For American fi ghting forces, this was most evident in the past cen- tury during the Vietnam War and operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF). In each of these confl icts, American forces found themselves opposing an al- most ghost-like enemy capable of wreaking havoc before quickly disap- pearing into the local populace. The result, say military analysts,

was and remains an ongoing reevalu- ation of conventional warfi ghting strategies and the development of new ones in the face of enemies — such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) — who are ever- evolving. Within that framework, the concept of how wars are fought has changed dramatically over the past few decades and likely never will be the same again. But then, was war ever really that

A car bomb burns itself out about 15 feet from a U.S. military installa- tion in Baghdad, Iraq.

way? According to historian Max Boot, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick senior fel- low in national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, in his book Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from An- cient Times to the Present (Liveright, 2013), the use of asymmetrical tactics dates back to the earliest chronicles of war. “Guerrilla warfare is as old as mankind,” Boot writes. “Convention- al warfare is, by contrast, a relatively recent invention.”

HE MOST COMMON PERCEPTION OF WAR pits one uniformed army against another: a face-to-face confrontation between easily identifi able fi ghting forces. But in almost all confl icts, historians say, unconventional warfare — specifi cally the use of insurgency, counterinsurgency, and guerrilla tactics — has played an integral role in determining a victor.

70 MILITARY OFFICER JANUARY 2015

The common players Insurgency, counterinsurgency, and guerrilla tactics almost always are linked closely, observes Army Maj. Joshua P. Thiel, former director of operations for 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne), who has studied and written often about guerrilla warfare. Insurgency, Thiel explains, traditionally is armed resistance against an incumbent government, designed to change the current situation. “That can be a complete overthrow, a more limited eff ort to

PHOTOS: ABOVE, COURTESY U.S. ARMY; FACING PAGE, RUE DES ARCHIVES/THE GRANGER COLLECTION