Guerrilla warfare is not just the tool of modern-day terrorists in the Middle East. Its roots stretch back to our very own revolution. In Violent Politics , William R. Polk takes us on a concise, brilliant tour of insurgencies throughout history, beginning with America's own struggle for independence. Continuing on, Polk explores the role of insurgency in other notable conflicts—including the Spanish guerrilla war against Napoleon, the Irish struggle for independence, the Algerian War of National Independence, and Vietnam—eventually landing at the ongoing campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the lessons of this history are needed more than ever. Guerrilla warfare is not just the tool of modern-day terrorists in the Middle East. Its roots stretch back to our very own revolution. In Violent Politics , William R. Polk takes us on a concise, brilliant tour of insurgencies throughout history, beginning with America's own struggle for independence. Continuing on, Polk explores the role of insurgency in other notable conflicts—including the Spanish guerrilla war against Napoleon, the Irish struggle for independence, the Algerian War of National Independence, and Vietnam—eventually landing at the ongoing campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the lessons of this history are needed more than ever. William R. Polk taught Middle Eastern history and politics and Arabic at Harvard until 1961, when he became a member of the Policy Planning Council of the U.S. Department of State. In 1965, he became Professor of History at the University of Chicago, where he established the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. His many books include The Birth of America and Understanding Iraq . Violent Politics A History of Insurgency, Terrorism, and Guerrilla War, from the American Revolution to Iraq By William Polk HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Copyright © 2008 William Polk All right reserved. ISBN: 9780061236204 Chapter One The American Insurgency The British Army was probably the eighteenth century's most highly trained regular military force. Although it was relatively small—on the eve of the Revolution in 1775 it numbered only forty-eight thousand men, about 10 percent of France's military force—it could usually achieve what military men refer to as "theater superiority" because it could be landed virtually anywhere by the Royal Navy. If more troops were needed, it could be augmented by "renting" additional foreign, usually German, armies and by enrolling such natives as Bengali peasants and American farmers. So it was a highly flexible, multinational force with a global reach, but its tactics had evolved in Europe. There, centuries of farming had opened and leveled the terrain. Responding to the landscape, troops were drilled to align themselves in parade-ground formations with each soldier's shoulder next to the shoulders of his two neighbors; they then marched in lockstep to within about twenty paces of a similarly organized foe and, on command, fired what amounted to a broadside. Their smoothbore muskets could not be accurately aimed—they did not even have a rear sight—so soldiers were ordered not to try. Their commanders expected the sheer weight of lead to shock and disrupt their opponents' formation. Neither the British soldiers nor their opponents could reload because of the long bayonets fixed to the barrels of their muskets; so after firing, the soldiers who were still on their feet and able to move charged forward. Their two-foot-long bayonets fixed on their four-foot-long muskets made a virtual spear rather like the ancient Greeks had employed in their phalanxes. These tactics were brutally effective in Europe, where armies routinely slaughtered one another, but made no sense in the American wilderness, where as yet untamed gullies, hillocks, rocks, and trees made rigid formations impossible. To feed themselves, the British, like other eighteenth-century European armies, pillaged farmers' houses, grain storage barns, and livestock. In Europe, which was relatively densely populated and where, because transport was sporadic, crops were often stored in large quantities, they could do so. But in the sparsely populated and thinly cultivated American hinterland, foraging produced little to eat. So contemporary British soldiers, most of whom were about half a foot smaller than modern soldiers, had to carry huge loads on their backs. Standard packs in the British army weighed fifty pounds, nearly half the weight of the average soldier. Wisely, the French, who were more accustomed to the American wilderness and who moved in smaller formations that made it more likely to be able to live off the land, reduced their loads to about twelve pounds. Indian warriors carried virtually nothing. Able to move lightly and quickly, the French and their Indian allies refused combat on British terms. As described by Colonel Henry Bouquet, then the immediate superior of George Washington, "they never congregate in a