruction of the unity of the enemy.”

It is an interesting circumstance, that some 80 years after writing about the importance of military and civilian bonds, that the Australian Army no longer allows their Diggers to wear uniforms in public anymore. Could Australia's indifference to military personnel threaten our national unity and political objective in the event of a total war scenario?

Chapter 7: The strategy of guerrilla resistance against Japan

Mao uses this chapter to describe how guerrilla operations are not a heterodox strategy, but a normal military application to bolster and support the abilities of the conventional fighting force.

Here, Mao discusses his three key lessons for the guerrilla fighter: “First, to conduct a war on exterior lines, that is, in the rear of the enemy; second, to establish bases, and, last, to extend the war areas.” This allows Mao to address “the fundamental axiom of combat on which all military action is based … ‘conservation of one’s own strength; destruction of an enemy’s strength’”.

Indeed, he introduces a series of recommendations for the guerrilla, which Australians would be wise to commit to memory:

1. "Retention of the initiative…
2. Conduct of operations to complement those of the regular army.
3. The establishment of bases.
4. A clear understanding of the relationship that exists between the attack and the defence.
5. The development of mobile operations.
6. Correct command.”

Of these six listed items, Mao’s first point regarding the “retention of the initiative” struck me as the one of the most erudite explanations of mobile warfare:

“What is meant by initiative in warfare? In all battles and wars, a struggle to gain and retain the initiative goes on between the opposing sides, for it is the side that hold the initiative that has liberty of action. When an army loss the initiative, it loses its liberty; its role becomes passive; it faces the danger of defeat and destruction.”

This liberty of action is aided by Mao’s concept of decentralised command and small teams. In an Australian context, these small teams should operate in high density living areas for cover while executing harassing missions on an opposing force, thus making it impossible to tie down the population and “[gaining] the confidence of millions of their countrymen”.

Mao presses that the relationship between the guerrilla and the local population must be symbiotic since the insurgency is borne from the local populace, which helps to achieve ultimate mobility: “When the situation is serious, the guerrilla must move with the fluidity of water and the ease of the blowing wind. Their tactics must deceive, tempt, and confuse the enemy. They must lead the enemy to believe that they will attack him from the east and north, and they must strike him from the west and the south. They must strike, then rapidly disperse. They must move at night.”

In essence, the three critical areas of operations for the guerrilla are:

• Strategic cooperation;
• Tactical cooperation; and
• Battle cooperation.

Strategic co-operation is where the guerrilla supports the national objective by harassing and attacking the invading force. Tactical co-operation is where the guerrilla supports the conventional army on a tactical level, carrying out small but mission relevant objectives such as destroying roads and rail. Battle co-operation is where the guerrilla unit supports the conventional army in a battle, by undertaking road closures and sentry duty.

This is a critical lesson in Australia. As a large country, in the event of a warlike scenario, there will be ample opportunities for any would-be guerrilla to take part in any of these three key guerrilla functions. Whether it’s harassing the invader to waste ammunition (strategic), destroying their lines of communication to support the remnants of the defence force (tactical) or keeping watch or stopping enemy resupply into battlefields (battle).

Mao describes a situation in where the opportune environment for guerrilla operations is the mountains, affording the guerrilla with cover and remoteness. As noted earlier, with thermal imagine and SAR telescopes – the idea of a jungle guerrilla repelling an invading force is growing less and less. We must now consider that the new area of operations must be in the population areas, to make the populations ungovernable.

End note

Australia should not despair that it isn't as militarily or economically advanced as many other nations in the world. There are numerous circumstances in which an insurgency has repelled a far greater force. 

However, our key decision makers must expect that one day Australia might be in a position where we a forced to defend the homeland. At this point, it would be remiss of our officials to not acknowledge the importance of guerrilla insurgencies.