Afghanistan guerrilla war will have a predictable result

By Gwynne Dyer
from Straight.com

“By May 1928 the basic principles of guerrilla warfare...had already been evolved; that is, the 16-character formula: The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue.” – Mao Zedong, 1936

Not many of the Taliban guerrillas in Afghanistan have read Mao on guerrilla warfare, but then, they knew how to do it anyway.

The current crop of officers in the western armies that are fighting them don’t seem to have read their Mao either, which is a more serious omission. The generation before them certainly did.

Mao Zedong didn’t invent guerrilla warfare, but he did write the book on it. The “sixteen-character formula” sums it up: never stand and fight, just stay in business, and wear the enemy down.

(More here.)