The Evolution of Irregular War
Insurgents and Guerrillas From Akkadia to Afghanistan
Max BootMAX BOOT is Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare From Ancient Times to the Present (Liveright, 2013), from which this essay is adapted. Follow him on Twitter @MaxBoot.
Holding down the fort: in Chilas, British India, 1898. (Getty Images / Hulton Archive).
Pundits and the press too often treat terrorism and guerrilla tactics as something new, a departure from old-fashioned ways of war. But nothing could be further from the truth. Throughout most of our species' long and bloody slog, warfare has primarily been carried out by bands of loosely organized, ill-disciplined, and lightly armed volunteers who disdained open battle in favor of stealthy raids and ambushes: the strategies of both tribal warriors and modern guerrillas and terrorists. In fact, conventional warfare is the relatively recent invention. It was first made possible after 10,000 BC by the development of agricultural soc