Inaugural lecture
The fight against insurgents, guerrillas and resistance movements is an ‘incredibly unpopular’ topic with experts and military personnel, says Professor by Special Appointment of Military History Thijs Brocades Zaalberg in his inaugural lecture. He warns that ignoring these forms of irregular warfare is a mistake.
In recent years, NATO countries have, logically, focused on large-scale, conventional interstate wars, such as the war in Ukraine, and defending NATO territory. But, says Brocades Zaalberg, this regular warfare is nothing new and difficult to separate from irregular warfare. ‘In reality, they are intertwined. In Iraq, it started with an invasion but soon turned into a bloody guerrilla war. Wars are often hybrid, be they the Eighty Years' War, the Napoleonic Wars, the American Civil War or the Vietnam War. But there is a strong tendency to compartmentalise the two forms.’
The distinction between regular and irregular warfare is mainly made out of analytical convenience and wishful thinking, he says. ‘In reality, wars are fluid. Successful conquests often result in occupations, and failing occupations lead to uprisings and resistance. This triangle of regular, irregular and occupation often determines how wars develop.’
Lessons from the past
What can we learn from the long history of irregular warfare? ‘Applied history and recipe books aren’t my thing. What I have noted is that armed forces tend to engage in selective learning, often driven by military-cultural or political preferences. So they either see an offensive “decapitation strategy” as the key to rapid success or a “population-focused approach” with “winning hearts and minds” as the magic solution. That goes back to the colonial wars around 1900. Unpopular wars in distant lands had to be sold to the public at home as a socioeconomic reconstruction project. It’s often glossed over that control, force and extreme violence often prevail.’
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