Modern Warfare (Roger Trinquier 2.10)

10. Conducting Counterguerrilla Operations

THE ENEMY ORGANIZATION

In any military operation, we must first locate the enemy before we can concentrate our blows against him.

We know that in modern warfare we are not clashing with just a few armed bands, but rather with an organization installed within the population—an organization that constitutes the combat machine of the enemy, of which the bands are but one element.

To win, we have to destroy this entire organization.

We have seen the importance the organization can assume in a single city like Algiers. And because of our experience in Algeria, we know what a war organization covering a whole country is like.

Algeria is divided into 6 wilayas (major military districts); each wilaya is divided into 4 or 5 zones; each zone into 4 or 5 regions; each region into 4 or 5 sectors; and, finally, each sector is divided into a certain number of communes.

Just as in the cities, at each geographical level fulfilling the same functions we find the same leaders—a politico-military leader, a political assistant, a military assistant, and an assistant responsible for liaison and intelligence.

There are also departments, unnecessary in the cities, that have been created for the broader organization—a director responsible for logistical problems, especially for food supplies; and a person responsible for the health service, for organizing hospitals when possible, and for looking after the populace in this respect.

The councils at all levels make their decisions in common, but the politico-military leader has the deciding voice.

(The geographic breakdown, made solely with the conduct of the war in mind, is never patterned on the lines of peacetime administration. Nevertheless, the approximate equivalents are as follows: A wilaya comprises the same area as an igamie,* a zone that of a French department, and a region that of an arrondissement.)

The basic unit of organization is the region. It is the lowest echelon at which a complete staff, such as we have just described, is found. At lower levels—the sector and the commune—the staff is merely embryonic. In the communes in particular, it is reduced to the "committee of five," the most important of whom is the man charged with problems of supply.

A region is divided into a certain number of sectors, four or five depending upon the extent of the area and the characteristics of the terrain. (See the adjoining sketch.)

The urban sector is small in area but encompasses the largest population concentration of the region, quite often the chief town of the arrondissement. Here there is located a military unit the size of a platoon, well trained and well armed, especially entrusted with the task of carrying out assassinations and of continually presenting a threat to the inhabitants of the town. Then there are three or four sectors of similar characteristics. In the urban sector, the enemy permanently assigns some of his own people to serve in the town's political administration. Each is in charge of an area of the inhabited flat land that extends from the town to the hilly country. It is here that the "base" of the armed band is located, usually a company per sector. The refuge area is in the roughest part of the adjoining mountains, to which the band may withdraw in case of danger.

Except for operational missions ordered by the region, or in case of grave danger, the band does not leave its sector, where it has its roots and the elements that help it to subsist. Away from its sector, it would enjoy no support and would usually move about in unknown terrain. In such cases, it would be quite vulnerable.

Within a given sector, the various elements of the enemy organization are divided geographically into three groups:

The towns or population centers each under the command of a politico-administrative leader responsible for organizing urban terrorism, collection of funds, propaganda, and an intelligence service, whose main task is to report on the movements of army troops stationed in the town.

The inhabited rural area, under the command of a politico-military leader responsible for maintaining a firm hold on the population; distributing or arranging delivery of supplied coming from the towns, sheltering and feeding the band normally stationed there or those passing through; and providing the bands with information and, thanks to its armed partisans, close protection. In such an area, which is under some sort of control by the forces of order at least sporadically, the politico-military organization plays a very important role.

The refuge area, under the command of a politico-military leader, responsible for seeing to the guerrillas' security and supply, and assuring that the depots and bivouac areas are guarded when the bands are moving about. The refuge area is situated in terrain to which access is difficult, isolated by the cutting of roads, sabotage of bridges, etc.; and so organized to permit the bands to be stationed there.

The armed guerrilla band, because of the permanent threat it poses to the population and the fear it inspires among units of the forces of order, is the guarantee of the entire organization. It normally inhabits the refuge area, but makes frequent visits to the intermediate area between the refuge area and the town, especially in winter when it lives there practically all the time.

The members of the sector organization thus live under one of two different kinds of situation—either in the town and the intermediate area; or in the intermediate or refuge area. But there is no direct connection between the towns and the refuge area.

When such an organization has been able to establish itself in a country, military operations directed against the armed bands never quite reach them. Even if they did reach them, the essential part of the organization would remain in place and, even without the bands, would stay sufficiently powerful to retain its hold over the population.

Victory therefore can be attained only through the complete destruction of the entire organization.

COUNTERGUERRILLA STRATEGY

The most vulnerable part of the enemy organization is in the towns. It is Always within the control of the army troops that occupy it, and a police operation conducted along the lines already described can destroy it.

But the most desirable objective is the destruction of the politico-military organization in the intermediate area. This we should undertake as soon as we have the necessary means at our disposal. Such an operation will lead us back to the town organization and also provide us with the channel essential to reaching the bands in the refuge areas. We can thus destroy the entire organization supporting the bands. Cut off from their sources of supply and information, they will be more vulnerable.

A broad envelopment, therefore, ought logically to begin with a police operation in the intermediate area. The occupation of the intermediate area and the destruction of the organization supporting the bands is our first objective. In this way we can, in an initial phase, compel the bands to withdraw into the refuge area. Deprived of supplies and information, they will no longer be able to leave without risk and will find it difficult to defend themselves when we finally decide to attack them.

COUNTERGUERRILLA TACTICS

The Organization of Defense: "Gridding"

The enemy's first acts of war—terrorist attacks, localized guerrilla action—generally take the peacetime forces of order—police, gendarmerie, army—by surprise. Too widely dispersed and too vulnerable, these forces quickly fall back upon the built-up areas, which offer them the best chance of resisting the aggressor.

Some elements are pushed back to positions that must be held. Traffic between these held positions is maintained or re-established by means of armed convoys, but the majority of secondary roads are abandoned.

The aggressor also obliges us to take up an area defense to protect vital positions and to prevent complete strangulation of the territory. This defense, more or less in depth, is established after taking into consideration immediate needs and available resources—vulnerable points, population density, attitude of the inhabitants, the necessity of keeping open roads and ways essential to the life of the country.

Eventually there is established a so-called defensive grid system, in which the military organization follows the lines of the civil administration to make maximum use of all command possibilities and to permit normal administration to function insofar as possible—the department becomes a zone, the arrondissement becomes a sector, the canton becomes a quartier.

The retreat of the forces of order rapidly delivers a large part of the territory to the enemy. Surprise has been to his advantage. From this point on he will attempt to consolidate and complete his combat organization, to defend the territory he has conquered against the forces of order, to crush one by one the largest number possible of the squares of the grid in order to increase the area under his control

Offense—Sector Level

How can we, with the forces at our immediate disposal, plus the reinforcements we shall receive, set about the destruction of the enemy's combat organization and the liberation of the occupied territory?

First of all, we have the troops that make up the initial grid, called sector troops. If the region is the basis of the enemy's organization, the sector (arrondissement) is the basis of our system.

The withdrawal of our elements has led to the creation of military posts in the most important villages and in the towns, particularly in the principal town of the sector.

We have observed how ineffective outposts are. Since the control of the population is the aim of modern warfare, any element not in direct and permanent contact with the population is useless. Furthermore, if we try to make strongholds of outposts, we would be surrounding them with walls built to support a siege the enemy has neither the intention nor the possibility of undertaking.

In the villages, however, we of ten find one or two empty houses, where the bands usually stay while in transit, which we can occupy. Other houses for the lodging of the men can be rented from the inhabitants or constructed if necessary.

We then organize not just the defense of a sole military post, but that of the entire village and its inhabitants, making it a strategic hamlet. A tight, impassable perimeter is created (of barbed-wire, underbrush, various other materials), protected by a few armed blockhouses, manned with automatic weapons and capable of covering the whole perimeter.

A police operation is undertaken immediately within the village thus protected. Simultaneously, we organize the population according to the principles we studied previously.

Inhabitants of the nearest villages or isolated individuals are progressively brought within the security perimeter. Most of the others will come there themselves. The inhabitants are allowed to leave the village only by the gates, and all exits will be controlled. They are permitted to take neither money nor supplies with them. No one will be able to leave or enter the village by night.

In effect, we are re-establishing the old system of medieval fortified villages, designed to protect the inhabitants against marauding bands.

The first police operation will be carried out in the principal town of the sector (arrondissement). An office for the control and organization of the inhabitants is installed as soon as possible at the sector military staff. The town itself will be surrounded by a tight and protected perimeter, and all its entrances and exits will be controlled.

Inhabitants of the principal town and villages will, as we said earlier, receive a census card, a copy of which will be sent to the command post of the sector and district Each card will bear a photograph of the individual, his house-group number (4), the letter of the sub-district (B), the number of the district (2), and the letter of the town or strategic hamlet (C).

The first part (C2) lets us know where he comes from; the second part (B4) tells us the leaders responsible for the individual—the house-group leader and the sub-district leader. The census card will also enable us to control individual ration cards.

A census is also taken of all animals—draft animals (horses, donkeys, and mules) and bovines (calves, cows, and bulls) will be branded with the card number of their owner. We know how important supplies are to the guerrilla. Henceforth, no supplies are permitted to leave the towns or strategic hamlets. Even the animals will be strictly controlled. If we prohibit uncontrolled traffic of food on the main roads, we can cut off the enemy's main sources of supply in a very short time.

Thus, even with much reduced forces, we can again regain control of the major portion of the country's population—from 80 to 90 per cent, if one considers the total number of inhabitants of the large towns down to villages having gendarme units to control them. In this way, we have in our hands an important mass of people adequately protected and controlled, and able to be used to block the enemy offensive on all sides.

The intervals between the grid squares, however, still remain empty of troops; their defenseless inhabitants are at the mercy of enemy action. Broad-scale operations or commando raids may cause our opponents passing concern, but they are usually too brief and superficial to destroy their combat organization.

The organization and control of the inhabitants of the towns and strategic hamlets permit a majority of them to take part in their own defense. A certain number of troops can in this way be freed to reinforce the reserve element of the sector command. Being unengaged and mobile, they will form the sector's interval troops and act continuously between the outposts.

This force should be large enough to outclass an armed band whose size and quality will vary according to the guerrilla's position and circumstances. But if we react quickly enough, before the situation can deteriorate, the enemy will not be able to create bands larger than approximately a company. This is the normal unit that will permit him to move about securely over long distances and to live off the country and the inhabitant, usually his sole sources of supply.

Therefore, a four-company battalion of infantry will be our standard interval unit It must be essentially mobile, moving usually by foot, but also equipped with vehicles to move quickly over long distances. Its basic mission will be to destroy the politico-military organization in the intermediate area; to destroy the armed bands that attempt to oppose this action, to bring in people to the strategic hamlets and, if possible, to create new hamlets for regrouping and control of every inhabitant of the intermediate area.

If the sector's interval troops do not amount to at least a four-company battalion, they will certainly be unable to handle at one time the intermediate areas of an enemy region, which corresponds approximately to a French sector (arrondissement).

We know that, within the region, each enemy sector has an intermediate area of its own, where it puts up and supports an armed band.

At very least, we must attack the intermediate area of an enemy sector. Its boundaries are easily definable. Our police operations in the towns and strategic hamlets will have yielded sufficient information for us to establish them without difficulty. The interval troops cannot hope to surprise the enemy in this area by stealthy penetration, a desire we have seen is illusory, but they can surprise him by their methods.

Troops penetrate the intermediate area at the ready to avoid being surprised and to be in a position to maneuver in the event of a chance encounter with a band. If the band succeeds in escaping or finds itself in its refuge area, the police operation commences immediately. The politico-military organization does not follow the band, as it would only be excess baggage. It stays in place or in the immediate vicinity. It is therefore always within range of the interval troop units, if there is sufficient time to look for it and destroy it.

Keeping one element in reserve, the troops spread over a large area in order to occupy, if possible, the entire intermediate area of the sector, especially the maximum number of villages and the most frequented paths.

Then, while part of the cadre sets out on an intensive search of the terrain, to locate any caches or deposits and to study a layout for the night's ambushes, the units' specialists undertake the police work.

The entire population of each village, men and women, is called together and prohibited from leaving for the duration of the operation. Every inhabitant is individually and privately interrogated, without any resort to violence. A few simple but precise questions will be asked of each. For the first interrogation, two in general will suffice— Which individuals collect funds in your village? Who are the young people who are armed and carry on the surveillance of the village?

If this first interrogation is well handled, several people will readily make the desired replies. Quite often, since guilty individuals hope to escape detection, the ones we seek will be among those assembled. We will therefore have no difficulty in arresting them. Those who have succeeded in leaving the village will not have gotten very far. Deprived of any contact with the population, they may very likely fall into our night ambushes when they attempt to find out what is going on or try to escape.

The first echelon of the enemy politico-military organization will also fall into our hands. More stringent interrogation will enable us to discover quickly who all the members are—front leaders, members of committees of five, supply people, lookouts, etc.—as well as the location of food deposits and arms caches.

At least a week is needed for the specialized teams to destroy a village politico-military organization. This is likewise the minimum for a police operation in the inhabited rural area of an enemy sector.

Parallel to the work of destruction, we lay the foundation of our own system by selecting intelligence agents and organizing the populace.

To succeed, we must never lose sight of the fact that we will receive information only from people who can give us information without risk to themselves. We must assure our agents of this indispensable security.

We will choose them in the village itself. They will usually be people who proved best informed during the first interrogation. Having marked them, we contact them only in the course of the next police operation and under the same circumstances. They will then point out to us those men the enemy has installed to replace his disrupted organization. Later, when the situation has improved, we can find out who are capable of handling the secret communication of simple information.

We proceed immediately to the organization and control of the population of the intermediate area.

The first resort is the traditional division of the area into districts, sub-districts and house-groups—with the usual numbering. We conduct an exact census of all the inhabitants, their means of subsistence, and in particular their livestock. Then we enroll th6m in the structured organization of which we have already spoken.

In the beginning, we will not make many demands on the cadres we have chosen. But this initial activity will greatly facilitate the control of the population in the course of subsequent police operations, which must be frequent if we want to prevent the destroyed organization from reconstituting itself. Individuals will be considered suspect who appear in the census but who cannot be found. Their leaders and their families will be held responsible for them. On the other hand, any individuals of whom no record has been made will be registered only after a very detailed interrogation.

Inhabitants from the rural areas who wish to join the strategic hamlets will be permitted to do so. With our assistance, they will carry with them all their means of subsistence. In this manner, we can continue to add to the number of persons controlled and protected. The difference in their manner of life, especially with respect to the degree of security accorded to the inhabitants in the protected perimeters, will constitute a powerful attraction throughout the intermediate area. Whenever and wherever we have enough troops and the necessary means, we must create new strategic hamlets.

Only if we approach the problem methodically can we continue to establish a strict control over all the population and its means of subsistence.

The supplying of the bands will become more and more difficult in the intermediate area as we proceed to drain off their means of support. If they can escape the frequent police operations of the interval troops, they will have to maintain themselves in their refuge area under difficult conditions. Armed with considerable information about the enemy (bivouacs, caches, depots, etc.), the sector commander will be able, with additional help on a temporary basis, to follow him into his refuge with good chances of destroying him.

Methodical and patient conduct of operations will, in the easier sectors and those of medium difficulty, lead to the destruction of the enemy's combat apparatus and the restoration of peace within a reasonable length of time.

Offense—Zone Level

If the action of the sector commanders is decisively carried out, the general commanding the zone (department) can move ahead with the essential role of achieving the methodic destruction of the enemy organization over a broader area.'

For each sector, he will initially designate the points to be occupied in the execution of an over-all plan to avoid the strangulation of the department. He will especially determine the thoroughfares to be kept open to traffic.

Having dealt the adversary his initial setback, the commanding general takes the offensive. First he attacks the enemy organization in the important towns of the department, especially in the principal town, to put an end to the spectacular terrorist attacks which build the enemy's prestige.

He gives detailed orders for the conduct of police operations. He sees to it that the organization and control of the entire population is secured without delay. He assures that the methods and procedures used are the same throughout the area of the zone to maintain a uniformity of action. He will at all times have at his disposition a significant reserve element to bring pressure to bear on those points which, in their turn, appear most likely to hasten the execution of the pacification plan he has drawn up.

As we have seen, units of the enemy organization rarely coincide with the peacetime administrative boundaries our military organization must adopt.

The sector commanders ought not to stop any action at their own sector limits, but should rather follow up methodically and relentlessly throughout the whole territory of the enemy organization attacked—sector or region. Hence, there is a necessity for coordinating operations at the zone level, and for strict planning of methods and procedures.

Refuge areas are usually in irregular terrain to which access is difficult, country often cut through with administrative boundaries. In such a case, the attack on the refuge areas will be launched by the general commanding the zone and at such time as the peripheral police operations of the sector commanders have been concluded.

While he leaves a broad area of initiative to his subordinates, the commanding general assures through frequent inspections that his orders are being strictly followed. He makes sure that his plan of pacification is followed in all areas, especially with respect to practical projects that call for considerable expenditures and in which no waste should occur. Such projects include construction of new roads, or the repair of those that have been sabotaged; construction of new strategic hamlets to receive people falling back from the danger areas; school construction, and economic development of the department to give displaced persons means of subsistence.

A well-conceived plan, executed with determination, courage, and foresight, will save from needless distress a population that will have had more than its share of suffering.

In areas of difficult access, where the guerrilla has been able to establish well-equipped bases for his bands and where he has numbers of seasoned fighters, the sector troops will generally not have sufficient resources to attack and destroy them. They will therefore have to appeal to the intervention troops.

The intervention troops of the zone will, in principle, consist of the zone commander's reserve elements, which can be reinforced by levies on the general reserve of the theater commander if necessary. It is through the judicious use of intervention troops—injecting them at the desired moment at specific points—that the commanding general of the zone will be able to accelerate the process of pacification.

Their normal mission will be the destruction of the armed bands when the interval troops of the sectors have forced them to withdraw into the refuge area. An operation against the bands will not differ essentially from operations conducted by interval troops in the intermediate area. It will be their logical extension.

The number of troops to be employed will depend on the importance of the armed bands to be subdued and the extent of the refuge area. In general, two or three intervention regiments, working closely with interval units of the interested sectors, will suffice. They may be commanded by either the zone general or his deputy or, on occasion, by the sector commander most directly interested in the operation.

At an early stage, the target area is sealed off by interval troops of the sectors involved, who will establish themselves in the inhabited rural zones. If the police operation has been properly executed, contact between the guerrillas and the populace will have been broken; the inhabitants will already be regrouped and organized and an intelligence service created.

The troops responsible for the isolation of the refuge area will become thoroughly familiar with the terrain over which they repeatedly travel This sealing-off, or encircling, will not be linear, but will extend over a deep and perfectly well-known zone in which any element of the band will be immediately detected and attacked.

After the net has been put in place, the zone intervention troops will invest—by helicopter, air-drop, or on foot—the entire refuge area, simultaneously if possible. If a band is encountered, the troops must at all times be prepared to engage it, to maneuver, and to destroy it.

The commander of the operation divides the zone up among his units, which will in turn set up light bases maintained by a reserve element. During the course of the first day, the units will prudently and securely fan out as far from their base as they possibly can, to reconnoiter as many as possible of the paths and tracks where, at nightfall, ambushes will be set.

A reserve to be moved by helicopter is held in readiness for disposition by the zone commander, to permit him to exploit and pursue to a finish any engagement at any point in the operational area, Helicopters and light observation aircraft are precious instruments of reconnaissance and protection.

All inhabitants encountered are immediately assembled. The police operation, initiated without delay, will permit the completion of information on depots, bivouacs, caches, hospitals, etc.

The information obtained is exploited on the spot, but carefully and with sufficient troops to avoid surprise by an adversary who is well armed, hardened, and determined to defend himself.

Individuals recognized as part of the enemy organization are arrested and kept within the units for exploitation during the operation.

The population, usually not very numerous, is evacuated entirely to a regroupment center previously set up for this purpose.

From the very beginning, therefore, the bands will be cut off from any contact with the population, and thrown back solely on their own resources.

All troops engaged in the operation have their evening meal before the end of the hours of daylight. After nightfall, no fires are lit. At appropriate points selected during the day, the ambushes go into effect. During the first days after the commencement of the operation, an ambush may take a platoon. But in the days that follow, taking advantage of the disarray of the adversary and our improved knowledge of the terrain, the number of ambush points will increase and the strength of each will diminish to where it does not exceed four or five men.

All paths, in particular those where it is impossible to establish ambushes, are booby-trapped in a simple manner—with grenades or plastic explosives—and retrieved in the morning by the same men who put them in place, to obviate blunders.

At night, the intervention troops and sector troops spread out a vast net; guerrillas who want to move about by night, leave the danger zone, or regroup, will run into it.

In general, it is recommended to fire without warning on any individual who wanders within close range of an ambush, say within ten yards. It is difficult to fire accurately at a greater distance at night, and guerrillas will never appear in front of an ambush in a compact group.

The net is kept in effect for two hours after daybreak, because quite often it is in the morning that guerrillas who want to escape will take their chances.

Around the area $nd in as great depth as possible, all outposts should keep on the alert, in a position to control all suspicious persons. Any individual not carrying his census card will be considered suspect and arrested.

Inside the zone during the day, patrols search the brush unceasingly and with minute care. They collect the dead for identification, the wounded for interrogation. Prisoners are subjected to quick interrogations and their statements checked on the spot.

This action will compel the guerrillas, cut off from the population and with no knowledge of the situation, to leave their comfortable hiding places—where otherwise they might be discovered—to obtain water or food or to attempt to flee. Their wounded will become an impossible burden.

Appropriate psychological action, using loudspeakers or leaflets, will quite likely secure the surrender of weak individuals whom circumstances have placed beyond the reach and authority of their chiefs. Many of the guerrillas who have escaped the ambushes will give themselves up, demoralized. The entire operation must last as long as is necessary to destroy the guerrilla band completely.

Anything that would facilitate the existence of the guerrillas in any way, or which could conceivably be used by them—depots, shelters, caches, food, crops, houses, etc. —must be systematically destroyed or brought in. This will actually permit the methodical recovery of materiel and food, which can be distributed to the regrouped civilians. All inhabitants and livestock must be evacuated from the refuge area.

When they leave, the intervention troops must not only have completely destroyed the bands, but must leave behind them an area empty of all resources and absolutely uninhabitable.

The operation against the armed bands in a refuge area, supported by intervention troops, should spell the end of the battle against the guerrilla in a sector. To be successful, it must be prepared in the greatest detail at the echelon of the general commanding the zone. It should get under way when the operations of the interval troops in the sectors have created a favorable situation and the zone commander has assembled all the necessary men and materiel. Then, carefully prepared and energetically carried out, it cannot fail.

Once successful, the sector commander will be able to regroup and control all of the inhabitants of his sector— the ultimate aim of modern warfare operations.

However, organization and control of the population, and supplementary controls over food, circulation of persons and goods, animals, etc., as well as a flawless intelligence service, must remain in force until peace has been restored to the entire national territory. Any lack of vigilance or premature dismantling of the control system will certainly permit the enemy to recoup lost ground and jeopardize the peace of the sector.

Offense—Theater Level

The commander-in-chief of the entire theater of operations should maintain a considerable general reserve. This will permit him to strike at the precise time and place he judges opportune in the conduct of theater-level operations. By judicious employment of reserves, as we have seen, he will be able to accelerate and bring about the pacification of difficult areas.

For reasons of troop economy, certain areas may be abandoned or held by only very small forces. Here, the enemy will be able to organize and maintain significant forces. When the theater commander decides on their pacification, the normal resources of the sector and zone may be inadequate. Such operations will therefore fall to units of the general reserve.

At the beginning of any conflict, the enemy normally will not be able to launch hostilities simultaneously throughout the entire territory. He first sets himself up in areas favorable to guerrilla warfare and attempts to keep these under his control.

At this point, forceful action, quickly begun and vigorously carried out according to the principles discussed, ought to annihilate the guerrilla and prevent extension of the conflict. The success of such an operation is of the utmost importance, because it can re-establish the peace in short order.

In any case, the operational area must be clearly defined and isolated. Initially, this is the role of the zones and sectors nearest the enemy. At the first aggressive acts, elements of the forces of order already in place—the army, gendarmerie, police, various peacetime intelligence services—attempt to determine as accurately as possible the limits of the area under the enemy's control.

After quickly establishing the limits of this area, the measures previously studied—control and organization of the populace, creation of an efficient intelligence service —can contain the enemy's sphere of action even further. The extent of this final restriction of enemy activity will delimit the area of attack.

The number of the troops (two to four divisions, if one accepts the Korean experience), the civilian and military means to be committed, the need for strict coordination of complex actions—all means that a theater-level operation ought not to be launched until detailed study permits the drawing up of a precise plan of action when the necessary men and equipment have been assembled. Insufficient means or carelessness of preparation and execution of operations will lead to certain failure; the area of the conflict would spread, and a long war could not be avoided.

The commander of the operation should be the commander of the general reserve units to be used. His will be the complete responsibility not merely to weaken the bands or disperse them, but rather to destroy the combat apparatus of the enemy and re-establish normal life within the affected area.

No time limit for the operation should be set ahead of time. It will end when the enemy's combat organization—guerrilla bands included—are completely destroyed (that is, when not one more guerrilla remains in the region), and when a cohesive system capable of preventing any offensive return of the adversary has been established.

At the appropriate time, after the general reserves have been withdrawn, an assistant can be charged with assuring a rapid return to peacetime conditions in the liberated territory with whatever means are available and with the organization that has been created.

Although a theater-level operation differs in size from those previously considered, the principles to be applied are the same.

If the number of troops available can cover the whole target area, operations should begin simultaneously in both the intermediate and refuge areas. Valuable time may thus be saved. But we can only rarely bring together the troops necessary for an operation of such size.

Therefore, the operation usually begins in the intermediate area—which borders the refuge area—the importance of which we have already described, and with whose character we are familiar.

A vast police operation covering this whole area will enable us to destroy the important politico-military organism implanted there, and to complete if necessary the destruction of the politico-administrative organization of the towns.

At times we will run across guerrilla bands, which we will attempt to destroy, but above all we must put an end to their free passage and oblige them to withdraw and live in the refuge areas.

Parallel to the police operation, the now familiar organization is created to control food, animals, circulation of persons and consumer goods, etc. The inhabitants are regrouped in strategic hamlets, which will be equipped with the necessary means to ensure their control and protection. Villages, roads, and outposts are set up and a normal administration created.

The inhabited rural area will in this way become an immense worksite in which the populace, properly harnessed, can render precious and effective assistance.

It is only when the rural area operation has ended that theater-level operation against the refuge areas can be undertaken.

Our intelligence services, the civilian population, and prisoners, as well as the impression of strength emanating from a vast operation forcefully and methodically conducted, will have enabled us, before the launching of the operation, to be well-informed about the bands—their weapons, numbers, usual bivouac areas, shelters, caches, depots, normal routes of movement, means of subsistence, and sources of information.

We will not approach the refuge areas blindly, but will first have completely and precisely blueprinted our objectives.

Although it is on a much larger scale, the theater-level operation is carried out fust like those against the refuge areas of the sector and the zone.

After first setting up a blockade, every modern method of transportation—helicopter, parachute, etc.—is employed simultaneously in the shortest possible time, to clamp down on the entire enemy refuge area. The guerrilla bands are allowed no opportunity to escape.

The entire operation lasts long enough for them to be destroyed. It ends only when the area they have chosen as their haven is wiped clean of all means of subsistence and rendered completely useless to them.

Thus, we shall have achieved a real specialization of the troops used in modern warfare.

The grid units are the first troops used, to stop the adversary's offensive effort. Responsible for occupying towns and sensitive points throughout the country and for ensuring the security of the main roads, their apparently static mission should be the most active.

Their role is quite important because they partition off the enemy area, stop the extension of the territory he controls, and, thanks to the outposts they occupy and the network of roads they keep open, provide excellent bases of departure for troops specialized in offensive operations.

Their responsibility extends not only to the safety of the cities, but also to the security of the immense majority of the population living in medium-sized and small towns. This security depends upon the ability of the checkerboard units to destroy the enemy's organization in the towns, to set up an effective control system among the populace to control the movement of persons and goods, on which will depend in large part the success of operations conducted on the periphery by the interval units.

The grid troops must be trained in police operations. These they should carry out firmly, but with tact and discretion, not to alienate themselves unnecessarily from the people with whom they will be in permanent contact.

They will be replaced little by little with normal police forces, in particular the gendarmerie, once the assistance and collaboration of the people has been acquired. Then they will go to reinforce the interval units and permit them to extend their field of activity.

The interval units should be composed of excellent, well-trained troops. Their basic mission is to destroy the enemy's politico-military organization in the intermediate area of their sector, to regroup the dispersed populace to ensure their protection, and to organize them so that the inhabitants participate in their own defense.

These troops will be nomads, capable of living away from their base for long periods, of dispersing over a great area to carry out police operations in depth, and of quickly regrouping in the event of an engagement with the enemy so that they can maneuver and destroy the guerrilla bands.

The intervention units are elite troops who will seek out the bands in their refuge areas and destroy them.

To follow a resolute adversary in difficult terrain, to move long distances on foot by day and night to reach him, to man ambushes all night long in small teams of four or five men along forest paths—all this calls for excellent training and insuperable morale.

Cadres of the highest quality are needed to conduct an effective police operation, to interrogate interesting prisoners quickly at the very point of their capture, and to exploit the situation without losing any time. This difficult and costly training will be available to only a small number of units. They should be utilized judiciously so that they do not suffer unnecessary wear and tear.

If one accepts the Korean experience and the present needs of the war in Algeria, the commanding general of an important theater of operations ought to have at least four divisions at his disposal.

Consolidated under the command of a dynamic leader, well up on the combat procedures of modern warfare, they will be capable of successfully handling within a few months the most threatened and vulnerable areas.

To sum up, guerrilla warfare, because of the advantages that accrue to the guerrilla—for example, the terrain he has chosen and the population that supports him—can be effectively conducted by small bands against a much larger army. The guerrilla's adversary is always at arm's length; the guerrilla's numerous agents can continually observe him, and at their leisure study his vulnerable points. The guerrilla bands will always be able to choose the propitious moment to attack and harass their opponents.

To be effective, his operations do not call for coordination of all his elements, which are too widely dispersed even though they operate on the same territory. Audacity, initiative, courage—these are the chief qualities of guerrilla leaders. In the beginning, at least, guerrilla warfare is a war of lieutenants and young captains.

We on the contrary attack an enemy who is invisible, fluid, uncatchable. In order to get to him, we have no alternative but to throw a net of fine mesh over the entire area in which the bands move. Counterguerrilla operations therefore cannot succeed unless they are conducted on a large scale, unless they last the necessary length of time, and unless they are prepared and directed in greatest detail.

To the words of Colonel Beebe, already cited above, aA counterguerrilla operation ends only when there are no more guerrillas in the area, and not when the guerrilla has been disorganized and dispersed," let me add, "and when the enemy's entire warfare organization has been destroyed and ours put in its place."

The struggle against the guerrilla is not, as one might suppose, a war of lieutenants and captains. The number of troops that must be put in action, the vast areas over which they will be led to do battle, the necessity of coordinating diverse actions over these vast areas, the politico-military measures to be taken regarding the populace, the necessarily close cooperation with various branches of the civil administration—all this requires that operations against the guerrilla be conducted according to a plan, established at a very high command level,* capable at any moment of making quick, direct intercession effectively felt in the wide areas affected by modern warfare.

The counterguerrilla struggle is definitely a question of method. A modern state possesses forces sufficiently large to fight him. Our repeated failures result solely from poor employment of our resources.

Many military leaders judge these insufficient. We know of no example in military history of a soldier who went into battle with all the means he thought he needed. The great military leader is the one who knows how to win with the means at his disposal.

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