The Failure of Mao's Guerrilla Tactics on Jihadist
Gang Yin
*
Mao Zedong's military strategy, especially his guerrilla warfare
strategy, was influential in military history. Mao firmly believed that
“political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”, and that political success
comes from military success. His political and military thought led Chinese
Communist Party to defeat the Japanese army and Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang
power, established the world's second largest communist regime in 1949. During
the Cold War, Mao's military thought had been widely spread in many regions.
Today, it has become the guiding principle of contemporary extremists and
fundamentalists in their terrorist operations. The theory and practice of jihad
guerrilla warfare are mostly rooted in Mao’s idea in the Middle East and North
Africa. Jihadists have sought to establish their Caliphate by using such
strategies and tactics to overthrow local secular government and fight with the
Western Democracies. In the past decades, although jihadists could win
partially and temporarily, it’s impossible for them to truly replicate the core
meaning of Mao's thought on guerrilla warfare and the historical, social and
international background of China in the middle of 20th century.
The contemporary Jihad movement cannot win wide sympathy and
support among ordinary Muslims, it only appeals to the Islamic extremists.
According to Mao Zedong’s viewpoint, eighty percent of warfare is
political work, and only twenty percent is military work. Political work mainly
means how to win the support of the people in the war. In his article On
Protracted War, Mao pointed out that “the richest source of power to wage
war lies in the masses of the people.[1]” Human
element is the key factor for the ultimate victory of a war.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Communist-controlled guerrilla bases were
mostly in China's poorest rural areas. On one hand, the Communist Party
brainwashed the peasants with communist utopia ideas and promised them all
sorts of bright futures, on the other hand, the Party inhumanly suppressed the
landlords and rich people in a violent way, forcibly distributed their
land and property to the poor. The so-called "poor laboring people"
gained economic benefits and thus actively supported CCP's revolutionary regime
and its guerrilla warfare.
After years of war, concentration of wealth and lack of industrial
capacity have contributed to the increase of overall impoverishment in some
Arabian countries. Poverty is an important reason for the growth of extremism
and jihadism, economically backward and imbalanced Islamic states, such as
Afghanistan and Yemen, are fertile ground for jihadists. Some strategists
argued for the importance of the civilians’ support in Jihad. Abu Ubayd
al-Qurashi cited Mao’s model again and again in his books and articles, he
emphasized that the primary goal of revolutionary war is to win the support of
the people, and jihadists must treat the people with respect; therefore,
relying too much on terrorism is a mistake. [2] However,
in the fight against the “Crusaders”, jihadist continued to launch terrorist
attacks and military actions, result in the mass casualties of innocent
civilians, the victims of ordinary Muslims were much more than those of
non-Muslims. Jihadist also deliberately created terror atmosphere by publishing
lots of brutal videos in which show the execution of captives and the Western
hostages. For example, in its occupied territory , the Islamic State used mass
executions, public beheadings, rape, and symbolic crucifixion displays to
terrorize the population into submission and “purify” the community.[3] These
atrocities of jihadists not only provoked worldwide condemnation, but
also created fear and resistance among ordinary Muslims that made it impossible
for them to support and serve the jihadists.
It is important for any political or religious power to gain
support by helping the civilians to raise their living standards and meet their
economic needs. However, the jihadists' propaganda and practice focused on the
Islamic doctrine, utopian Caliphate, and the hatred to infidels and apostates,
barely mentioned how to solve poverty and bring economic benefits to poor
civilians. Taliban only had 800 fighters when it was founded in 1994, but it
gained the support of Afghan civilians soon and ballooned into a force of
nearly 30,000 in a short time under the banner of eliminating warlords and
rebuilding the country. After it seized the power in 1996, Taliban made
the proposition of recovering business but had never implemented. On the
contrary, extreme economic policies were carried out in the country. The
Government imposed a 30-50% tax on any company, and those who failed to pay
such tax were punished severely. It also monopolized international trade by charging
6% on each item imported into Afghanistan. Taliban planted large areas of opium
to cover its expenses and collected a 20% tax on harvested opium. [4] By 2001,
the per capita income of the 25 million population was under 200 US dollars.
Poor economic conditions deprived the Taliban government of the support of the
Afghans, it collapsed quickly under the military action of US-led
coalition in 2011.
Al-Qaeda, in contrast, favored a gentler approach. Ayman Mohammed
Rabie al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda, chastised some jihadists for their
brutality, believed such brutality would turn the population against them and
alienate the broader Muslim community, and he had raised this issue in the
current conflict as well. Al-Qaeda recommended proselytizing in the parts of
Syria where its affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra holds sway, trying to convince local
Muslims to adopt Al- Qaeda’s views rather than forcing them to do so.[5] Although
al-Qaeda recognized the importance of flexible policies, it had no effective measures
to change the bad economic situation in its occupied territories. People would
not truly support totalitarian regimes with extreme political and incompetent
economic politics.
Without the support of the people, guerrilla warfare cannot be
continued. In their policies, the jihadist regimes prioritized extreme
religious worship and military operations over gaining the support of the
civilians. The ignorance of human element means jihadists didn’t understand the
true meaning of Mao's military thought, even if they learned and practiced most
of Mao’s guerilla tactics.
Guerrilla warfare should coordinate and transform itself with
other forms of warfare
Mao Zedong said, guerrilla war should co-ordinate with regular
warfare, and develop into mobile warfare and positional warfare. He expressed
three kinds of co-ordination between guerrilla and regular warfare -- in
strategy, in campaigns or/and in battles.[6]
In Mao’s idea, mobile warfare means that large-scale military
force can shift flexibly and attack enemy actively in a vast region. It belongs
to regular warfare and is more decisive for the battle situation than
small-scale guerilla warfare. The difference between guerrilla and mobile
warfare can be explained by using boxing trope. Guerrilla warfare is just
like the boxing between a man and a mosquito, man cannot beat the mosquito,
mosquito cannot beat the man as well but can bite him occasionally. Mobile
warfare is just like the boxing between a man and a monkey, man cannot beat the
monkey, but the monkey can jump behind the man and knock him down. Mao
summarized the strategy of guerilla warfare as "the enemy advances, we
retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy
retreats, we pursue." He also summarized the strategy of mobile warfare as
“avoid enemy’s main force, lure the enemies in deep, concentrate superior force
to destroy them one by one.”
In 1938, Mao told Mr. Wang Kung-ta, a correspondent of the
Associated Press, “some people say that we only advocate guerrilla warfare.
This is nonsense. We have always advocated the coordination of mobile, position
and guerrilla warfare.” [7] Mao also said, “With regard to the overall situation, mobile
warfare is primary and guerrilla warfare is supplementary; with regard to the part
of the situation, guerrilla warfare is primary and mobile warfare is
supplementary.” [8]
Long March is an example of the coordination of guerrilla and
mobile warfare. After the Fifth Encirclement Campaign against Jiangxi
Soviet in October 1934, the Kuomintang successfully defeated the CCP’s Soviet
Republic in southern China, and forced the communist troops on the run
(described by CCP as “strategic retreat), known as the Long March. Facing
the pursuit and interception of the Kuomintang, the Red Army adopted the
strategy of combining guerrilla warfare with mobile warfare. Main forces of Red
Army employed a flexible multi-tactical mobile warfare by taking advantage of
the complex terrains in different areas on their fifty-six hundred miles escape
route and the factional contradictions within the KMT armies. Battle of Chishui
River in early 1935, the first major victory of Red Army since the start of the
Long March, was the classic of mobile warfare. Around thirty thousand Red Army
soldiers crossed the Chishui River four times repeatedly, completely confused
the Kuomintang’s four-hundred thousand troops and disrupted their pursuit. More
than thirty thousand KMT soldiers were killed in two months, the Battle was
called by Mao Zedong as his “masterpiece”. Meanwhile, the small-unit communist
guerrillas that still hiding in mountainous Southern China and the CCP-backed
local armed forces kept on carrying out guerrilla warfare strategy, coordinated
with the main Red Army by harassing the KMT occupied areas and breaking their
army’s logistical support. The combined use of guerrilla and mobile
warfare effectively helped the Red Army to jump out the encirclement comprised
of million KMT troops and defeat them in the Long March. Chiang Kai-shek’s
strategic intention of annihilating the Red Army in its “strategic retreat” was
shattered.
During the Chinese Civil War from 1945 to 1949, the Communist
Party wiped out 1.5 million KMT troops by mainly using mobile and positional
warfare, include the famous “Three Big Campaigns”, guerrilla warfare only
played an auxiliary role at that time.
Jihadists should be more adept at using these three forms of
warfare in practice because of the existing of their formidable opponents,
either US-led coalitions, the Russia–Syria–Iran coalition, or Saudi-led Islamic
Military Counter Terrorism Coalition (IMCTC). Some jihad strategists also
emphasized the importance of conventional warfare. Abd al-Aziz al-Muqrin
researched Chinese and Vietnamese guerrilla strategy, recognized the importance
of the development of a conventional army.[9]
However, actual situation prevented jihadists to so.
Taliban embarked on "rural guerrilla warfare" and
"mountain guerrilla warfare" after it lost the control of Afghan
power. However, it is difficult for them to form a sustained and large-scale
military strike capability when facing the encirclement of the US-led coalition
and the Afghan government forces, and they can only fight through small
sporadic battles and sneak attacks. Taliban’s so-called “Spring or Summer
Offensives” had greater propagandistic effect than the actual one, they were
not overwhelming campaigns which could bring decisive impacts and reverse the
overall war situation in Afghanistan, but only the simple plus edition of
guerrilla warfare and terrorist attacks. According to al-Muqrin’s strategy,
there are three phases in guerrilla war: Attrition (Strategic Defense),
Relative Strategic Equilibrium and Military Decision (final attack)[10]. Rather
than transferring to regular warfare, Taliban’s military actions are still in
the “strategic defense phase” after eighteen years fight with its
opponents. Long-term conflicts in Afghanistan is bad for the Coalitions
while worse for Taliban. Taliban has been constrained by the Coalitions, which makes
it more and more passive.
Significant victory can be achieved by transforming guerrilla
warfare to mobile and positional warfare, while completely failure can be
avoided by turning positional warfare into mobile or guerrilla warfare. The
Islamic State rose rapidly and kept on expanding because of the political chaos
in Iraq and Syria. It was estimated to have an annual budget of more than
one billion US Dollars and a force of more than thirty thousand fighters in
2015. [11] But as the regional situation had become more complicated and the
international community had gradually noticed its threat, IS had neither many
advanced weapons nor any air superiority to contend with the Allies, its
territory had shrunk dramatically since the large-scale American airstrike in
late 2014. Instead of changing its main forces from positional warfare to
mobile or guerrilla warfare by breaking them into small units, ISIS continued
to hold major cities and confronted the Allies directly in unfavorable
situation, which led to its rapid collapse with heavy casualties. In the Battle
of Sirte in 2016, twenty-five hundred IS militants were killed by the forces of
the Libya Government of National Accord (GNA) [12]. In the
liberation of Mosul (2016–2017), one hundred thousand coalition forces had
completely encircled the city and cut off IS supply lines, IS fighters were
completely isolated and more than sixteen thousands of them were killed[13]. From
2016 to 2017, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) lunched military operation to
fight against the IS in Raqqa Governorate, with the goal of isolating and
eventually capturing the Islamic State's capital city, Raqqa. IS lost nearly
six thousand militants and surrendered in large numbers.[14] SDF also
announced elimination of ISIL in Syria after they recaptured the village of
Baghouz on March 23, 2019[15], even though such optimism looks premature.
Admittedly, a guerrilla warfare could win eventually without
turning into a regular war only if the war could be finish quickly and the
opponents are weak. Such as Castro's victory in Cuba, it only took the
Communists less than three years from their Granma Landing in November 1956 to
the takeover of Havana in January 1959. However, Cuba’s “miracle” is a fantasy
for the jihadists under current international situation. Jihadists will be
eventually defeated if they cannot convert guerrilla warfare into regular
warfare.
Guerrilla warfare requires stable bases and wide areas for the
shift of partisans
The continuation and success of guerrilla warfare inevitably
requires base areas, both permanent and seasonal. Jihad strategists have also
raised the significance of establishing bases. But what are the
conditions for a stable, effective and successful base? Mao Zedong emphasized
that a base area for guerrilla war could be truly established only with the
gradual fulfillment of the three basic conditions, i.e., only after the armed
forces are built up, the enemy has suffered defeats and the people are aroused.[16]
Besides armed army, the jihadists did not meet Mao's two other
conditions for establishing a stable base: they have been in passive situation
for a long time and seldom beat their opponents actively; they oppress the
majority of ordinary Muslims rather than arouse them because of their widely
condemned policies.
Mao Zedong divided the base areas into three types: those in
the mountains, those on the plains and those in the river-lake-estuary
regions.”[17] One reason for the success of Mao’s guerrilla warfare is that the
Communist guerrillas have all of these types bases, which can provide material
and military support for each other. In addition, China, with its vast area and
complex terrain, can provide a good transfer and cover space for guerrilla
warfare and mobile warfare. The Long March is an example. The big Yangtze and
Yellow River regions brought the most convenient conditions for both offensive
and withdrawal of the Red Army. Meanwhile, such conditions made difficult for
the KMT to monitor and track the Red Army and defeat it in a short time.
Mountains and jungles are the best location for guerrilla base.
The terrain and climate conditions in the Middle East and north Africa limit
the range of jihadist guerrilla warfare. The dry and hot desert covers
more than sixty percent of the area and gives little shelter or material
support for the guerrillas. Only the mountainous areas of Afghanistan and
Pakistan are the best and most active places for guerrilla warfare. However,
after years of counterterrorism actions by Allies and local governments, the
guerrilla areas have been increasingly divided and squeezed. Partisans who are
separated and isolated cannot cooperate effectively with each other, which
resulting in the lack of flexibility and initiative in their guerrilla warfare.
Guerrilla warfare requires the support of external forces, both
domestic and international
A Chinese proverb says that “people cannot clap with one hand”,
which means it's impossible to achieve any goal without support. CCP’s
guerrilla warfare had obtained the cooperation and support from different
external forces at different stages since it was established, both domestic and
international.
During the Second World War, in order to cut off the contact among
the Communist-led anti-Japanese armies and narrow the scope of their guerrilla
warfare, Japanese carried out the “Three Alls Policy” (kill all, burn all, loot
all). In addition, General Yasuji Okamura, commander-in-chief of the China
Expeditionary Arm, set up” No man’s land” in certain areas -- civilians were
expelled or killed, buildings were burned, food and livestock were looted or
burned. All those brought a disastrous effect on the Communist guerrilla
warfare. However, Chiang Kai-shek's military actions against Japanese saved
those Communists -- the KMT army fought heroically and contained considerable
Japanese armies at frontline battlefield in eight years, forced them to weaken
its siege to the CCP’s revolution area. Mao had to admit that the division of
labor between the KMT and the CCP, in which the frontal regular warfare and the
guerrilla warfare behind the enemy lines, is both necessary and proper, and is
a matter of mutual need and mutual assistance.[18]
In the Civil War with the KMT, the CCP gained great support from
the Soviet Union in military guidance and weapons. In the Vietnam War, both the
Soviet Union and China are the power supporter of the Vietcong.
Same happened in the war against the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan, the United States gave a hand to the anti-Soviet guerrilla groups,
aided them with gradually more potent weapons and eventually anti-tank and
anti-aircraft missiles, which then would cause so much damage to the far larger
Soviet army that the Soviet Union abandoned its occupation and retreated back
to the Soviet Union.[19]
But today’s jihadists cannot win such support from the other
countries. They are not endorsed by any influential powers but targeted by
major countries as terrorist groups. Besides receiving aid from clandestine
extremist individuals and groups, the jihadists get money and weapons from
smuggling oil and planting opium. However, all those have become increasingly
difficult under the attack of the international community, the development of
their guerrilla warfare system has been greatly limited.
The international community has scored significant victories
against the terrorism, but the jihadists are not completely defeated. They are
changing strategies by further implementing decentralized policy, developing
individual units and sleep cells, continuing to expand influence in broader
areas and build their global network.
After a series of failures in North Africa and the Middle East,
the jihadists are seeking new strongholds for guerrilla warfare. Latest
situation shows that countries with weak counter-terrorism capabilities are
their favorites. The Islamic State has spread to impoverished and violent
central Africa, established relations with local rebels. On April 16, 2019, IS
claimed its first attack in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where was called
the “Central Africa Province of the Caliphate” by IS propagandists. Eight soldiers were killed in the attack
according to Congolese officials.[20] The massive tropical jungle of Congo makes the country has a
similar natural environment with Vietnam, where the Vietcong successfully
carried out guerrilla warfare. The country’s poverty and instability will also
provide a breeding ground for guerrilla warfare of jihadists in the future.
Another example is Sri Lanka, gruesome bombings killed at least 250 people in
the country’s churches and hotels on April 21, 2019.[21] Sri Lanka
is a multi-religious country dominated by Buddhism, Buddhists comprise seventy
percent of the population, neither Muslims nor Christians make up more than ten
percent, [22] its counter-terrorism capabilities have been weak since the end
of the country’s civil war. An intelligence memo warning of a possible attack
had circulated ten days earlier of the explosions, but it was ignored. Sri
Lanka, meanwhile, lies halfway between the Middle East and Indonesia, where
could be treated as a Asian base for jihadist activity (Indonesian police
revealed that ISIL launched the 2018 Surabaya bombings as revenge for the
imprisonment of the leader of JAD and JAT in Indonesia[23]),
Sri Lanka also has mountains and tropical rainforests, the Tamil Tigers, who
were adept at guerrilla warfare, had fought against the government for a long
time by taking advantage of such geographical conditions. Therefore, the
possibility that the jihadists will develop Sri Lanka as their new guerrilla
bases in the future cannot be ruled out.
The death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in October doesn’t mean the
perish of the terrorism. Numerous jihadist gangs with their flames of revenge
after setback are posing new challenges to the international community, they
will continue to keeping guerrilla warfare and urban terror attacks as a
long-term military strategy due to the current situation and the disparity in
military power comparing with the counterterrorism coalitions. However,
jihadists' insurmountable shortcomings and disadvantages determine that their
guerrilla strategies and tactics replicated from Mao Zedong will not bring them
to the ultimate victory, although may keep them alive for a while.
June, 2019, edited in December, 2019
(Mr. Gang Yin is the researcher of Wei Jingsheng Foundation
and graduate student of the Institute of World Politics in Washington DC)
*
[1] Mao Zedong, On Protracted War, May 1938
[2] Michael W.S. Ryan, Decoding Al-Qaeda’s Strategy (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2013), pp.88
[3] Daniel Byman, Terrorism in Africa: The Imminent Threat
to the United States (Washington DC: The Brookings Institution, 2015), pp.6
[4] Stefanie Nijssen, The Afghan Economy: A Brief History
(Norfolk: Civil-Military Fusion Centre, 2010), pp.5
[5] Daniel Byman, Terrorism in Africa: The Imminent Threat
to the United States (Washington DC: The Brookings Institution, 2015), pp.6
[6] Mao Zedong, Problems of Strategy in Guerrilla War
Against Japan, May 1938
[7] Mao Zedong, Talk with the reporter of Associated Press,
February 1938
[8] Mao Zedong, On Protracted War”, May 1938
[9] Michael W.S. Ryan, Decoding Al-Qaeda’s Strategy (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2013), pp.135
[10] Ibid., pp.136
[11] Fawaz A. Gerges, A History of ISIS (Princeton, New
Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2016), pp. 21–22.
[12] Abdulkader Assad, “Al-Ghasri: 2500 IS radicals were killed in
Sirte battle”, Libya Observer, December 18, 2016
[13] “Around 16,000 militants killed during Mosul liberation”, Kaziform
International News Agency, July 19, 2017
[14] Alex Lockie, “Top US official calls ISIS a 'pathetic and a lost
cause' after mass surrender of militants at Raqqa”, Business Insider,
October 18, 2017
[15] Farah Najjar, “ISIL defeated in final Syria victory: SDF”, Al
Jazeera News, March 23, 2019
[16] Mao Zedong, Problems of Strategy in Guerrilla War Against Japan,
May 1938
[17] Mao Zedong, Problems of Strategy in Guerrilla War Against
Japan, May 1938
[18] Mao Zedong, Problems of War and Strategy, November 6, 1938
[19] Wikipedia, “History of guerrilla warfare”, last edited on 1 May
2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_guerrilla_warfare
[20] Steve Wembi and Joseph Goldstein, “ISIS Claims First Attack in
the Democratic Republic of Congo”, New York Times, April 19, 2019
[21] Sugam Pokharel, Euan McKirdy and Tara John, “Bombs tear through
Sri Lankan churches and hotels, killing 250 people”, CNN News, Updated
on April 25, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/21/asia/sri-lanka-explosions/index.html
[22] Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project
(Sri Lanka: Pew Research Center, 2010)
[23] Kontributor Surabaya and Achmad Faizal, “Kapolri Sebut Bom
Surabaya Aksi Balasan karena Pimpinan JAD Ditangkap”, Kompas.com, May 14,
2018, https://regional.kompas.com/read/2018/05/14/12580671/kapolri-sebut-bom-surabaya-aksi-balasan-karena-pimpinan-jad-ditangkap