Unconventional Warfare

sorcerer

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The Unconventional War :- Parallels between the Combat Experience in Vietnam and Iraq
Part 3

Working in opposition to any efforts of ameliorating the privations of soldiers in both wars were the harsh climates they fought in. In Vietnam, soldiers were forced to "live in mud
and rain" and to deal with the terrors of nighttime combat in a stygian jungle occupied by a clandestine enemy.90 O'Brien constantly remained on edge, because even when "the day was quiet and hot," the "bushes [could] erupt." Likewise, soldiers in Iraq had to carefully monitor windows and rooftops in cities, and still, "many skirmishes . . . [would] begin in confusion." Americans in Iraq found themselves "humping," or marching, with over 60 pounds of gear while enduring "120-degree temperatures with one . . . bottle of water."

One could argue that the environment in which soldiers in each war fought appears dissimilar. Iraq constitutes an arid desert and urban landscape, while Vietnam is primarily a tropical jungle environment. These differences notwithstanding, both environments equally encumbered soldiers. In both wars, the enemy remained elusive—"insurgents and civilians . . . indistinguishable" from one another, leading to confusion and frustration. Irrespective of the conflict, American infantry occupied a country in which the population gradually turned against them.In light of these observations, to what extent can the issues faced by American forces in Vietnam offer insight towards an understanding of Iraq and the current engagements in Afghanistan? It would be suspect to argue that the Vietnam experience offered a solution for the unconventional warfare the U.S. faced in Iraq. As George Herring opines, "each historical situation is unique, moreover, and to extract lessons from one and apply them indiscriminatelyto another and very different event is at best misleading." Furthermore, despite similarities in the combat experience of each war, the motives, objectives, and cohesion of the enemy was rather different. As Carpenter suggests, the enemy insurgency in Iraq constituted a conglomeration of entities from diverse nationalities and socio-cultural backgrounds, often at odds with one another, and holding ambiguous objectives to counter the American occupation.

Regardless of these differences and cautionary suggestions against applying the lessons of Vietnam to Iraq, one can tease out some minor connections. For example, the Vietnam War was essentially a war waged by an unconventional enemy who used tactics designed to weaken, not destroy, the American army both physically and psychologically. Herring argues that many politicians and military tacticians after Vietnam suggested that, "the [U.S.] military should have adapted to the unconventional war in which it found itself and shaped an appropriate counterinsurgency strategy."General Westmoreland's strategy of attrition directly impacted the nature of the operations in which U.S. ground forces were engaged, with the main objective of these missions being to "mount aggressive 'Search and Destroy' operations against the VietCong and their NVA comrades." This plan was complemented by the utilization of defended enclaves from which soldiers could deploy into the jungle on assignment.

General Westmoreland's aims tended to be justified through reports of body counts, and the necessity to destroy the Vietcong's capacity to wage war. Colin Powell recalls that body
counts "became a macabre statistical competition" which often led to inflated and exaggerated numbers. The strategy lacked sufficient organization to effectively win over civilians, and did not allow for advantageous ground to be permanently occupied by U.S. soldiers. Therefore, infantry would contest an area only to abandon it and allow the enemy the privilege to reoccupy the ground. Another consequence was that soldiers were sent on assignments to engage the enemy, which more often than not entailed walking into ambushes and booby-traps. Robert Conner depicts the realities of "search and destroy" tactics when he recalls often walking through the jungle on "hot summer days . . . [praying] . . . Please God, don't let us run into any VietCong." The strategy also failed to consider furnishing protection for the civilian population, which rendered the small villages and hamlets safe-zones for the depredations of insurgents. The Vietcong adapted quickly to the predictable attrition strategy, primarily by attacking U.S. contingents in small numbers and melting "into the jungles before an effective counterstrike could be organized." Private First Class Reginald Edwards opines that Americans in Vietnam should have started from "one tip of South Vietnam" and worked its way "to the top," rooting out all VC along the way.

While Specialist Harold Bryant asserts that "America should have won the war," he identifies the common argument that soldiers were not "free . . . to fight." Instead of doing monotonous search and destroy missions, which constituted no meaningful conclusion to the war, Bryant agreed with PFC Edwards by asserting that U.S. soldiers should have been put "shoulder to shoulder" and marched from Saigon "all the way up to the DMZ," making one clean sweep of the country. The lesson to be learned from Vietnam, whether it applies wholly to the Iraq situation or not, is that a clear strategy should have been adopted to deal with unconventional guerilla warfare. Marching soldiers around aimlessly in order to hunt for an elusive enemy runs the riskof causing psychological and physical exhaustion. \

As some veterans noted, the problem with Vietnam was that most soldiers experienced, as Westmoreland ably phrased it, a "limited war, fought with limited means, for limited objectives." The threat of the enemy in Iraq was largely unconventional, and could not be prosecuted with the same means as World War II and Korea, with the focus being on body-counts and the victories consisting of "blitzkrieg-style warfare against other states."

The problem, as Thomas Ricks pronounced it, was that U.S. strategy in Iraq ignored the fundamental lessons of the Vietnam conflict—including the ability to counter "protracted ground combat, especially of an irregular or unconventional nature." Regardless of whether President George W. Bush and his generals had successfully won the major battles, the real victory would come when the U.S. could effectively respond to an insurgency, as well as pacify the indigenous population. Ricks notes the conversation that retired Army Colonel Harry Summers, Jr. recalled having with a North Vietnamese General after the Vietnam War:

You know, you never defeated [the U.S.] on the battlefield," Summers said. The North Vietnamese officer considered this assertion for a moment, and then responded, "That may be so, but it is also irrelevant." Hanoi's center of gravity had not been on the battlefield


One can argue that the overall strategy is crucial for influencing the combat experience of soldiers on the ground. American military strategists in Iraq should have adopted one of the crucial lessons from Vietnam, "that American power, however great, [has] distinct limits." The military doctrine espoused during the Iraq War could not be fundamentally based on kill- ratios and battles won. Although battles can be decisive in some respects, the most importan understanding to be wrought from the Vietnam experience is the importance of an effective, solid counter-insurgency response that would assist the soldiers operating in the midst of car bombings, mines, booby-traps, and enemies indiscernible from civilians.

On the whole, the combat experience of soldiers in Vietnam and Iraq convey numerous similarities. Although the men-at-arms and the technology utilized by soldiers differed considerably between wars, the raw nature of combat remained the same.
Americans in Vietnam faced an enemy that was often indistinguishable from civilian populations. The Vietcong and NVA were adept at evading American contingents, particularly when outnumbered. However, if it was so desired, both of these forces could engage numerically superior American platoons and companies from the jungle foliage without sustaining severe casualties. American servicemen in Iraq faced a similar threat during the insurgency.

While the combatant forces did not constitute a united front, the motley paramilitary forces posed challenges to the ponderous American convoys negotiating narrow alleyways, city streets, and back roads. Insurgents in Iraq camouflaged themselves in civilian clothes, therefore possessing the ability to meld into their environment. In Vietnam, American soldiers were more likely to stumble into Vietcong ambushes than to pre-emptively strike the enemy. The Vietcong's uncanny ability to utilize dense foliage, tunnel systems, and the cover of night compounded problems faced by American "search and destroy" detachments.

Similarly, in Iraq, insurgents could utilize the plethora of windows, doors, or rooftops to their advantage. Thus, American convoys and platoons often patrolled occupied villages and cities until receiving enemy fire. The covert operations employed by the enemy in both wars identify one paradox of fighting a guerilla enemy. Although both a jungle and an urban setting afford American units adequate cover, the ubiquitous nature of the enemy stifles any modicum of comfort. Whether by dint of snipers, grenadiers, sappers, or mines, American units in both wars often suffered casualties without the ability to inflict sufficient damage to the enemy. Furthermore, one has identified that as a consequence of the guerilla tactics employed by the enemy in Vietnam, the ability to accurately tally enemy casualties was impeded. While the cumbersome climate in each war hampered the effectiveness of soldiers, the pervasive utilization of deadly anti-personnel devices in the form of mines, IEDS, and car bombs posed an equally acute threat to soldiers in each war.

Finally, the plight of soldiers was hardly ameliorated by the intense psychological repercussions endured after months of combat. Soldiers in both Iraq and Vietnam became a "bundle of nerves" as a result of the motley threats they countenanced on each patrol. This aspect of combat in Iraq is best evidenced in the assassination of American soldiers at point- blank range by disguised insurgents. Overall, one can argue that despite objections raised to comparing the Vietnam and Iraq war, it is justifiable to suggest that the combat experiences of American soldiers in each war strongly parallel one another.
 

sorcerer

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Napoleon ́s Nightmare: Guerrilla Warfare in Spain

(1808-1814) – The French Army ́s Failed Counterinsurgency Effort
by José De La Pisa


Introduction


The Spanish nation is different...The Spaniards have a noble and generous character, but they have a tendency to ferocity and cannot bear to be treated as a conquered nation. Reduced to despair, they would be prepared to unleash the most terrible and courageous rebellion, and the most vicious excesses
-After revolt of 2 May 1808, letter to Napoleon written by his agent in Madrid1 In 1807,


in order to seize the navy of Portugal so that he could then attack England from the sea, Napoleon – then at the apex of his power, without a defeat on European soil, with the finest Army ever assembled, signed a treaty with Spain so that his army could march through Spain into Portugal. He conquered Portugal easily by force, with token help from a small Spanish Army. Not satisfied with Portugal alone, he then betrayed the Spanish monarch and people by abruptly forcing the King to abdicate and invaded Spain. Deceitfully invoking Spain's treaty with France, he quickly took the main fortresses and cities of northern Spain. Reacting to Napoleon's control of their government, the people in Madrid and other cities throughout the Peninsula rose up against the invading French. In response, Napoleon sent troops to rapidly subdue them. But then, the totally unexpected happened: the French Army was defeated at Baylen. This defeat triggered the withdrawal of French troops beyond the Ebro River. Napoleon responded by personally leading some 300,000 troops to deal with the Spanish Army. Its defeat was accomplished quickly, and Spain seemed to be his. Yet four years later, the great French Army left Spain, exhausted, totally demoralized, near starvation, and without food, basic clothing or supplies. It was a totally defeated force.

A strong case can be made that this occurred because first, the insurrection of the entire nation, and second, the gradual formation of a fierce and indomitable unconventional army: what has become known as the Guerrilla. The Guerrilla phenomenon arose as an aftermath of the popular uprising against the French invader that filled the vacuum left when the Spanish regular armies were beaten by Napoleon. Encouraged and supported by the people, the Spanish guerrillas gave the struggle the character of People in Arms - as later defined by Clausewitz: the new concept, "Guerrilla," represented the spirit of rebellion that undermined the foundations of the Napoleonic Empire.


The guerrillas forced the French troops on the Peninsula into a dilemma that they never resolved: How to fight against the regular armies of Spain and Britain (and Portugal), while
simultaneously fighting against guerrilla operations that constantly threatened their rear, and the lines of communication and supply, thus forcing the deployment of more troops throughout the conquered territories. The guerrillas acted as Mao Tse-tung would write over ten decades later, "Innumerable gnats, which, like biting a giant both in front and in rear, ultimately exhausts them." They totally disputed the normal functioning of the Napoleonic administration and political control in Spain, hindered the supply of the French army, required the enemy to scatter its forces throughout the territory, and eventually exhausted and depleted the French forces by a slow and constant war of attrition.

Napoleon was present in Spain only during his successful campaign at the end of 1808. He never seemed able to grasp the danger and power of the insurrection of the people and the
guerrilla. As was his rule, he ordered his generals to achieve a decisive battle against the regular army. However, the problems created by the insurgency precluded them from concentrating numbers of troops sufficient to defeat the combined Spanish, British and Portuguese armies. As a direct consequence of this failure, Napoleon's myth of invincibility was shattered, the prestige of his troops was challenged, and his system of power began to crumble. In Europe, Austria first and then Russia broke their alliances with France. With his major enemy, Britain, fighting him in Spain, Napoleon was thus forced to fight on two fronts in eastern and western Europe, which he could not simultaneously sustain. The miscalculation regarding the Spanish situation was the leading cause of the downfall of his Empire, as he himself recognized later on Saint Helena: "The Spanish war has been a real ulcer, the first cause of the misfortunes of France."


Spain Betrayed; The Road to the Revolt

As Spaniards it is necessary that we die for the King and for the Homeland, arming ourselves against the perfidious enemy with his color of friendship and alliance, who seeks to
impose on us a heavy yoke, after having taken possession of the August person of the King; so let us proceed, to count on active providence to punish so much perfidy, coming to the aid of Madrid and other peoples and gaining our liberty, since no force can prevail against the loyal and brave, as are we Spanish!
- Andres Torrejon, Mayor of Mostoles, May 3rd 1808


After defeating Austria at Ulm and Austerlitz in 1805, Prussia at Jena and Auerstäd in 1806, Russia at Friedland in 1807, and signing the Peace of Tilsit with Tsar Alexander I in 1807,
Napoleon was the master of continental Europe. The sole remaining enemy was Britain, whose conquest had been thwarted due to the defeat of the combined Spanish-French fleet at Trafalgar in 1805. Since then, the Emperor had been attempting to force her surrender by strangling that island state ́s foreign trade by means of an economic blockade via forbidding trade from the continent. But having lost most of his fleet at Trafalgar, he could not accomplish the blockade alone. He, therefore, requested that all the continental countries in Europe support the blockade, known as The Continental System.

While Sweden, Sicily, and Portugal did not support the blockade, Portugal was an easy and attractive target: she had a substantial fleet, wealthy colonies in America, a minimal army,
and her Prince was notoriously dull-witted. Therefore in July 1807, Napoleon decided to attack her. But to do so, he had to pass through Spain. So France and Spain signed a treaty at
Fontainebleu whereby Spain agreed to allow Napoleon's troops to cross Spain and to join the campaign with 24,000 troops. In October 1807, French General Jean-Andoche Junot entered Spain leading the First Corps of Gironde. He marched his army to Portugal and conquered the country quickly; the King of Portugal and his family, with the assistance of Britain's Royal Navy, sought exile in Brazil.

While Junot was conquering Portugal, the political situation in Spain rapidly deteriorated. Ferdinand, the Prince of Asturias, attempted a coup d'état against his father, Charles IV and
Manuel Godoy, the Prime Minister and favorite of the Queen. Napoleon took advantage of this instability and accused Spain of disunity and bad faith. Considering France no longer bound by the Fontainebleau treaty he sent 70,000 more troops to Spain under the command of Marshal Joachim Murat, who was appointed Commander-in-Chief of all French forces in Spain. Murat crossed the Pyrenees in February 1808 and deployed his Corps throughout the north of Spain. He seized control "of the most important fortresses of northern Spain (Pamplona on 16 Feb, Barcelona 29 Feb, Figueras 18 Mar, and San Sebastian on 5 Mar) by a mixture of trickery and force, while another body of French troops advanced south towards Madrid."

Alarmed by these events, Godoy recalled Spanish forces from Portugal and moved the Royal family to Aranjuez Palace while making arrangements to move them to America." When the Spanish people realized the intentions of King Charles IV and Godoy to leave Spain, there was a major riot: Godoy was sacked and taken into custody, and Charles IV agreed toabdicate in favor of Ferdinand who became Ferdinand VII. Napoleon rejected the abdication, called Ferdinand, Charles, and the Queen to Bayonne, and convinced them to surrender their rights to him. He then established his brother Joseph as the Spanish King while the Royal family was taken prisoner in France where they spent the rest of the war. Meanwhile the situation in Madrid, where Murat had arrived and established Regency, was deteriorating rapidly. On 2 May, when French troops tried to move the royal children to Bayonne, Madrid's citizens attempted to stop it. Then Murat brutally suppressed the riot, triggering what would eventually be called The Peninsula War.

The news of what had happened in Madrid spread rapidly throughout Spain with many local governments organizing corps of volunteers to help Madrid and instigate an uprising
against Napoleonic troops by encouraging locals to resist forcefully outsiders attacking their nation's values, traditions, and way of life.
This marked the first stages of revolt. The first to join were the two mayors of Mostoles (a village south of Madrid) who signed a declaration that roused its citizens to assist the people of Madrid. When the news arrived in Badajoz (the main city of Extremadura), The Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish troops there sent a declaration toall the citizens of the region encouraging them to rise up against Napoleonic troops:

...Even though the news is not entirely true, it is enough for every good Spaniard to take up arms and be prepared to defend our homeland... and everything must be accomplished with lighting speed, and then they will understand that we prefer any misfortune and onerous tasks rather than suffer unjust oppression.


Events moved quickly. On 5 May Seville rose up against the French; this provoked the uprising of the entire Andalusia region. Then on the 9th, Oviedo, Santander, and Corunna, and
then almost all the cities not occupied by the French, arose.20 On 25 May the Junta of Asturias declared war against Napoleon; some days later, the Junta of Andalusia joined Asturias by declaring:

France, or better said, her Emperor Napoleon I, has violated the agreement with Spain; has arrested her king and forced him to abdicate, these resignations are clearly invalid [...], we
declare war by land and sea on the emperor Napoleon I and on France while she is under his command and tyranny, and command all Spaniards to act against them with hostility.

In the first stages, the uprising was organized by local and regional governments named Juntas, which contained "not only representatives of the traditional cornerstones of the ancient regime – nobles, military figures, clerics and bureaucrats, but also the landed commercial classes, all of whom now regarded themselves as the voice of the people."These Juntas acted as an almost independent government. As such they were well placed to exploit the first wave of popular enthusiasm.They took command of the armies and organized the first resistance against the invasion.

Napoleon had predicted that the invasion and conquest of Spain would be easy: she appeared to be in a state of utter disintegration, with her King - Charles IV - and his prime
minister – Godoy - hated by the people; possessed a decrepit army; and had a populace uneducated and controlled by corrupt clergy. In the summer of 1808, misreading the popular character of the uprising, Napoleon took advantage of the concentration of his forces in the center of the Peninsula (while Spaniards forces were dispersed throughout the country) by sending four different corps towards Andalusia, Saragossa and Santander, Valencia, and Catalonia to attack and crush the insurgents before they could organize.The campaign was unsuccessful; none of the objectives were accomplished. The corps sent to Andalusia under command of General Pierre Antoine Dupond surrendered her colors to General Francisco Javier Castaños, the first defeat of the Napoleon ́s Army in Europe. The campaign also fed the popular uprising because of the wanton rape, looting, and destruction carried out by French troops. At the end, Joseph Bonaparte packed up his Court and retreated north to take shelter behind the Ebro River, while the Spanish armies were preparing to sweep the last resistance pocket of French from Spain.

News of the Baylen defeat and withdrawal of the French army spread through Europe: In Germany, people were comparing the successful commander in the siege of Saragossa – General José de Palafox - with Arminius, the legendary German leader who defeated Romans troops in Teutoburg Forest in 9 A.D.; in Prussia, some leaders were claiming that they could do the same as the Spaniards, defeat Napoleon by a populace uprising; in Austria, advocates sought to recover the recently lost Tyrol by "stirring up a Spanish-style uprising;" and in England, Parliament (which till then had been planning naval action against Spanish possessions to take advantage of Spain ́s weakness) changed direction by supporting the uprising and thus sent to the Peninsula the same expeditionary force that had been organized to attack Ceuta and the Spanish fleet in Mahon and Minorca.


Napoleon personally reacted by leading a French Army in a new campaign against Spain to defeat the uprising. In doing so, he criticized his commanders and their actions by declaring "I have sent the Spaniards sheep whom they have devoured; I shall send them wolves who in turn will devour them." He organized an army of 152,000 by diverting troops from Germany, and calling up new troops in France. At the end of October 1808, his force was at the Ebro River ready to begin the second attempt to conquer Spain. Napoleon's plan was to march directly to Madrid while his flanking force overwhelmed the Spanish ones, and then advance toward Portugal to defeat the British. The plan was executed brilliantly: by December, Madrid was re-conquered, all the Spanish armies defeated, and the British expeditionary force, under commandof Sir John Moore, forced to withdraw to and from Corunna. By the end of January 1809,Napoleon departed Spain convinced that she was conquered: His brother, who had been crowned king in Bayonne on 6 June 1808, was again head of the new government, and his army was mopping up the British from the Peninsula.

But the war was not over: the citizens of Spanish villages and towns refused to surrender to French armies, sometimes by evacuating a village before French arrived, other times by poisoning wells and burning supplies. Many young men left home to join the armies being organized in Andalusia and Galicia. These actions bought time to allow the arrival of British reinforcements to defend Portugal and allow the rebuilding of Spanish forces. In 1809, the Spanish army conducted an unsuccessful offensive; this was followed by the French conquest of Andalusia in 1810 by taking advantage of the weakness of the British and Spanish armies. The guerrilla phenomena by this time, however, had become deeply rooted in the countryside; the people were stubbornly defending the pieces of territory still in Spanish hands, and slowly wearing down and demoralizing a considerable part of French forces throughout the country.

People in Arms

Sir, I have no house, no relatives, nothing save my country and my sword. My father was ed out, and shot in the market-place of my native village; our cottage was burned, my mother died of grief; and my wife, who has been violated by the enemy, fled to me, then volunteered with Palafox, and died in my arms in a hospital in Saragossa. I serve under no particular chief, I'm too miserable, I feel too revengeful to support the restrain of discipline... but I have sworn never to dress a vine or plough a field till the enemy is drive out of Spain.- Anonymous Guerrilla Warrior 5 July, 181236

When the Spanish people rose up against the armies of Napoleon after 2 May 1808, no country in Europe had less chance of victory. Spain's kings and government were in the exile,
her best troops were fighting in Denmark side by side with Napoleon's armies, the French had now defeated both the Spanish and British armies in Spain, and Napoleon's troops had capturedher main fortresses.

But in direct contrast to what happened throughout the rest of Europe and to what Napoleon expected, the Spanish population responded to the defeat of their armies by deciding to continue the fight on their own. And when the population decided to rise up, they showed an overwhelming strength: confidence in their cause, and the will to defend Spanish independence. In his memoirs, the French Marshal jean Baptiste Jourdan said:

In any other country of Europe, two victories like Medellín [28 March 1809] and Ciudad Real [26-27 march 1809] would have secured the submission of the inhabitants, and the
victorious armies could have extended their conquests. In Spain the contrary occurred: the worse the regular armies' defeat, the more stubbornly the Spanish people fought; the more land the French occupied, the more dangerous the situation became for them.

This paradoxical situation can only be explained because the French were waging a war against an entire nation under arms: the defeat of its regular armies was not enough to break its will.

When the population decided to rise up, they showed an overwhelming strength: they were confident in their cause and had the will to defend Spanish independence against an outsider. Involving the entire nation, the war had the character of a national struggle for liberation from a hostile and hated alien invader. The only way to fight was armed conflict by ordinary citizens neither connected to, nor trained as, regular armies. These fighting ordinary citizens were fully supported by other citizens unable to take up arms. Sometimes the fighting was ferocious to an extreme uncommon in a classic war. In fact, Clausewitz claimed that the Peninsula War became the first "total war" of contemporary history: a War where the entirepopulation contributed to the defeat of the enemy: a "People in Arms". The Baron of Jomini, in The Art of War, confirmed the importance of a people in arms to the Spanish success:

The Peninsular War should be carefully studied, to learn all the obstacles which a general and his brave troops may encounter in the occupation or conquest of a country whose people are all in arms.
What efforts of patience, courage, and resignation did it not cost the troops of Napoleon, Massena, Soult, Ney, and Suchet to sustain themselves for six years against three or four hundred thousand armed Spaniards and Portuguese supported by the regular armies of Wellington, Beresford, Blake, La Romana, Cuesta, Castaños, Reding, and Ballasteros!

The Spanish organized insurgence matched Clausewitz's conditions for a successful uprising:The war was fought on Spanish soil; the French invasion was performed step by step,
more than a year spent before the Army was able to take control of the Peninsula; the Peninsula was extensive, communications were difficult, and the terrain not easily controlled due to mountains, rivers, streams, forests, and the large number of small villages scattered throughout the country.. To this must be added the unique character of the Spaniards: a long history of wars, particularly the extended invasion of the Peninsula by Moors, had made Spaniards skillful and courageous warriors, and proud of their independence, heritage, and faithThis war, in Spain called the Independence War, clearly had the character of a "national war." This does not mean that in Spain there were not people willing to collaborate with "the enemy," but those isolated cases did not diminish the powerful opposition of the majority of the people towards the outsiders.

Resistance to the invasion united men and women from all social classes. Among the guerrilla's leaders were representatives of the nobility such as the Marquis of Atalayuelas; clerics such as the priest Jerónimo Merino; small landlords such as Francisco Espoz y Mina or the Empecinado; and professional soldiers like Juan Díaz Porlier and Francisco Milans del Bosh, who after their defeat found guerrilla warfare an excellent way to continue the fight. Eventually, in the Independence War, there was only one division between Spaniards: the very many who opposed the invader, and the very few who supported them, the afrancesados. Fifty years after the war, the Spanish author Enrique Rodriguez Solis reflected on the character of people in arms when he described the guerrillas as:

The nation in arms. They fought in the morning and worked in the afternoon. They were both soldier and citizens...; the guerrillas were the champions of our independence for seven
years of incessant struggle... Though beaten from time to time, they were never vanquished... They had no other roof than the heavens, no other bed than the earth. They were the invader's eternal shadow, his constant nightmare, an ever-present menace. They abandoned family and home and gave their life for the fatherland with joy in their hearts (...) to die a few hours later on some lonely road, and all that they asked of their fatherland (...) was a tender memory, a patch of earth, and a simple cross.

The formation of Guerrillas was the aftermath of the popular uprising during the first stages of the revolt.They became guerrillas because guerrilla warfare was an alternative to
conventional tactics and the superiority of French army in the open field. It was the only possible option after the continuous defeat of the regular armies. The rapid growth of the guerrillas was advanced by the increasing availability of defeated soldiers and small units who, joined with civilian and charismatic leaders, organized the first such units. Later, many of the larger guerrilla groups eventually became military units that fought alongside the regular army. Men and women joined the guerrillas for multiple reasons: many times, it was because of the atrocities that the French troops committed in villages and farms where women were raped, men killed, and houses and stored crops burned. During his captivity in Saint Helena years later, speaking to his old chamberlain Noel Santini, Count of Las Cases, Napoleon himself confirmed that: The guerrillas were formed as consequence of the pillage, disorders, and abuses permitted by the marshals who disobeyed my strict orders. I had to give a warning order to shoot Soult, the most voracious of all.



Other times, the guerrillas joined simply to avoid serving in the baggage service of the French. But perhaps the main reason for joining the guerrillas was the strong religious feeling and spirit of independence forged in the Spanish character and tradition, and deepened by a strong local and regional feeling against the French. Due to the typical Spaniard's identification with the Catholic Church and its beliefs, an enemy of the Catholic Church was his enemy. And the Spanish Church was strongly opposed to the French Revolution and root in the "Enlightenment;" both were considered as anti-Catholic. This identification originated during the wars between the eighth and fifteenth centuries against the Moors to re-conquer the Spanish soil; it resurged during the Independence War due to the atrocities committed by French against churches, convents, and clerics during their lootings, punishment, and requisitions. As Sebastian Blaze, a French apothecary who participated in the Spanish war wrote in his memoirs in 1828:

The monks skillfully employed the influence which they still enjoyed over Spanish credulity... to inflame the populace and exacerbate the implacable hatred with which they already regarded us...
In this fashion they encouraged a naturally cruel and barbarous people to commit the most revolting crimes with clear conscience. They accused us of being Jews, heretics, sorcerers...As a result, just to be a Frenchman became a crime in the eyes of the country .

Thus, the Catholic Church essentially provided the revolt with moral support and the conviction that the war was just and therefore protected and supported by God himself.
Furthermore, many priests in the villages and towns provided safe haven and economic support to the guerrillas. Thus, the people in arms character of the revolt was magnified by religious beliefs that gave the struggle a ferocity that only religious wars can do. Thus, as Jomini pointed out "Religious wars are above all the most deplorable...Wars of fanaticism are horrible when mingled with exterior war."

Finally, the religious feeling was amplified by strong national independence and pride: even though Spaniards may have hated him and his politics, King Charles was their king and his government was their government. They refused to accept the foreigner, as the French Lieutenant Albert Jean Michel Rocca, an officer of the 2nd Hussar Regiment, wrote in his memoirs: "the Spaniards were a nation united by a single feeling, the love for their independence, and the hatred for outsiders attempting to humiliate their national pride by forcing on them a new government." Thus, the objective of People in Arms was to recover their independence, fulfilling Jomini's definition of National Wars:

This name can only be applied to such as are waged against a united people, or a great majority of them, filled with a noble ardor and determined to sustain their independence: then every step is disputed, the army holds only its camp-ground, its supplies can only be obtained at the point of the sword, and its convoys are everywhere threatened or captured .
Continued....

=====
@pmaitra, @Ray
Even the colors of war we see today reflects the sentiments from the Napolean era. Only the backdrop changed, the actors are different, but drama is still the same.
 
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sorcerer

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Guerrilla Warfare

We must unite the strength of the army with that of the people; we must strike the weak spots in the enemy's flanks, in his front, in his rear. We must make war everywhere and cause
dispersal of his forces and dissipation of his strength. Thus the time will come when a gradual change will become evident in the relative position of ourselves and our enemy, and when that day comes, it will be the beginning of our ultimate victory over the Japanese.- Mao Tse-tung54


Guerrilla warfare as a technique is almost as old as conflict itself. What was different in Spain was the duration and extent of the guerrilla phenomenon, and the strategic impact that it
had on Napoleon's invasion. Spain's strategy against Napoleon had three pillars:
first, the operations of the Spanish Army;
second, support from the British Expeditionary Army;
and last, but not least, guerrilla warfare.

Guerrilla warfare is a phenomenon that seems paradoxical, notvery well known or understood, hard to define, difficult to confront, and challenging to assess.
Nevertheless, while credit for ultimate victory on the Peninsula War must be given to all three pillars, without the contribution of the guerrillas victory would have been impossible. These forces and their operations produced a vital component unforeseen by Napoleon. They forced him to modify the rules of engagement, change his force deployment, and cost him the war inSpain.

Due to the presence of the guerrillas, the tactical victories over the Spanish and Anglo- Portuguese Armies were not enough for the French. Because of the guerrillas, the French had to
occupy and subject the entire territory, an endeavor that, given the length and rugged topography of the Peninsula, required vast numbers of troops. Until then, Napoleon's Army had been using the technique of "Separate to live, unite to fight." This strategy was not possible in Spain: the rugged terrain did not permit large armies to maneuver, or to employ the enveloping tactics that had been exploited successfully by Napoleon so many times in other parts of Europe. In contrast to what was common elsewhere, the mountains in Spain often prevented the concentrations of troops; to get to many towns and villages, usually there was only one road (if even one) to gain
access to the community. The towns and villages were few and poor, and usually the peasants burned their harvest and killed their cattle before the French arrived. To attempt to take control of the terrain and secure his lines of communication, Napoleon had to disperse his forces and establish many small garrisons and posts. These deployments favored the activities of the guerrillas who, using the geography as a tool of war, fought against the invaders in a way very different than the French had previously confronted in Europe.

The guerrilla, again using his knowledge and the difficulty of the terrain, became masters of the art of ambush. French officers later candidly acknowledged the challenge they faced;
French Colonel Joseph Conrad Marnier declared in his memoirs that: A new kind of war began for us, a war of constant ambush, murder and extermination. No more battles like Eylau and Friedland, but a daily struggle against invisible enemies, thousands of them: hidden in the wilderness, in the bottom of gorges, guerrillas ready to fight in every corner of every building, with neither truce, nor rest; and always the fear of betrayal day and night, at any point, at any bend of a trail, even while we were in bed. We had to be on alert for everything and everyone, even the host who offered his house to us.

These constant ambushes were followed by quick retreats, which tired and demoralized the French, who exhausted manpower and resources attempting without success to capture the guerrillas. Another French officer said in his memories:
When we tried to pursue a guerrilla, the first obstacle was to know where he was. The guerrillas were never where we were looking. The peasants protected and supported them, and gave them vital information about us, and our movements. Because they only wanted partial victories...they disappeared. Then to appear later in an advantageous position; or they ran away, leaving us exhausted as we ran after them.


Because of their numbers and nature, the guerrillas by themselves could not recover conquered territory nor expel the invader from Spain. But they were more than adequate, even deadly, in eroding the French will and strength: Assaulting convoys and couriers, threatening and destroying French lines of communication, denying the French support of any kind from peasants and villages, raiding small and isolated posts, and obligating the French to constantly patrol roads and villages in order to protect their troops and their supplies. This necessitated a great number of troops in the rear. Combined with the operations of the Spanish and Anglo- Portuguese armies, these operations led to thousands of French casualties. Napoleon was forced to send more and more troops and supplies to the Peninsula, while simultaneously waging war in the Eastern Europe against Austria (1809), Prussia (1810-11), and Russia (1812-1814). When the source of new troops and supplies was depleted, the Allied Army62 was able to go on the
offensive.

The guerrilla phenomenon evolved during the war; guerrilla bands developed swiftly from being small groups to larger ones as they gained experience from their skirmishes with the French and reacted to their counter-guerrilla tactics. The existence of each guerrilla group was related to the specific situation of the war in its area of operation. Some guerrillas fought throughout war, but many others ceased to exist, either destroyed by the French army or reverting to bandits who waged war against French only for the valuable spoils. The guerrillas fought against the French in different ways according to the situation of the war, and the specific features of each guerrilla band and area. In contrast to the regular army,the guerrillas operated constantly in the enemy's rear, fighting in the vicinity of the villages where they lived and worked, and where the terrain was familiar. This hindered the French'scontact with peasants, precluding requisitions, tax collections, and the gathering of supplies and food. Thus, the limits of French authority stopped where the guerrillas' started, and their strengthwas constantly undermined,
using the expression of Mao, by:

Innumerable gnats, which, like biting a giant both in front and in rear, ultimately exhausts them. They made themselves as unendurable as a group of cruel and hateful devils, and as they row and attain gigantic proportions, they will find that their victim is not only exhausted but practically perishing.


On 28 December 1808, the Supreme Central Junta regularized the new phenomenon of the guerrillas. It published a decree that gave them legal existence and also encouraged the
creation of more guerrillas. In the preamble, the guerrillas were considered militias and were given the approval of the king. These instructions had 34 articles that made reference to the equipment, draft, salary, and duties of the guerrillas. Article XXII stated that: The purpose of the guerrillas will be intercept the enemy parties, stop their raids, prevent them from moving into the villages to collect taxes or requisition food and supplies, and smash them during their marches by shooting them from an adequate firing position.

The decree had the goal of giving the guerrillas legal status since the French did not consider them to be soldiers; it also provided them with some rules to avoid abuses and activities that could damage the draft and actions of the regular army, i.e. encourage soldiers to desert by offering them less painful duties. To avoid this, the instruction forbid deserters to join the guerrilla, and ordered the guerrillas to return them to the army. During the war, first the Supreme Central Junta and later the Counsel of Regency dictated more decrees encouraging the guerrillas (mainly to threaten lines of supplies,) and offering amnesty to all smugglers and bandits who joined the guerrillas.


The guerrillas who remained active until the end of the war operated on their own, but from time to time joined the regular army in battle.
Generally they employed tactics that today would be assessed as asymmetric warfare and preserving a considerable freedom of initiative. They were able to evolve until they constituted groups structured as military units that fought coordinated first, with the Spanish Army, and then with the Wellington's Combined Army until victory was achieved. Thus, the guerrillas not only played an important role against the French rear, but ended up fighting shoulder to shoulder with regular forces. Such interaction with the regular army was later proposed by Mao Tse-tung as a natural development of guerrilla warfare:

During the progress of hostilities, guerrillas gradually develop into orthodox forces that operate in conjunction with other units of the regular army. Thus the regularly organized troops, those guerrillas who have attained that status, and those who have not reached that level of development combine to form the military power of a national revolutionary war. There can be no doubt that the ultimate result of this will be victory.



Thus, during the Peninsula war, the guerrillas accomplished all of the tasks that Mao articulated more than a century later: To exterminate small forces of the enemy; to harass and weaken large forces; to attack enemy lines of communication; to establish bases capable of supporting independent operations in the enemy's rear; to force the enemy to disperse his strength; and to coordinate all these activities with those of the regular armies on distant battle fronts.



Continued...
 

sorcerer

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French Counterinsurgency Warfare

I have traveled the whole province between Asturias and Saragossa twice...the enemy always has run away; we did not punish more of them because it is impossible find them when they do not want to fight; they always have the complete assistance of the population, and places to hide [...] the enemy does not engage in combat unless he has a numeric advantage of five or six"
-
February 1812, Report of General Marie-François Auguste de Cafarelli to Napoleon Napoleon's theory of war was based on the principle that, once the main enemy forces have been destroyed on the battlefield, the "inferior forces" would fall by themselves. The goal, then, of all his campaigns was to engage the enemy's main force in a decisive battle as he did at Ulm Austerlitz, and Jena-Auerstedt. Napoleon used speed of movement of his armies to achieve a dominant battle position, while he kept his enemies off balance by maneuver and artillery fire. His tactics on the battlefield were rooted in the concentrated use of artillery (to weaken or break the enemy lines, forcing openings that were exploited by infantry and cavalry);

in cavalry (extensive and in depth reconnaissance); and in the intendant system (for supplies and financial management.) However, the popular Spanish uprising would stifle these tactics: Despite the fall of Madrid, the defeat of the Spanish army, and with their king and government under French control, Spaniards were still fighting. As the French officer Albert Jean Michel Rocca said in his before cited memoirs: Even when we were winning almost all the battles, the towns of the Spanish provinces had an obstinate belief in their victory; none of them would concede that Spain had been conquered; and this feeling, within the soul of all of them, was what made this nation invincible, despite so many casualties and the frequent defeat of their armies.


Despite this situation, Napoleon always saw the Peninsula War as a conventional campaign. In July 1808, he wrote "the war in Spain is a struggle where the French army occupies
the center and the enemy some point of the circumference."
Therefore, for him it was imperative to preserve the center of the Peninsula, i.e. Madrid and the lines of communication with France. Then his army could prepare for the decisive battle against what he thought was his principal enemy, the Anglo-Portuguese Army.


To fight against the insurgents in the conquered territories, the French army deployed as in earlier campaigns: occupy the main cities, establish control of the main roads, and deploy posts and garrisons within a day's march of the patrols and convoys.
However, these measures did not stop the actions of the guerrilla. Napoleon's marshals were thus forced to deploy continually more troops to secure their rear area and lines of supplies. At the political level, Napoleon gave power to his brother Joseph but with limited jurisdiction and with no unity of authority throughout the territory. Napoleon established several regions north of the Ebro River under his direct control, and placed them under military governors who were outside his brother's authority. At the military level, Napoleon created a new special "Spanish affairs" bureau in the Ministry of War to keep the military directives under his direct authority. The French army in Spain was organized in two different forces: An "Occupation Army" under the authority of the military governor of each region with the mission to defeat the insurgency and to secure the line of communications; and the "Operation Army", composed of the best troops, able to move throughout the Peninsula, and with the mission to engage and defeat opposing regular armies (the British Expeditionary force and the Spanish Army)


Napoleon's generals approached the problem of the guerrillas by focusing on guarding their lines of communication and concentrating their forces in the main cities, usually easy to defend because many of them were very well fortified. To protect the roads, the military governors developed "flying columns" that patrolled the roads between posts in order to locate the insurgents and then, when possible, to pursue and kill them. These defensive measures sometimes worked well against the guerrillas; the later were forced to increase their size and strength in order to encounter the French with a sufficient advantage to ensure success. Both forces were thus engaged in a struggle over manpower that eventually exhausted the French who never could summon enough forces both to achieve the decisive victory against the regular armies of Spain and Britain and to successfully wage a counterinsurgency war in the rear.


Thus, defensive measures employed by French were not enough to deal with a popular revolt that constantly threatened their rear, a local populace that refused to pay taxes or relinquish supplies, and an increasingly dangerous guerrilla threat, hard to find and which struck only when sure to achieve surprise and tactical superiority. The French offensive approach to guerrilla warfare became mainly kinetic and also failed: Attempting to destroy guerrilla groups when they could be found, trying to maintain constant pressure on them, and eroding the local population's support by severe reprisals after any guerrilla action.
But the first problem alway remained: To find them, an often nearly impossible because of their knowledge of the terrain and the protection of the population.


The endless "cat and mouse" struggle produced such a high level of frustration among the French that it led to brutal reprisals against the villages. Such retaliations were pursuant to the military theorist British Colonel C.E. Callwell, who claimed that when the enemy has neither capital nor army:
Your first object should be to capture whatever they prize most, and the destruction or deprivation of that which will probably bring the war more rapidly to a conclusion [...] the most satisfactory way of bringing such foes to reason is by the rifle and sword, for they understand this mode of warfare and respect it.

But the theory of "reprisal" will not succeed when what is "prized most" is not tangible: independence, religious freedom, national pride. Thus, the more severely the French punished the villagers, the more violent was the response and the more brutal the atrocities that the peasants and guerrillas inflicted against the soldiers who fell in their hands.This approach to dealing with the insurgency had some exceptions: Marshal Bon-Adrien Jeannot de Moncey,commandant of the Observation corps of the Ocean, in charge of the east part of the Spain, wrote to Napoleon to suggest a change:

In my opinion it is necessary to change the system. We must deploy overwhelming forces and, at the same time use not only destructive measures, but some others directed to achieve peace based on reflective knowledge of the specific environment and the people's state of the mind.


Nevertheless, the brutality of the struggle, and the lack of unity of effort impeded the application of these measures throughout the territory, making futile the attempt to win over the
populace.

Conclusion
No army, however disciplined, can contend successfully against such a system [the National Wars] applied to a great nation, unless it be strong enough to hold all the essential
points of the country, cover its communications, and at the same time furnish an active force sufficient to beat the enemy wherever he may present himself. If this enemy has a regular army of respectable size to be a nucleus around which to rally the people, what force will be sufficient to be superior everywhere, and to assure the safety of the long lines of communication against numerous bodies?
-Antoine Henry, Baron the Jomini, The Art of War


Why during the Peninsula War did some of the Napoleon's greatest marshals, with total disregard for his fundamental principle of concentrating the army in order to achieve the decisive battle, disperse their troops throughout the roads and villages of Spain so extensively that at the end only 60,000 of the 300,000 French troops in Spain (a mere 20%) were available to fight against the Allied Armies? The answer, of course, is the Counter-Insurgency War against the Spanish guerrilla. This became a mass phenomenon supported by a "nation in arms," which appeared following the popular uprising of the nation in Madrid on 2 May 1808. The Guerrilla is the key to understanding the war and Spain's eventual victory. In the long Peninsula War, of course the combined Anglo-Portuguese army led by Wellington alongside the Spanish army had a significant role in the final victory in 1814 over part of the most preeminent army in Europe; both armies kept fighting for years, despite frequent losses and lack of unity of command. But it would be a crucial mistake not to recognize the singular role of the Spanish people and their guerrilla operations in the defeat of Napoleon ́s armies on the Peninsula. Strongly supported by a populace that had bled and suffered more than it seemed anyone could bear, the guerrillas struggled relentlessly against the French throughout the country, fighting a cruel and unconventional war that slowly, but eventually, exhausted and demoralized the invader, and helped lead to his final defeat.

In accord with Clausewitz's theory, the Spanish uprising was a People in Arms: the French ́s atrocities against the populace, along with the weakness of the Spanish armies,
triggered the revolt. Napoleon believed that the people would join revolutionary and "enlightened" France when promised a new King and that the changes unleashed by the French
Revolution. But he critically misjudged the Spanish character: Spaniards were stubbornly proud of their independence and their religion, and Napoleon and his troops had wounded the Spaniards in their deepest beliefs and national pride. The Spanish had contempt for the invasion and the invaders, and when their army was defeated they themselves took up arms and defended their fatherland to the death. Thus provided Clausewitz later with a valuable example for his theory of war: "The stubborn resistance of the Spaniards, marred as it was by weakness and inadequacy in particulars, showed what can be accomplished by arming the people and by insurrection."

The guerrillas were the outcome of the revolt. They surfaced among people eager to find able leaders to lead them against the outsider and what he represented: Napoleonic France. The Spanish revolt was a National War. With constant pressure against the French rear, the insurgency prevented the French from concentrating enough troops to decisively defeat the regular armies opposing them, and denied them control of the roads, countryside, and villages.Their extensive and successful tactics led to the slow starvation of the French troops who became more vicious against the peasants and villagers, a practice that escalated against them and eventually strengthened the guerrillas. Finally, their actions produced an increasing demoralization:
The French faced an enemy who they could not see or find, yet seemed to be everywhere. The guerrillas overcame the overwhelming superiority of the French army by avoiding fighting in the open field; they used speed, surprise and their superior local knowledge as a weapon; while hiding among the people until tactical surprise and superiority could be achieved. The guerrillas performed, with outstanding success.

Clausewitz's recognized their strengths in how to employ guerrilla forces, when he articulated a principle that: Militia and bands of armed civilians cannot and should not be employed against the main enemy force - or indeed against any sizable enemy force. They are not supposed to pulverize the core but nibble at the shell and around the edges. They are meat to operate in areas just outside the theater of war - where the invader will not appear in strength - in order to deny him these areas altogether.

As the war progressed, the guerrillas evolved into larger groups, better organized and armed; they also developed improved military skills by learning from professional soldiers who
joined their units after being beaten by the French army. This cooperation between guerrillas and military was addressed again by Clausewitz in his book On War:
That is where insurgents should build up larger units, better organized, with parties of regulars that will make them look like a proper army and enable them to tackle larger operations. From these areas the strength of the insurgency must increase as it nears the enemy ́s rear, where he is vulnerable to its strongest blows.

This cooperation increased the capabilities to the guerrillas to the point that some of the ended up as military units; thus, Spaniards accomplished, again with outstanding success, what Mao would much later describe: the evolution of the guerrilla to collaborate with the army to achieve final victory:

During the progress of hostilities, guerrillas gradually develop into orthodox forces that operate in conjunction with other units of the regular army. Thus the regularly organized troops,
those guerrillas who have attained that status, and those who have not reached that level of development combine to form the military power of a national revolutionary war. There can beno doubt that the ultimate result of this will be victory.


The command structure organized by Napoleon did not help the French Counter- Insurgency effort. Because of the absence of Unity of Command and Unity of effort, each military governor fought against the insurgency on his own, without coordinating operations with the other. Moreover, the French did nothing to cultivate public support; quite the reverse, as they attempted to suppress popular support for the guerrillas by severely punishing the people after every guerrilla action. Such pillaging and reprisals put an end to any legitimacy of the French troops, proved the injustice of the French cause, and eventually broke the discipline and morale of the French soldiers. When the insurgents reacted by using fearsome tactics, Napoleonand his generals responded with even greater brutality. Troops operating in a foreign land thus engaged in a spiral of violence that could not be successful in a National War, where the resistance and will of the local population was always more passionate, and the local population willing to risk more than the foreign troops who always remained outsiders. Moreover, to eitherallow, or order, soldiers to act outside the boundaries of laws of war has a direct damagingimpact on morale and discipline, and thus affects the accomplishment of their mission.

In conclusion, armies who invade a foreign country with the idea of exporting their own way of life and political organizations with force, as the French attempted to do in Spain, must first fully ground themselves in knowledge of the culture, traditions, religion, language, and character of the people of the foreign land. This knowledge must be sufficient to assure that their offensives operations, both political and military, are restricted only to the necessary employment of force but do not violate any pillar of the local people's culture, character or beliefs. Such prudent measures will facilitate reconstruction, and possibly will allow build bridges between the foreign forces and the local populace. The French in Spain did none of this; the outcome was the revolt of the populace and the eventual defeat of and withdrawal of Napoleon ́s armies from the Peninsula.

 

Peter

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I would call the assortment of littoral states in Eastern Europe a bundle of sticks. A large country is not a stick. It is a piece of log.

Sir, I just want India to become the greatest world power in 20-40 years. We were once allied with USSR and we all know what happened to it. Whether we like US or not it is the richest and most technologically advanced nation in the planet. All advanced innovations in physics,chemistry and biology are taking place in the US. In the field of computers one just needs to see the contribution of Canadians and Americans. As casper has said we will become their ally only to gain their technology. After that we will kick them out.
 

sorcerer

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Sir, I just want India to become the greatest world power in 20-40 years. We were once allied with USSR and we all know what happened to it. Whether we like US or not it is the richest and most technologically advanced nation in the planet. All advanced innovations in physics,chemistry and biology are taking place in the US. In the field of computers one just needs to see the contribution of Canadians and Americans. As casper has said we will become their ally only to gain their technology. After that we will kick them out.
What makes you think USA will share its wealth of knowledge with India. Its knowledge is its bargaining chip with quiet a large number of nations. USA takes more than what it provides- this is one truth we have seen with a few countries.
The best feature is to USA as and when required if the terms of the deal are mutually beneficial.

To become the great world power India has to start making a lof of changes. Political, social and economical.

One way is to stop the brain drain from our soil towards the west. Thats a slow but progressive process if certain initiatives are done in that regard. Providing infrastructure and world class environments here in India. Equipping universities and educational hubs with state of art facilities.
Make in India initiative seems to be a good one.
initiatives like these combined will make us take great strides.
 

sorcerer

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THE PREVALENCE OF GUILE:
Deception through Time and across Cultures and Disciplines
by Barton Whaley

"The Game is so large that one sees but a little at a time." —Kipling, Kim (1901), Chapter 10

PART ONE: OF TIME, CULTURES, & DISCIPLINES

This lengthy part shows the variations in the levels of deception throughout the sweep of history within the world's major cultures. We trace the changes from pre-historic tribal war to our present troubled preoccupation with the asymmetric struggle between high-tech means and low-tech cunning

Chapter : Tribal Warfare

Deception has never been the sole weapon of just large nation-states. So-called primitive war has been practiced since the dawn of history by the majority of tribal communities of old Europe and among both ancient and recent Amerindian, African, Melanesian, and some other cultures. Interestingly, this mode often involves rather high levels of guile. American anthropologist Turney-High stresses the sophistication of these groups in surprise tactics achieved through effective intelligence and security systems and their relatively developed ability to avoid surprise.
American political scientist Quincy Wright finds that their tactics are usually a matter of "pounce and maneuver," involving "the stratagem of surprise from ambush or darkness." This, though, is war often sharply constrained by mutually agreed rituals, such as the Eskimo duel between champions. Wright goes on to conclude that as the level of "culture advances, . . . the battle of pounce and retreat [by small groups] tends to give way to the battle of mass attack and maneuver" with the consequence that "the casualties and destructiveness of war tend to become greater." However, as we'll see below, ritualistic warfare — combat governed by tacit or explicit rules — also occurs from time to time in so-called civilized warfare.

Moreover, the many clashes between expanding high-tech imperial civilizations and hunting-fishing, agricultural, and nomadic and other low-tech societies keep these forms of combat active right down to the present century.


The Classical West


The Romans, in the early period of their power, looked down upon the use of stratagems as unworthy of brave and honourable soldiers. At a subsequent period these
scruples were entirely laid aside. — Col. Charles Graham, Military End and Moral Means (1864), 155


Until around 500 BC, although the surviving records are too few and too new for conclusive judgment, stratagem seemingly played only a minor role among the ancient m editerranean cultures. There are, of course, legendary wartime exceptions: wily Odysseus (creator of the old troops-in-the-Trojan Horse ploy), devout Gideon (inventor of the notional or dummy army), and little David (father of technological surprise). But even if such old myths and legends do preserve historical events, these examples are relatively so infrequent and so marveled at by their chroniclers that intellect seems a rare substitute for brute force in European prehistory. Moreover, all the recorded examples are the idiosyncratic improvisations of unusual individuals — clearly no part of traditional doctrine or on-the-shelf repertoire of ruses available to just any general or politician.

That highly ritualized mode of warfare — the duel between heroes to settle the outcome — is clearly established in Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean from 2000 BC. From then until the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC, stratagem surfaces only in some clumsy ambush, occasional ending of a difficult siege by some genuinely clever ruse, or the rare surprise attack. And even in that last case more often the result of sheer speed on one side and poor Intelligence on the other than much if any calculated deception. Stratagem of sorts emerges in clear view only with the rise of historians. Thus, around 370 BC, Xenophon in citing (or pretending to cite) historical precedent advises that the wise general always takes ruthless advantage of the enemy's off-guard, weakened, or disorganized moments. By a remarkable coincidence, if that is all it is, Xenophon was adding this practical counsel to European literature at nearly the same time as his contemporaries, Sun Tzu and the epic poets of the Mahabharata, did for China and India respectively.


A moderate level of tactical deception and strategic indirectness characterize the warfare of the Greeks and Macedonians from Marathon (49O BC) through Alexander the Great (died 323 BC) and beyond.Then, under the Carthaginians and Romans, the level of deception in war steps to a higher plateau for over a century and a half, from Hannibal's invasion (216 BC) to the assassination of Julius Caesar (44 BC). The Roman world in this period was marked by correspondingly high levels of deception in diplomacy and domestic politics

Although the use of deception in Roman battle drops steeply after Caesar, the earlier levels are long maintained in politics and, curiously, in most of the few military manuals that have survived. This lag between Roman military and Roman political deception is a pattern we shall see repeated in other cultures. Sharp discontinuities mark the levels of guile applied to battle during the entire pre-Christian era in the West. A partial explanation lies in the two interrelated characteristics of the generalship and the military doctrine of the time. Generalship was singularly personal. The commanders of Egypt, Persia, Judah, Greece, and early Rome were seldom military professionals but rather civilian politicians: kings, princes, senators, and consuls. Whatever astuteness they brought to war derived mainly from their political and diplomatic experience. And while the armies they commanded (particularly the Spartans and the Roman Legions) were efficient professional, disciplined, shock instruments, they lacked any formal and, therefore, transmittable doctrine beyond simple tactical evolutions. The first systematic theoretical military text (at least that is the plausible advertisement of its author) does not appear until around 85 AD. This was the now lost The Art of War by Frontinus.

Thenceforward, commanders — professionals and civilians alike — at least had the possibility of learning more than mere anecdote from the accumulated experience of the earlier Great Captains. A disappointing high point in classical Western writing on military deception is the Strategemata ("Stratagems"), also by Frontinus. Written around 90 AD, this book is little more than a collation of many historical examples of ruses of war, culled from the literature and crudely lumped into three main headings covering stratagems suitable 1) before battle, 2) during and after battle, and 3) during sieges. Frontinus expects the reader to master deception planning by the inductive method. However, that the author did have some vague theoretical and indeed non-trivial understanding of deception is strongly implied by his typology of 43 sub-headings. These include many such psychological role-playing ubrics as "On concealing one's plans . . . [and] finding out the enemy's plans," "distracting the attention of the enemy," "Creating panic in the enemy's ranks," and "inducing treachery."

The next text given entirely to deception is the Strategemata of Polyaenus, an elderly Macedonian rhetorician, lawyer, and retired soldier. Written hastily in 162 or 163 AD this is a pure casebook, comprising some 900 ruses of war intended to inspire the Roman co-emperors Marcus Aurelius and Verus in their then on-going current war with Parthia. It is simply a collation of anecdotes, from Greek mythology to recent Roman experience. Unlike the same-named book by Frontinus, it does not even imply a theory of stratagem, being organized only as a chronological-geographical list and, indeed, merely cribbed verbatim from existing sources and pasted together, as was then common in such collections of extracts called hypomnemata, the prototype of our modern non-book.

In the West, from late Roman times through the 1700s, by far the most widely read and influential textbook on war was the De Re Militari. This was a late (around 390 AD) codification of Roman military theory, regulations, and lore by Vegetius. This eminently practical little work stresses surprise and deception in their defensive as well as offensive modes, thus anticipating what Liddell Hart later termed the "luring defensive" and the "baited offensive." Noting that "surprises, ambuscades and stratagems" are the only hope of success for a much weaker protagonist. Vegetius also points out that "stratagem and finesse" and "famine, surprise or terror" are always preferable to general engagements. The former makes it possible to "destroy the enemy ... in detail and intimidate them without exposing our own forces," while in the latter "fortune has often a greater share than valor."
 

sorcerer

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THE PREVALENCE OF GUILE:
Deception through Time and across Cultures and Disciplines
by Barton Whaley

"The Game is so large that one sees but a little at a time." —Kipling, Kim (1901), Chapter 10

PART ONE: OF TIME, CULTURES, & DISCIPLINES

This lengthy part shows the variations in the levels of deception throughout the sweep of history within the world's major cultures. We trace the changes from pre-historic tribal war to our present troubled preoccupation with the asymmetric struggle between high-tech means and low-tech cunning

Chapter : Tribal Warfare

Deception has never been the sole weapon of just large nation-states. So-called primitive war has been practiced since the dawn of history by the majority of tribal communities of old Europe and among both ancient and recent Amerindian, African, Melanesian, and some other cultures. Interestingly, this mode often involves rather high levels of guile. American anthropologist Turney-High stresses the sophistication of these groups in surprise tactics achieved through effective intelligence and security systems and their relatively developed ability to avoid surprise.
American political scientist Quincy Wright finds that their tactics are usually a matter of "pounce and maneuver," involving "the stratagem of surprise from ambush or darkness." This, though, is war often sharply constrained by mutually agreed rituals, such as the Eskimo duel between champions. Wright goes on to conclude that as the level of "culture advances, . . . the battle of pounce and retreat [by small groups] tends to give way to the battle of mass attack and maneuver" with the consequence that "the casualties and destructiveness of war tend to become greater." However, as we'll see below, ritualistic warfare — combat governed by tacit or explicit rules — also occurs from time to time in so-called civilized warfare.

Moreover, the many clashes between expanding high-tech imperial civilizations and hunting-fishing, agricultural, and nomadic and other low-tech societies keep these forms of combat active right down to the present century.


Chapter : The Classical West


The Romans, in the early period of their power, looked down upon the use of stratagems as unworthy of brave and honourable soldiers. At a subsequent period these
scruples were entirely laid aside. — Col. Charles Graham, Military End and Moral Means (1864), 155


Until around 500 BC, although the surviving records are too few and too new for conclusive judgment, stratagem seemingly played only a minor role among the ancient m editerranean cultures. There are, of course, legendary wartime exceptions: wily Odysseus (creator of the old troops-in-the-Trojan Horse ploy), devout Gideon (inventor of the notional or dummy army), and little David (father of technological surprise). But even if such old myths and legends do preserve historical events, these examples are relatively so infrequent and so marveled at by their chroniclers that intellect seems a rare substitute for brute force in European prehistory. Moreover, all the recorded examples are the idiosyncratic improvisations of unusual individuals — clearly no part of traditional doctrine or on-the-shelf repertoire of ruses available to just any general or politician.

That highly ritualized mode of warfare — the duel between heroes to settle the outcome — is clearly established in Egypt and the eastern Mediterranean from 2000 BC. From then until the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC, stratagem surfaces only in some clumsy ambush, occasional ending of a difficult siege by some genuinely clever ruse, or the rare surprise attack. And even in that last case more often the result of sheer speed on one side and poor Intelligence on the other than much if any calculated deception. Stratagem of sorts emerges in clear view only with the rise of historians. Thus, around 370 BC, Xenophon in citing (or pretending to cite) historical precedent advises that the wise general always takes ruthless advantage of the enemy's off-guard, weakened, or disorganized moments. By a remarkable coincidence, if that is all it is, Xenophon was adding this practical counsel to European literature at nearly the same time as his contemporaries, Sun Tzu and the epic poets of the Mahabharata, did for China and India respectively.


A moderate level of tactical deception and strategic indirectness characterize the warfare of the Greeks and Macedonians from Marathon (49O BC) through Alexander the Great (died 323 BC) and beyond.Then, under the Carthaginians and Romans, the level of deception in war steps to a higher plateau for over a century and a half, from Hannibal's invasion (216 BC) to the assassination of Julius Caesar (44 BC). The Roman world in this period was marked by correspondingly high levels of deception in diplomacy and domestic politics

Although the use of deception in Roman battle drops steeply after Caesar, the earlier levels are long maintained in politics and, curiously, in most of the few military manuals that have survived. This lag between Roman military and Roman political deception is a pattern we shall see repeated in other cultures. Sharp discontinuities mark the levels of guile applied to battle during the entire pre-Christian era in the West. A partial explanation lies in the two interrelated characteristics of the generalship and the military doctrine of the time. Generalship was singularly personal. The commanders of Egypt, Persia, Judah, Greece, and early Rome were seldom military professionals but rather civilian politicians: kings, princes, senators, and consuls. Whatever astuteness they brought to war derived mainly from their political and diplomatic experience. And while the armies they commanded (particularly the Spartans and the Roman Legions) were efficient professional, disciplined, shock instruments, they lacked any formal and, therefore, transmittable doctrine beyond simple tactical evolutions. The first systematic theoretical military text (at least that is the plausible advertisement of its author) does not appear until around 85 AD. This was the now lost The Art of War by Frontinus.

Thenceforward, commanders — professionals and civilians alike — at least had the possibility of learning more than mere anecdote from the accumulated experience of the earlier Great Captains. A disappointing high point in classical Western writing on military deception is the Strategemata ("Stratagems"), also by Frontinus. Written around 90 AD, this book is little more than a collation of many historical examples of ruses of war, culled from the literature and crudely lumped into three main headings covering stratagems suitable 1) before battle, 2) during and after battle, and 3) during sieges. Frontinus expects the reader to master deception planning by the inductive method. However, that the author did have some vague theoretical and indeed non-trivial understanding of deception is strongly implied by his typology of 43 sub-headings. These include many such psychological role-playing ubrics as "On concealing one's plans . . . [and] finding out the enemy's plans," "distracting the attention of the enemy," "Creating panic in the enemy's ranks," and "inducing treachery."

The next text given entirely to deception is the Strategemata of Polyaenus, an elderly Macedonian rhetorician, lawyer, and retired soldier. Written hastily in 162 or 163 AD this is a pure casebook, comprising some 900 ruses of war intended to inspire the Roman co-emperors Marcus Aurelius and Verus in their then on-going current war with Parthia. It is simply a collation of anecdotes, from Greek mythology to recent Roman experience. Unlike the same-named book by Frontinus, it does not even imply a theory of stratagem, being organized only as a chronological-geographical list and, indeed, merely cribbed verbatim from existing sources and pasted together, as was then common in such collections of extracts called hypomnemata, the prototype of our modern non-book.

In the West, from late Roman times through the 1700s, by far the most widely read and influential textbook on war was the De Re Militari. This was a late (around 390 AD) codification of Roman military theory, regulations, and lore by Vegetius. This eminently practical little work stresses surprise and deception in their defensive as well as offensive modes, thus anticipating what Liddell Hart later termed the "luring defensive" and the "baited offensive." Noting that "surprises, ambuscades and stratagems" are the only hope of success for a much weaker protagonist. Vegetius also points out that "stratagem and finesse" and "famine, surprise or terror" are always preferable to general engagements. The former makes it possible to "destroy the enemy ... in detail and intimidate them without exposing our own forces," while in the latter "fortune has often a greater share than valor."
 
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sorcerer

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Chapter : Decline in the Medieval West

Stratagem in the West — both political and military — suddenly declined with the beginning of the Christian Era.
Christian belief evidently was itself the initial sufficient cause of this decline. This new ecumenical religion imposed a corresponding universal moral command that turned the minds of all individuals — governors and governed alike — to other worldly values at the expense of the secular values, which included power politics. Many individuals, of course, continued to practice dece ption; but, denied legal, constitutional, and moral approval, they could no longer plead pragmatic politicalexpediency or raison d'état as a ready excuse for the naked exercise of either force or fraud in their avid pursuit of power.

This religious factor inhibiting the practice of stratagem was reinforced during the Middle Ages by the institution of feudalism with its etiquette of chivalry. Charles Oman characterizes it as an age devoid of strategy when "men strove to win their ends by hard fighting rather than by skillful operations or the utilizing of extraneous advantages ....The young Frankish noble deemed his military education complete when he could sit his charger firmly and handle lance and shield with skill." Ignorant of theory, these commanders knew only chivalrous brute force; and their rigidly stereotyped style of battle made them easy prey to unfamiliar foes.

One of these, the Byzantine Emperor Leo the Wise observing, for example, that: "The Frank believes that a retreat under any circumstances must be dishonorable, hence he will fight whenever you choose to offer him battle This dreary eight-hundred year era of ponderous, mindless hack-and-slash of feudal armies was enlivened by two partial exceptions. Each, significantly, arrayed a feudal mob against an alien enemy using very different and more cunning tactics. Moreover, in each case, the feudal lords were lucky enough to face enemies weak enough that they were able to survive a series of battles, instead of simply being promptly and decisively destroyed as they always were by the clever Byzantines.
Protracted, indecisive war gave both Germanic chivalry and the Crusaders that extraordinary gift, denied to all but the luckiest of armies, the opportunity to learn from their betters.

In the first case, the Germanic knights, after suffering two decades of repeated large-scale raids from the nomadic Magyar horse-archers, finally mastered the nomads' surprise tactics of feigned flight and ambush. Thus, in 933, Henry the Fowler, and again in 955; his son, Otto the Great, ambushed, surprised, and routed the Hungarian invaders.


In the second case, the Crusaders learned within eighteen years of having blundered into the Holy Land in 1097 to avoid costly pitched battles with the Saracens and, when battle was unavoidable, to inflict surprise attacks or to feign retreats to lure premature Saracen charges.
This new knowledge came both from their direct experience of the Saracens and through the received wisdom from Byzantium. However, these two hard-won insights did not nourish the mainstream of medieval military lore and were quickly forgotten. It was an age of ecclesiastical chroniclers, not of military theorists.

Chapter : The Byzantine Style

Soon after Rome's conversion from Republic to Empire in 27 BC, stratagem passed into virtual oblivion as a common military practice in the West, not to be rediscovered until the l6th century.Exiled from the West, deception now took firm root at the eastern fringe of the classical world at the New Rome, Constantinople. Formed in the 4th century, the Eastern Roman Empire of the Byzantines inherited the political and military traditions of the old Greco-Roman world and preserved much of its literature, including Frontinus and Vegetius.

During the mid-6th century, the old Empire was recreated by the campaigns of Justinian's great commander, Belisarius. At the very outset of his first campaign (in 530 against the Persians) the 25-year old General of the East showed his deep understanding of stratagem by declaring in his unsuccessful negotiations with his enemy: "The best general ... is that one who is able to bring about peace from war." And next year, by a series of bloodless, swift maneuvers, Belisarius balked a Persian- Saracen invasion and herded their army back to the Euphrates. And yet again, in 542, he cunningly bluffed a far more powerful Persian army into retreating to its homeland without joining battle.

This extraordinarily cost-effective style of stratagem was continued by Belisarius' successors and codified in the military treatises of Emperor Maurice (his Strategicon of around 600), the plagiarizing Emperor Leo VI The Wise (the Tactica of around 900), Pseudo Nicephorus II Phocas (De velitatione bellica of around 980) and the loyal old provincial soldier Kekauraenos (the Strategicon of around 1075). Leo gives the most sophisticated of the several Byzantine expressions of deception. For him, a campaign won without battle is the best because it is the cheapest and least risk-filled. And, if unavoidable, battle is merely a means to a political end and not a test of honor, chivalry, courage, or heroism. These latter qualities he disdains as the claptrap of barbarians or fools — fatal to victory. Instead, Leo stresses the need to understand one's enemy in order to play against him the panoply of ruses that are the essence of generalship — such ploys as insincere parleys and sending forged compromising letters to sow unwarranted suspicion.


As in warfare, Byzantine politics involved the common practice of deceit and palace intrigue that has made the very word "Byzantine" a synonym for these qualities.So too with their very active diplomatic service, whose main task was to embroil neighbors with one another.The long-lived Byzantine Empire was finally doomed when the fumbling emperor- general Romanus Diogenes returned to conventional offensive tactics and was promptly and decisively beaten in 1071 at Manzikert by the devious Seljuk Turks who seemingly had bought the crucial services of one Byzantine general.


Still, like Poe's "Fall of the House of Usher", one final bright interlude enlivened the last years until l453 when the great dying city of Constantine fell to an unimaginative but sufficiently ponderous Muslim siege. The long reign (1018-1118) of Emperor Alexius I Comnenus restored high intelligence and a full measure of cunning to Byzantine palacepolitics, diplomacy, and war. A professional soldier, he usurped the throne by a military coup, kept it for 37 years until a natural death at a ripe 62 by agile dodging of constant plots and treasons, conducted diplomacy with consummate insincerity, and fought his many wars with rare imagination. Even his own daughter, Anna Comnena (1083-1153), admired him more for his sharp dealing than his bravery. Indeed, Princess Anna herself sought to apply his methods by engineering a palace revolution to steal the succession from her hated younger brother, John the Good. However, the coup failed, and Anna was forced out of politics to become, in comfortable confinement in a convent, the West's first woman historian.

@Ray, @pmaitra , @Kunal Biswas, @Srinivas_K
 
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sorcerer

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Chapter : The Scythian Style

At the center of the Eurasian heartland and intermittently pressing upon the great urban agricultural civilizations along its Eastern, Western, and Southern fringes, lay a unique people and polity. These were the nomads of Central Asia — the Parthians, Hsiung-nu, Scythians, Huns, Turks, Khitans, Jurchids, Mongols, and Tatars. Avoiding (more-or-less) agriculture and permanent cities, their economy was basically herding and hunting, which determined their annual nomadic cycle. Their religion was animistic. Their politics ranged from tribal to feudal. And their warfare was pure cavalry tactics under a strategy limited to raiding, except in their occasional dramatic periods of imperial expansion.

In the earliest period of warfare between nomads and the civilized, the horse- warriors were too few and too lightly armed to normally risk more than quick pounce- grab-and-run type raids. In that they resemble and even overlap with the types of combat style that I labeled "primitive". But even in their early stage the Central Asian horse nomads' extraordinary speed and mobility gave them the secure advantage of surprise.

The invention of the armor-piercing compound reflex bow (by perhaps 1000 BC) made the horse a powerful weapons platform and the later invention of the stirrup (which spread from China around 300 AD to Byzantium around 725) made it a stable platform as well. The nomadic cavalry of the Hsiung-nu (minus-3rd century), Parthians (minus 1st century), and Seljuk Turks (11th century) could meet the infantry-cavalry armies of China, Rome, Byzantium, and the Crusaders as sometimes-more-sometimes-less equals. Their threat as conquerors rather than mere raiders was limited only by their relatively small numbers.

This situation continued until the formation in the 10th century of the Khitan (Liao) steppe empire, which evolved a more flexible military organization with consequent new tactics. This new system slowly diffused to the Jurchids (Chin) and finally by 1200 to the Mongols who under Chinggis Khan perfected it.


During the 1200s, organization, discipline, mobility, striking power, and tactics combined to make the Mongol army an enormously powerful fighting machine. Because of its sparse nomadic population base, it was a small army — only 129,000 at the death of Chinggis Khan in 1227 — and therefore one that could not afford heavy casualties. Yet between 1190 and 1292 the Mongols unified all the Central Asian steppe peoples, conquered China, Korea, Persia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Russia, and raided Burma, Annam, Japan, Java, India, Syria, Hungary, Poland, and Austria. To sustain this long series of campaigns, sheer force had to be bolstered by stratagem. Mongol strategic intelligence was superb; their campaigns were planned only after getting detailed political and military information. And always executed with sufficient deceptiveness to guarantee substantial surprise. Indeed the thoroughness of Mongol planning and training produced both repeated surprises throughout each campaign and at generally high levels in most of the main forms by which the victim can be surprised — the time, place, strength, style (tactics or technology), etc.

Specifically, foreknowledge even gained the Mongols many bloodless victories by bribery, treason, or alliance.It also enabled them to design effective strategic psychological warfare programs to panic, demoralize and terrorize their victims, again sometimes inducing surrender without battle. Their psywar campaigns often included two specific deception tactics:
one, the refined "black propaganda" device of forged letters to discredit or destroy prominent enemy officials;
the other, the calculated spreading of rumors to exaggerate their numbers and strength or to mask their intentions.
And, at the merely tactical level, their vast repertoire of ruses included notional feints, demonstration attacks, camouflage by raising dust clouds to conceal movement or exaggerate strength, stuffed dummies on spare horses, false campfires, and ambushes — especially the carefully rehearsed feigned flight intended to lure the enemy into a precipitate charge. None of these tricks were new in the 13th century and all would be used again. What was rare was the high priority the Mongols gave to stratagem in all phases of their operations.

The grandest (but not greatest) of the Mongol Khans, Khubilai Khan (or, more precisely, his superb general Bayan of the Hundred Eyes) completed the conquest of South China in 1279. Stratagem then quickly disappears from the Great Khan's arsenal. Manpower (Chinese and Korean) had become plentiful. Only weak worlds remained to be conquered.
Imperial pretensions — the "arrogance of power" — now prevailed. Vast armadas were launched to subdue Japan (in 1274 and 1281) and Java (1292), but without guile. Even the conventional advance intelligence had become so neglected that the expeditionary force against Java ended unwittingly battling the wrong army. By 1368 the Mongol political and military power that had been based on both fraud and force had so diminished that they were expelled from China by the rising political-military power of the native Ming dynasty. By a combination of military force and political manipulation, the Manchu dynasty in China was finally in the 18th century able to subdue and control the restive Mongols through religion — the passive Tibetan form of Buddhism. And today, the army of the (Outer) Mongolian Peoples' Republic is, of course, largely Russian in equipment, training, and doctrine.


Chapter: The Renaissance of Deception

When the 15th century dawned in Europe, stratagem had been largely dead in Old World political and military practice for over 300 years in Byzantium and for over 1400 years in the rest of Europe. It now experienced a quickening. The traditional cements of feudalism, the Roman Church, and the Holy Roman Empire had weakened and the many states could again openly contend for power.

The early Renaissance in the Italian peninsula ushered in a period, from 1400, of almost continual struggle for power among the city-states Florence, Milan, Naples, Venice, and the very temporal Papacy. The tyrannical Borgias and Medicis and Pazzis epitomize the ruthless lengths to which ambition went in domestic politics and interstate diplomacy. Conspiracy, bribery, treachery, assassination, revolt, coup, and war were now again commonplace political means.

Although early Italian Renaissance politics and diplomacy were nakedly stratagemic, warfare was not. The art of war was then monopolized by the condottieri, mercenary troops whose impresarios and soldiers were concerned only with regular paychecks, pillaging (or extorting) the countryside, occasionally looting a city, and being bought off into switching sides. These hirelings exhausted their low cunning in padding their muster rolls, concealing deficiencies in equipment, and avoiding battle. Military doctrine and training were negligible and the rare unavoidable confrontations of two mercenary armies in the field or during siege were clumsy ritualized chessboard pageants quite like those still celebrated bi-annually in Marostica, near Venice.

This harmonious state of affairs — busy but stable — was disrupted in 1494 by French invasion that triggered a counter-invasion by the Spanish Hapsburgs — France seeking to seize Italy and Spain attempting to balk French imperial ambition. The Italian city-states had suddenly become mere pawns in this enlarged game. Diplomacy was reduced to either making or breaking alliances, usually by threats, bribery, or betrayal. Milan, the extreme case, switched sides a dozen times.

Warfare was again deadly serious. Cities were cruelly sacked and prisoners of war were slaughtered rather than ransomed as before. The Italians realized that their desperate situation needed new military doctrine. They actively debated the merits of alternatives to the unreliable mercenary system, They experimented with new formations, new weapons, and new tactics. But time was short and little came from this experimentation. The disadvantaged Italians did turn more to military stratagem, but this was limited mainly to Prospero Colonna's "Fabian strategy" of maneuvering to avoid risky battles and to the subornation of treason to purchase victory without battle.This worldly age, in which even Popes played politics to the point of breeding Princes, produced increasingly "realistic" writings on politics and war, culminating in the early 16th century with Machiavelli and Guicciardini and followed closely by Belli, Gentili,and Frachetta.

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) was a shrewd, jestful, secular, pagan, Florentine diplomat and moderately successful politician. He is the first Western theorist (the Indian, Kautilya, being first in the world) to address explicitly the problems of power, force, and stratagem in all three of our modes: politics, diplomacy, and war.
Moreover, Machiavelli is clear that the manipulative psychological techniques comprising deception are equally applicable to each of these modes. These topics pervade and dominate his The Prince, The Discourses, and The Art of War. He even treats us to a farcical play, Mandragola, on the theme of gullibility and guile in everyday life.

As late as 1512 both the French and Spanish adversaries in the Battle of Ravenna were still accustomed to begin battle with chivalrous challenges and to conduct war, at least in theory, in accord with agreed rules and fixed means. It fell to Machiavelli to point out most explicitly the very intimate interactions of war, politics, and economics, and to apply to military theory the then common practice of political deception. He urged that any and all means were justified to defend the state or insure its victory: efficacy was the only sensible criterion. Moreover, recognizing that an army was an economically precious commodity, he urged that the wise commander "never attempted to win by force" what he "was able to win by fraud." Although Vegetius was Machiavelli's most influential general military source, for stratagem he particularly recommended Frontinus' book on the subject.
The high quality of Machiavelli's stratagemic thought runs throughout his writing, but can be judged to good effect from just three of his maxims:
Be alert to the many opportunities that the enemy will be sure to give and be quick to seize the initiative on these occasions. (Art of War, IV)

Use your enemy's spies and your own traitors by feeding them the false information you want the enemy to have. (Art of War, VI)

Avoid battle, but only until you have the clear advantage. (Discourses, III, x; Art of War, IV)


Francesco Guicciardini (1483-I540) was Machiavelli's younger and politically more successful friend — an extraordinarily perceptive Florentine lawyer, diplomat, governor, and historian. More staid and serious than Machiavelli whom he rivals in candor, Guicciardini generally echoes his contemporary, although differing in details.His flavor is condensed with wit and wisdom in his 221 maxims, of which one must do:

Men who are of an open and genuine nature and, as they say in Florence, 'frank,' are very praiseworthy and pleasant to everyone. Deception, on the other hand, is odious and disliked. But deception is very useful, whereas your frankness tends to profit others rather than you. Still, ... I would praise the man who is ordinarily open and frank and who
uses deception only in very rare, important matters. Thus you will have the reputation of being open and genuine, and you will enjoy the popularity such reputation brings. And in those very important matters, you will reap even greater advantage from deception, because your reputation for not being a deceiver will make your words be easily believed.


Note Guicciardini's sly point about the importance of cultivating a reputation for truthfulness so that in "very important matters" your deceptions will be more easily accepted. This accounts for the great strength of open "white" propaganda sources such as the :facepalm: BBC, :facepalm: which wisely reserved its very rare lies for such crucial events as protecting the key secrets in 1944 of the Allied Normandy D-Day landings. Conversely, truth's systematic omission led to the ridiculous performances of the Iraqi Information Minister in 2003.

The ethos of humanist realism that rose in Italy during the 15th and 16th centuries spread quickly throughout Europe. Machiavelli had his intellectual precursors and many followers — in politics, diplomacy, and war. In France, Phillipe de Commynes (published 1524) was adviser to Louis XI. Spain had King Ferdinand (died 15l6) and Jesuit Father Baltasar Gracián y Morales (published 1653).Portugal produced Bishop Osorio of Sylves (published 1571). And England contributed Sir Philip Sidney (published 1590).

Take just England. The 1500s there saw a flowering of the martial arts. National need, public concern, and the printing press coincided to yield almost 200 military titles. The many English translations of classical texts included such advocates of deception and surprise as Frontinus (translated 1539), Onasander (tr. 1563), Caesar's Gallic Wars (tr. 1565), and Vegetius (tr. 1572). And Machiavelli's The Arte of Warre appeared in 1560. These translations and numerous original works — some discussing and recommending stratagem — were popular with Good Queen Bess's subjects. And Shakespeare (died 1616) himself was immersed in this military ethos, if however rather poorly read in its specialized literature.For example, 8 of his 15 uses of the word "stratagems" are explicitly in its military sense. Moreover, that deception was "in the air" is seen in Shakespeare's extensive treatment of the force and fraud theme among his heros and villains.

In sum, the most striking point about deception during the Renaissance is that, unlike any other period East or West, the higher — and often highest — levels of guile were practiced in politics and diplomacy but not in warfare. Surely part, and possibly most, of the explanation lies in the peculiar nature of the armies themselves. Being mercenaries they had no motive to risk decisive actions in which they might themselves be destroyed. They were simply cautious businessmen. Moreover, they were highly resistant to direct intervention in command attempted by any of the stratagemically oriented princes they served.

If the otherwise deceptive Renaissance in the 1500s did not itself develop more than moderately deceptive levels in warfare, the underlying conditions and stimulation were seemingly there for military deception did finally catch up. Thus from 1611 to 1806 deception gradually but steadily came to virtually dominate warfare in all its phases from grand strategy (planning), through strategy (the approach to and interrelationship of battles), to grand tactics (conduct of the battle itself). This rise proceeds for a full century, from the moderate level of Gustavus Adolphus through Cromwell to the high levels seen in the) innovative battles of Turenne, Eugène, and Marlborough. Marshal Maurice de Saxe (1696-1750) of France was not only the most consistently successful commander of the 1700s, but also the first modern military writer to stress the importance of maneuver and surprise and the many ruses, stratagems, and feints that may support these means by diverting the enemy's reserves. He was strongly influenced on these points by Machiavelli. Saxe also had a keen understanding of the psychological factors bearing on the discipline and behavior of soldiers, officers, and commanders — enemies as well as his own. Although Marshal Saxe reputedly commanded in more battles than any other general in history — and never lost — he could, like Sun Tzu and du Guesclin, write that: "I am not in favour of giving battle, especially at the outset of a war. I am even convinced that a clever general can wage war his whole life without being compelled to give battle." Saxe's fine Reveries sur l'art de la guerre, written in 1732 and published posthumously in 1757, enjoyed an immediate success, but one that was quickly superseded by the greater fames of Frederick the Great and Napoleon.

Frederick the Great, King of Prussia (1740-1786), was not as uniformly successful a general as Marshal Saxe but his example and one of his early writings proved more influential in the 19th and 20th centuries. Frederick both practiced and counseled stratagem as the key means to gain surprise. His writings, including even hisearly "best-seller," Instruction for the Generals (1747), stress this factor, giving much practical advice and discussion. In particular, like Sun Tzu and Frontinus, he pointed out that dissimulation, stratagem, and ruses have great value at every stage of a campaign.

The production of military books continued to grow throughout the l8th century. Even the antique collations of ruses by Frontinus and Polyaenus were reissued in several languages, and the mid-century saw the fresh compilation of yet another such hotch-potch, by the Marquis de la Roziere.61 A somewhat more systematic step toward deception theory that later influenced Bonaparte and Liddell Hart was the notion of alternative objectives proposed by General Pierre Bourcet (1700-1780).

These relatively high levels of guile in warfare in Europe in the 1600s and 1700s were paralleled in politics as witness the following: England had Queen Elizabeth (reigned 1558-1603. France had Cardinal Richelieu (died 1642) and Cardinal de Retz (died 1679). Russia had Peter the Great (reigned 1682-1728) and Empress Elizabeth (reigned 1741-62). And so forth throughout the Continent. And America had its own cunning diplomat in Benjamin Franklin (died 1790).The French Revolution was in part, like others before and after, an exercise inconvoluted double-dealings. This quality culminated with Napoleon's laberinthine secret police chief, Joseph Fouché (1759-1820), who built his career (and, to an extent,Napoleon's) by being just a bit more adept at spying, provocation, treachery, devious intrigue, and conspiracy than the ubiquitous conspirators of the time.

In war, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) made frequent, effective use of a pinning frontal feint attack with tactical deceptions to support his famed manoeuvre surles derrières, a surprise envelopment of his opponent's rear concealed by its speed, a dense cavalry security screen, and terrain. But battle was, for Napoleon, only the culmination of a carefully laid strategic plan. And his grand strategy made full use of a carefully orchestrated deception plan to confuse and mislead his enemy even before the campaign was launched or a battle joined. Thus, prior to a campaign, a thick curtain of security would descend — the press would be muzzled to prevent leaks and Fouché's counterintelligence efforts would protect against penetration by enemy agents. Information was assiduously collected about the victim — both from public sources and through Fouché's secret service. Deception was mounted through inspired articles in the controlled press. Then when the campaign was underway, various ruses were systematically used to deceive the foe about the timing, direction, strength, and nature of Napoleon's blows — unit designations were continually changed, deployments were shuffled about, and feint attacks constantly mounted. This was Napoleon's practice as analyzed by recent historians; but, while some of it carries over into the earliest and most widely known collection of his maxims, it does not appear there in any coherent structure.


The preeminent work to codify and enlarge the Newtonian "classical tradition" of military theory was done by General Antoine Jomini (1779-1869), a Swiss national who served in senior staff positions under both Napoleon and, after 1813, Napoleon's enemies. From this uniquely two-faced vantage point he wrote his Précis de l'Art de la Guerre, published in I837. Jomini therein treats surprise and diversion as important elements in war.

General Carl von Clausewitz (178O-1831) gave both more attention and fullerexposition than Jomini to deception in war in his great book, Vom Kriege, published unedited the year after his death. In three detailed, separate chapters on surprise, stratagem, and diversion, Clausewitz summed up the collective experience of the great stratagemic commanders of the 18th century.



@Ray, @pmaitra , @Kunal Biswas, @Srinivas_K, @jouni , @Ashutosh Lokhande, @Hari Sud , @rock127 and all other awesome readers
 
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pmaitra

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@sorcerer,

It is worth mentioning that an invader will try to leverage the internal weaknesses of its victim. Divide and Rule is an ancient technique in warfare. One way to achieve division is by sowing distrust between the constituents of the victim. Lies and treachery become useful. Another way is to leverage the existing feuds between the constituents. If there is existing distrust between the constituents, one may use Prisoners' Dilemma between the constituents.

You can present details about how Ibrahim Lodhi's own relatives conspired against him and gave vital information to Babur, to facilitate an invasion.
 
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Simple_Guy

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And, at the merely tactical level, their vast repertoire of ruses included notional feints, demonstration attacks, camouflage by raising dust clouds to conceal movement or exaggerate strength, stuffed dummies on spare horses, false campfires,


One commonly used trick in India was: tying lit torches on the horns of cattle at night.

Fort Begu - History

The battle-hardened Mewar army was reduced to a few thousand soldiers owing to their relentless fight for 500 years against the invading Muslims. Therefore, Rawat Kali Megh ji I, as the head of the Mewar army, thought of a strategy which is now recorded in many books on Indian Military strategy.

He chose to attack and surprise the Mughal army at night. He bought several thousand oxen and cattle from the cattle herders of Marwar who generally entered Mewar in search of greener pastures. He then ordered his soldiers to fix fire lit torches on the horns of the cattle and load their backs with fire works. They assembled on three sides of the Mughal camp and one side was occupied by 500 of the brave Mewar cavalry. Rawat Kali Megh ji then gave orders of a lightning charge and the effect was so dramatic and ferocious that the Mughal army ran helter-skelter from the camp assuming a huge army had attacked them
 

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