Guerilla Tactics
Army cadres concern themselves solely with military affairs,
Government cadres with administrative jobs,
Party cadres with Party business.
They are like men standing on one leg. It is wrong for a cadre
to be acquainted only with one field. He will no be truly
proficient because army, mass, government and party work
forms a whole which would not be strong and complete should
one of its components come to miss.
Ho Chi Minh- July 1952 (Ho's Selected Writings, p. 146)
The strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare tend to involve the use of a small, mobile force against a large, unwieldy one. The guerrilla force is largely or entirely organized in small units that are dependent on the support of the local population. Tactically, the guerrilla army makes massive, repetitive attacks far from the opponent's center of gravity with a view to keeping its own casualties to a minimum and imposing a constant debilitating strain on the enemy. This may provoke the enemy into a brutal, excessively destructive response which will both anger their own supporters and increase support for the guerrillas, ultimately compelling the enemy to withdraw.