Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency

7/30/2019 Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency

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M O D E R N W A R F A R E

A F r e n c h V i e w o f C o u n t e r i n s u r g e n c yb y

R o g e r Tr inqu ie r

COMBATSTUDIESINSTITUTE

T h e v i e w s e x p r e s s e d i n M o d e r n W a r fa r ea r e those of the author and not n e c e s -sari ly t hose o f t he Depar tment o f t heA r m y or the Depar tment of D e f e n s e .

U .S . A R M Y C O M M A N D A N D G E N E R A L S T A F F C O L L E G EF O R T L E A V E N W O R T H , K A N S A S

Janua ry 1985

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M O D E R N W A R F A R EA French View of Counterinsurgency

Roger Trinquier

Translated from the French by D A N I E L LE EWith an Introduction by B E R N A R D B. F A L L

PALL MALL PRESSLondon and Dunmow


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Published in Great Britain in 1964 bythe Pall Mall Press Ltd.77-79 Charlotte Street, London W.I, England

First published in France in 1961 under the titleLA GUERRE M O D E R N Eby Editions de la Table Ronde

Att rights reserved 1961 by Editions de la Table Ronde

translation 1964 by Frederick A. Praeger, Inc.

Printed in the United States of America


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Contents

A Portrait of the "Centurion," by Bernard B. Fatt viiPart One: PREPARATION FOR W A R

1. The Need To A d a p t Our Military Apparatusto M o d e r n W a rfa re 32. M odern W arfare D efined 63. An Example of a Clandestine W arfareOrganization 10

4. TerrorismThe Principal Weapon of ModernW a rfa re 165. Identifying the Adversary 266. Defense of the T erritory 29

Part Two: T H E POLITICAL AND MILITARYCONDUCT OF THE WAR

7. Direct Action on the Populations of Cities 438. E rrors in F igh ting the Guerrilla 529. The Problem of Resources 6110. Conducting Counterguerrilla Operations 67

Part Three: CARRYINGT H E W A R TO T H E ENEMY11. The Inadequacies of T radit ional W arfare 9712. Modern W arfare in Enemy Territory 104Conclusion 113

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A Portrait of the "Centurion"by B E R N A R D B. FALL

In a book that became one of France's greatest bestsellers since W orld W ar II, Jean Lart6guy gave the n ameof "centurion" to the hard-bitten French regular who hadsurvived the Indochina war, had learned his M ao T se-tungth e hard way, and later had sought to apply his lessons inAlgeria or even in mainland France.*O f that centurionas the reader no doubt knows, thiswas the title of the com pany comm anders w ho formed thebackbone of the Roman LegionsLart6guy says: "I shallalways feel attached to those men, even if I should everdisagree with th e course they choose to follow, [and] ded-icate this book to the memory of all the centurions whoperished so that R ome m ight survive.*Rome, of course, did not survive in its ancient splendorin spite of the incredible sacrifices of the centurions, nordid France survive as a world-wide empire. But in thecase of France, the centurion exists as a live hu m an being;right at this m om ent, he is either emerging from colonelcyto general's rank, or being placed on the compulsory retire-men t listor, perhaps, being sentenced to the jails of theFrench R epublic for Secret A rm y activities. F or at leastanother decade, he and his kind are likely to exert a strong

Jean Lart^guy, The C enturions ( N e w Y o rk : E. P. Dutton & Co., 1961;N ew York: A von Book Corp., 1082 [paperback]).v U


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INTRODUCTIONinfluence upon French military thinking and planning and,therefore, upon the W estern alliance as a whole.

The French A r m y officer, to a far greater extent than hisBritish-American counterpart, has spent the last quarter ofa century fighting desperate rear-guard actions againsthighly politicized irregulars. In addition, the lack of co-herent political leadership from Paris in the chaotic yearsof th e Fourth Republic left the French military with aheavy burden of making political decisions at every level.Local commanders, for exam ple, had to m ake the decisionwhether or not to arm local levies and if so, of what politi-cal or religious persuasion. In Indochina, such officersoften of captain's rank or lowerraised Catholic, Buddhist,Cao-Dai, Hoa-Hao, or m oun tain tribal m ilitia forces when-ever they did not use outright river pirates or desertersfrom the Communists. In return for such military assist-

officers undertook political com-ing nature: They swore solemnliven group from Communist re-ance by themitments of a far-reachoaths to protect either aprisals or a given territory whose population had com-mitted itself to them. From a purely tactical involvement,the war (both in Indoch ina and A lgeria, but even m ore inth e latter) became a highly personal involvement. A n o f f i -cer who would, under normal circumstances, have aban-doned a given position for tactical reasons felt compelledto hold it because he himself had "promised" to hold itand promised not his own superiors, but the people amongwhom he fought IT o withdraw became not o!rily proof of military failure,butand this above alla blemish on one's personal hono ras an "officer and a gentleman." To the Anglo-Americanmind, which sees its officers as Colonel Blimps and GeneralJubilation T. Cornpones (or their real-life counterparts ofthe retired extreme right-wing variety), this view of war


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INTR ODU C TION faseems inconceivable. And it is, of course, inconceivable inconventional war, where it is perfectly permissible to loseor win a terrain feature without losing one's militaryhonor. T he "I shall return" of General Ma c A r t h u r a m p l yredeemed th e surrender of Corregidor; th e Inchon landing,the bloody retreat to Pusan beachhead. But in such con-ventional wars (T rinqu ier calls them "traditional," toemphasize their obsoleteness), military operations go onwithout regard for the hapless civilian population. No oneasks it to tak e sides in the struggleat any rate, not at first,while the battle rages.

In revolutionary war (or, as T rinquier calls it through-out the book, italicizing the term for emphasis, "modernwarfare9), th e allegiance of the civilian population be-comes one of the most vital objectives of the wholestruggle. This is indeed the key message that Trinquierseeks to impress upo n his reader: Military tactics and hard-ware are all well and good, but they are really qu ite uselessif one has lost the confidence of the population amongwhom one is fighting.A nd R oger T rinquier is extremely well qualified to writeon this subject, for his own background m a k e s him theperfect example of the scholarly warrior of peasant stockthat is a vanishing breed in the other W estern arm ies. (Inall likelihood, Communist China's armies still have a fewin their ranks, not the least of w ho m is M ao Tse-tung.)Trinquier was born in 1908 in La Beaume, a small m o u n -tain village in the F rench A lps where he still owns a homeand spends his vacations. U nti l the age of thirteen , hewent to the one-room village school. Because he was abright student, his parents directed him toward what wasthen the most obvious path to social betterment for theson of a poor farmerschoolteaching. H e successfullypassed the entrance examinations to the Normal School


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X * INTRODUCTIONof Aix-en-Provence and graduated at the age of twenty,ready for a lifetime of teaching in the back country ofsoutheastern France.But like all other Frenchmen his age, he first had to putin his two years of compulsory military service. Since it isstill a French saying that the schoolteachers make up thebackbone of the French Army's reserve officers' corps, itwas not surprising that Trinquier was sent to Reserve O f-ficers' School. Although most schoolteachers consider theirmilitary career a necessary evil, Trinquier thought it arevelation of a vaster, more active world. He requested atransfer to the Officers' School of Saint-Maixent, then grad-uated, in 1931, into the French Marine Infantry; and sincethe French Marines (they were known as "Colonials" from1870 until 1961, but have now taken on their old nameagain) were specifically trained for overseas duty, theyoung lieutenant soon found himself on a trip to the FarEast

His first assignment, as was the rule then, was probablyhis toughest: He found himself in command of an outpostat Chi-Ma, in the wildest and most isolated part of theSino-Tonkinese border region, aptly called the "OneHundred Thousand Mountains,19 fighting Chinese piratesand opium smugglers. To stay alive there, one had to relyon native help, and Trinquier quickly learned how to findit. He also learned some of the mountaineer dialects. Uponhis return to France in 1937, he was picked for anotherdelicate assignment, as a member of the French Marineforce guarding the International Concession in Shanghai,where Japan's aggression had just unleashed World WarII. Trinquier was then reassigned to the command of oneof the two Marine companies guarding the French Embassyin Peking. Other major powersthe United States, Britain,Italy, and Japanalso had units in the diplomatic enclave.Trinquier became very friendly with the American com-


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INTRODUCTION XImander, Colonel M arstone, and he also learned Chinese.W hen W orld W a r II officially broke out in Europe, InSeptember, 1939, T rin qu ier was transferre d back to Shang-hai as deputy to the French battalion com m ander there .Pearl Harbor and its aftermath created an anomalous situ-ation: Although the British and American units in Shang-hai were disarmed and interned by the Japanese, theFrenchbecause they were under the nom inal control ofth e Vichy Governm ent in German-occupied Francewereleft unmolested and fully armed. The Japanese, however,did not trust th e Vichy forces indefinitely; having over-whelmed them in Indochina, on M a r c h 9, 1945, they didlikewise in Shanghai on the following day, whereuponTrinquier got a taste of Japanese im prisonm ent. (T he ex-istence of the French units in China was to lead, in at leastone instance, to a rather comical situation after V -J D a y :W hen A m erican M arines in f u l l battle gear went ashorenear T ientsin, they w ere greeted by a French M a ri n e de-tachment that presented arms to them . It was part of thenearby Peking garrison that had picked up its weaponsagain after the Japanese surrender.)Promoted to the rank of captain in 1942 by the VichyGovernment, T rinquier, like m ost of his comrades inneighboring Indochina, neither broke with Vichy norsought to join General de Gaulle's Free French Forcesafact that was later to affect his career decisively. H is pro-motions were to come slowly, and the m u t u a l distrust(more often, dislike) between th e Free French officers andthose who, though sympathetic to the Allied cause, hadremained faithful to their soldier's oathor so they were torationalize itnever quite disappeared. It explains Trin-quier's strong animosity toward de Gaulle, w hich he doesnot bother to hide and which comes through quite clearlyin his political statem en ts.

Liberated from the Japanese after V-J Day, Trinquier,


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XU INTRODUCTIONlike man y of his comrades, sought an assignment in Indo-chinaperhaps as a demonstration that his wartime al-legiance was dictated by motives other than fear of battle.Arriving in Saigon on January 3, 1946, he became aplatoon commander in the commando group of MajorPonchardier, which had been given the difficult task ofclearing Vietminh elements out of the swamps and ricepaddies surrounding the city. U pon his return to France,however, Trinquier learned that, like other officers whohad remained faithful to Vichy, he was to be dismissedfrom the service. But since a senior officer who had knownhim when he was a young second lieutenant at Chi-Maintervened in his behalf, C aptain T rinquier wa s assigned,on February 1, 1947, to Tarbes and P au, where the Frenchairborne training center had been created. ( T h e officerwho had saved Trinquier's career was himself an old "In-dochina hand," General Raoul Salan, later commander-in-chief in Indochina and Algeria. In 1961 he was to lead therevolt a ga ins t Ge neral de Gau lle's A lgerian policies;caught and convicted of attempting to overthrow theFrench Republic, Salan is now serving a life sentence in aFrench military prison.)

O n N ove m ber 14, 1947, T rinquier ag ain landed in Indo-china as second-in-command of the 1st Colonial ParachuteBattalion, whose command he was to assume in Septem-ber, 1948, after its commander had been killed in action.Promoted to the rank of major, Trinquier and his unit par-ticipated in the grim inch-by-inch clearing operations onthe Plain of Reedshe was to para chu te into it four timesand in southern Central V ietnam . T hose are exactly thesame areas in which Vietnamese troops and their Ameri-can advisers are heavily involved today.After another tour of duty in France as commander ofthe Commando Training Center in Frjus and of the Colo-


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INTRODUCTION *

nial Paratroop School, Trinquier returned to Indochina inDecember, 195.1, to take over a brand-new service justcreated by M arshal Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, France'sbest commander-in-chief in the Far East. (Regret tab ly , hewa s to die of cancer w ithi n a year. ) De Lattre had decidedto turn the Vietminh's skill in fighting behind the linesagainst the Vietminh itself by i m p l a n t i n g a n t i -C om m u n i s tguerrillas deep inside the enemy's territory. In view of hisknowledge of the northern hill areas and tribal groups,Trinquier w as selected as the leader for the northern opera-tions; his first efforts were soon crowned with success, forcontact team after contact team w as dropped into enemyterritory, and, contrary to expectations, motet managed tosurvive and fight. /W h e n T rinquier 's methods became known to the Ameri-can military advisers in Saigon, he was invited to visitAmerican antiguerri l la-training centers in Korea andJapan. T w o young A m e r i c a n officers also returned withhim to Indochina to learn from his operations, and A m e r i -can equipment for his guerrilla units became readily avail-able. By mid-1951, Major Trinquier received command ofall behind-the-lines operations in Indochina, and his unitsbecame officially known as G C M A , or Groupements deCommandos Mixtes Aroport6s (Composite AirborneC om m a n d o Gr ou p s ) , a name that w as changed, in De-cember, 1953, to G M I ( G r o u p e m e n t M i x t e d'Intervention,or Composite Intervention Group), when their missionwas extended beyond airborne com m ando operations.By late 1953, almost 20,000 m en were under his com-mandprobably the largest unit ever commanded by anarmy majorand engaged in operations covering several

thousand square miles of enem y territory. N a tiv e tribes-m en were flocking to his maquis in greater numbers thancould be armed and trained; but before he could make


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X tV INTRODUCTIONfull use of them , what trinquier-in a masterly understate-mentcalls "the regrettable Dien Bien P hu incident*ended th e Indochina war.W hat followed was a horribledebacle: Thousands of partisans had to be abandoned tothe enemy, since th e stipulations of the Geneva cease-fireof 1954 did not permit the French to continue to supplythem.T rinqu ier asserts tha t he had asked the U nited States,which had not signed th e cease-fire agreement, to continueto supply the guerrillas, but that his request had beenturned down. A lthough the partisans and their Frenchcadres fought on long beyond the cease-fire, they wereeventually wiped out one by one.* In his final operationsreport (which I found in som e forg otten archives in Pa r i s )fT rinquier could not help but show som e of his deep feel-ings about his abandoned men:

The total suppression of logistical support . . .will bring inits w a k e the progressive liquidation of our [infiltrated] ele-ments. There is little hope of seeing the leaders of our maquisescape the "clemency" of President H o Chi Minh.A s of August 15, 1954, fifteen enemy regular battalions,fifteen regional battalions and seventeen regional companiesare now committed against them. Ceasing operations as perorders at the very m om ent w hen they were about to triumph,our maquis, undefeated on the field of battle, have been of-fered up for sacrifice.W h ile th e [ C C M A l command has, with discipline, ac-cepted the sacrifice of the maquis, it no longer feels morallyauthorized to ask its partisans to remain at our disposalIn this bloodthirsty adventure, their only consolation re-mains the pride of having won the last successes of that cam-paign, and of having created a veritable popular uprisingagainst the V ietminh. For a more detailed description of CCMA operations, see BernardFall, Street W ithout Joy: Indoch ina at War, 1946-1963 (3d rev.ed; HAT-rfcburg; Stackpole, 1963).


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INTRODUCTION X ODuring those decisive years in Indochina, Trinquierbegan to study in depth the principles of "modern war-

fare," of which the pages that follow will give a detailedaccount, but the years of combat in Algeria tha t were tofollow probably added a political dimension that was here-tofore lacking in him. Assigned as a lieutenant-colonel tothe 10th Parachute Division of General Massu (anotherold Indochina hand), he narrowly missed the Suez inva-sion of 1956another perfect illustration, from his pointof view, of the frustration by politics of what seemed tobe a "sound" military operationand found himself as-signed, with all the other units of the 10th, to clearing thetown of A lgiers of all terrorists. Bom b- and gren ade-thro w-ing in Algiers had, in 1957, become an everyday occur-rence, against which the regular police was all butpowerless.Massu, Trinquier, and the camouflage-clad paratroopersof the 10th "waded" into the situ at ion w ith a cold ferocitythat m a d e headlines throughout the world and providedLart^guy's The Centurions with its choicest passages. Italso provided T rinquier w ith a Cartesian rationale for theuse of torture in revolutionary wa r; tortu re is the particularbane of the terrorist, just as antiaircraft artillery is that ofthe airman or machine-gun fire that of the foot soldier.T rinquier's methods won the day in Algiers; but the dyingFourth Republic felt that it could not afford to let himremain much longer in the public eye, and Trinquier tem-porarily went to command the French Airborne Center atPau.

But his old protector, General Salan, soon recalled himto A lgeria to becom e the com m and er of the 3d Colonial A ir-borne Regiment. That unit took on the onerous task of seal-ing off the Tunisian border south of the "Morice Line"theelectronic 300-kilometer-long fence constructed by theFrench A rm y from the Mediterranean to the desertalong


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01 * I N T RO D U CT I O Nits Saharan fringe. A s Trinqiiter was to describe in detail inanother book,* he found himself by accident rather thandesign in the Algiersar^a when the May 13, 1958, putschin Algiers tedTolfie return of General de Gaulle to power,but he nevertheless took an important part in establishingthe\famous P ublic Safety Com m ittee of Algiers.Soon in disagreement with de Gaulle's policies, he re-turned to the command of his regiment to participate inthe mop-up operations of the "Challe Plan," named afterthe new commander-in-chief, A ir Force General Challe.Between July, 1959, and M arc h, 1960, the 3d Airborne, ina series of relentless pursuits, broke the Algerian national-ists' hold on one of the most difficult areas in Algeria, E lMilia. M ilitarily, the end seemed in sight, but, interna-tionally, pressures had begun to build up against France.T he Algerian war was expensive, all the newly independ-ent nations were turning against France, and even herown allies no longer voted with her in the U nited N ations.In a history-making "tour of the officers' messes" ("latournte des popotes") in M arch , 1960, de Gaulle explainedto his officers in A lgeria that, inevitably, the country wouldachieve independence.To the new generation of technicians of revolutionarywarfare, that political solution was abhorrent, N ot swayedby the internation al im plications of the situation , they be-lieved that to abandon Algeria when military victoryseemed so near for the first t im e would be not only ano therrank betrayal of a personal commitment but also a directcondemnation of their methods of combat. T he reactionthat set in was to lead many of them out of the army andinto prisonand a few to the firing squad.T rinquier him self was, beyond a doubt, saved by cir-cumstances. While the Algerian storm was brewing, heRoger Trinquier, Le coup d'tiat du 13 mai (Paris: Editions 1'EspritNouveau,1063).


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INTRODUCTION *had been recalled from his command to help PresidentMoise Tshombe of Katanga Province organize his white-cadred forces. He ha d arrived in Elisabethville on Janu-ary 25, 1961; he was expelled from Ka t a n g a on M a r c h 9,under Belgian and U .N . pressure. H e was in A then s writ-ing up his recommendations fo r Katanga when most of hisformer associates became involved, on Apri l 21, 1961, inthe abortive "generals' mutiny** in Algiers. His army career,at best, was finished, and his request to be put on the re-tired list met with no opposition.But T rinquier seem s to have found a new avocation inpolitical writing and lecturing, which may indicate that hehas certain political ambitions for the future. It would bedifficult to classify him by A m erican s tandards as radically"right wing," for his acquaintance with M ao leads him toaccept the need for social reforms as an i n s t r u m e n t in de-feat ing Communism. In his recent writings, however, hehas attacked what he considers to be the high-handedmethods of the Fifth Republic in the field of civil liberties;yet his own writings clearly show that he would not shrinkfrom using the same methods, if necessary, himself.

To be sure, the informed reader will find in the follow-in g pages much that will shock him or that will strike himas incredible. In m an y cases, T rinqu ier, like any other per-son who is certain he holds the key to absolute truth,underplays the difficulties some of his counterinsurgencymeasures are likely to raise and encounter or neglects toexplain all the failures satisfactorily. F or example, al-though it is true that th e GCMA's t ied down a Vietminhforce three times their own size during the battle of DienBien Phu, they never succeeded in seriously hamperingCommunist supply lines to the besieged fortress. Likewise,there has never been solid evidence to prove that a realeffort w as madeas T rinquier advocates hereto infiltratecounterguenilla maquis into Tunisia to attack Algerian


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INTRODUCTIONbases; or that such maquis, if they ever existed, weresuccessful.

But on the other hand, American readersparticularlythose who are concerned with today's operations in SouthVietnamwill find to their surprise that their variousseemingly "new" counterinsurgency gambits , from stra-tegic hamlets to large-scale pacification, are mere rehashesof old tactics to which helicopters, weed killers, and rapid-firing rifles merely add a new dimension of speed andbloodiness without basically changing the character of thestrugglenor its outcome, if the s a m e political errors thatthe French have made are repeated. And the careers ofTrinquier and of his num erou s com rades still in the FrenchA r m y prove tha t F rance has an am ple reserve of counterin-surgency specialists whose qualifications are second tonone.It is, once again, Lartguy who brings into sharp focusthat type of soldier, when one of his key characters, justsuch a revolutionary-warfare colonel, jokingly states thatFrance should have tw o armiesone with ''lovely guns"and "distinguished and doddering generals," and the other"composed entirely of young enthusiasts in camouflagedbattle dress, who would not be put on display, but fromwhom impossible efforts would be demanded. ..."Towhich another character answers with a warning: "You'reheading for a lot of trouble."But the trouble into which a regular army must inevi-tablyperhaps fatallyrun wh en it is commit ted to a longstring of revolutionary wars is only dimly perceived inAmerica so far. Colonel Trinquier's book should do muchto serve as a timely warning.Alexandria, VirginiaOctober,1963


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ONE

PREPARATION FORW AR


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/. The Need To Adap t O ur MilitaryApparatus to Modern W a r f a r e

The defense of national territory is the raison ff&tre of anarmy; it should always be capable of accomplishing thisobjective.Since the liberation of France in 1945, however, theFrench Army has not been able to halt the collapse of ourEmpire. And yet, the effort the country has made for thearmy is unprecedented. No French military man ought torest until we have created an army at last capable of assur-ing the defense of our national territory.W e still persist in studying a type of warfare that nolonger exists and that we shall never fight again, while wepay only passing attention to the war we lost in Indochinaand the one we are about to lose in Algeria. Yet the aban-donment of Indochina or of Algeria is just as important forFrance as would be the loss of a metropolitan province.The result of this shortcoming is that the army is notprepared to confront an adversary employing arms andmethods the army itself ignores. It has, therefore, nochance of winning.It is a fact that in Indochina, despite a marked superi-ority in materiel and in troops, we were beaten. From onecampaign to another, our commanders tried to drive theVietminh into a classic pitched battle, the only kind weknew how to fight, in hope that our superiority in materielwould allow an easy victory. The Vietminh always knew91-5016


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4 MODERN WART ABBhow to elude such maneuvers. When they finally acceptedthe conventional battle so vainly sought for several years,it was only because they had assembled on the battlefieldresources superior to our own. That was at Dien Bien Fhuin May, 1954.Despite the record, our army Is employing, with few ex-ceptions, the identical combat procedures in North Africa.We are trying in the course of repeated complex operationsto seize an adversary who eludes us. The results obtainedbear no relation to the resources and efforts expended. Infact, we are only dispersing, rather than destroying, theattacked bands.Our military machine reminds one of a pile driver at-tempting to crush a fly, indefatigably persisting in repeat-ing its efforts.

The inability of the army to adapt itself to changed cir-cumstances has heavy consequences. It gives credence tothe belief that our adversaries, who represent only weakforces, are invincible and that, sooner or later, we shallhave to accept their conditions for peace. It encouragesthe diffusion of dangerously erroneous ideas, which even-tually become generally accepted. France is accused ofhaving conducted rigged elections in Algeria, and one isled to believe that those carried out under the aegis of the(Algerian) National Liberation Front (F.L.N.) would begenuine. At the same time, it is well known that any threatthat would subsequently confront the voters would be ef-fective in quite a different way from the former, merelyadministrative, pressures.All this is nonetheless what a large part of our own presstries to tell the public.W e know that it is not at all necessary to have the sym-pathy of a majority of the people in order to rule them.The right organization can turn the trick.


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PREPARATION TOR WAR 5This is what our adversaries are accomplishing in Al-geria. Thanks to a special ly adap t ed organiza t ion and to

appropriate methods of warfare, they have been successfulin imposing themselves upon entire populations and inusing them, despite their own desires in the matter, againstus. Our enemies are submitting us to a kind of hateful extor-tion, to which we shall have to accede in the end if we can-not destroy the warfare system that confronts us. W e wouldbe gravely remiss in our duty if we should permit ourselvesto be thus deluded and to abandon the struggle before finalvictory. We would be sacrificing defenseless populations tounscrupulous enemies.


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2 . Modern W a r f a r e Defined

Since the end of World War II, a new form of warfarehas been born. Called at times either subversive warfare orrevolu t ionary warfare, it differs fundamentally from thewars of the past in that victory is not expected from theclash of two armies on a field of battle. This confrontation,which in times past saw the annihilation of an enemy armyin one or more battles, no longer occurs.Warfare is now an interlocking system of actions-political, economic, psychological, militarythat aims atthe over throw of the es tab l ished a u thor it y in a coun try a n dits rep lacemen t by ano ther reg ime . To achieve this end,the aggressor tries to exploit the internal tensions of thecountry attacked ideological, social, religious, economicany conflict liable to have a profound influence on thepopulation to be conquered. M oreover, in view of the pres-ent-day interdependence of nations, any residual griev-ance w ithin a population, no m atter how localized andlacking in scope, will surely be brought by determinedadversaries into the framework of the great world conflictFrom a localized conflict of secondary origin and impor-tance, they will always attempt sooner or later to bringabout a generalized conflict.On so vast a field of action, traditional armed forces nolonger enjoy their accustomed decisive role. Victory nolonger depends on one battle over a given terrain. Militaryoperations, as combat actions carried out against opposing

6


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PREPARATION FOR WAR 7armed forces, are of only limited importance and are neverthe total conflict.

This is doubtless the reason why the army, traditionallyattracted by the purely military aspect of a conflict, hasnever seriously approached the study of a problem it con-siders an inferior element in the art of war.A modern army is first of all one that is capable of win-ning the conflict in which its country is engaged. And weare certainly at war, because we run the risk of beingfinally defeated on the ground (as at Dien Bien Phu inMay, 1954) and because, in case of such a defeat, we shallhave to cede vast territories to our opponents.The struggle we have been carrying on for fifteen years,in Indochina as well as in Algeria, is truly a war. But whatwe are involved in is modern warfare.If we want to win, it is in this light that we must con-sider it from now on.Studies have been made in many countries of what iscalled subversive warfare. But they rarely go beyond thestage of guerrilla warfare, which comes closest to the tradi-tional form.Mindful of the Allied victory in World War II, and per-haps because it is m ore appealing to study successful com-bat methods than to dwell upon the reasons for a de-feat, only the offensive use of the guerrilla has been con-sidered. But the study of effective counter-measureshas been neglected. Some au tho rs have stressed the inade-quacy of the m eans employed against the guerrilla; othershave simply counseled reacting against the guerrilla con-fronting him with the counterguerrilla to beat him at hisown game.This is to wish to resolve a problem quickl^without hav-ing duly weighed it.The subtlest aspects of modern warfare, such as the ma-nipulation of populations, have been the subject of recent


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8 MODERN WARFAREstudies. But only some of the methods employed by anenemy to consolidate his hold over conquered populationsin peacetime have been investigated, in particular theworking of psychological action on the masses.But the rallying of opposition and the study of effectivemeans of protection have been neglected. More exactly,when the enemy's methods and their application havebeen recognized, propaganda and pressures have alwaysbeen powerful enough to influence a poorly informed pub-lic and to lead it systematically to refuse to study or usethe same methods.

We know that the sine qua non of victory in modernwarfare is the unconditional support of a population. Ac-cording to MaoTse-tung, it is as essential to the combatantas water to the fish. Such support may be spontaneous, al-though that is quite rare and probably a temporary condi-tion. If it doesn't exist, it must be secured by every possiblemeans, the most effective of which is terrorism.

In modern warfare, we are not actually grappling withan army organized along traditional lines, but with a fewarmed elements acting clandestinely within a populationmanipulated by a special organization.

Our army in Algeria is in excess of 300,000 men suppliedwith the most modern equipment; its adversary numberssome 30,000, in general poorly equipped with only lightweapons.If we were to have an opportunity to meet this enemyon the traditional field of battle, a dream vainly pursuedfor years by many military commanders, victory would beassured in a matter of hours.

The war has lasted more than six years, however, andvictory is still uncertain. The problem is more complex.

In seeking a solution, it is essential to realize that inmodern warfare we are not up against just a few armedbands spread across a given territory, but rather against an


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PREPARATION FOR W AR 9armed c lande s t i ne organiza t ion whose essential role is toimpose its will upon the population. Victory will be ob-tained only through the complete destruction of that or-ganization. This is the master concept that must guide usin our study of modern warfare.


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3, An Example of a Clandestine W a r f a r eOrganization

One example of a clandestine warfare organization isthat operating in the city of Algiers during 1956-57. It wasconstituted as an autonom ous zone by the National Lib-eration Front (F.L.N.), but was related to the F.L.N.setup throughout Algeria.The A utonom ous Zone of Algiers (Z.A.A.) operated un-der a council of four members: a political-military leader,a political assistant, a military assistant, and an assistantfor external liaison and intelligence. Decisions were madein common, but the vote of the political-military leadercounted heaviestThe city and its suburbs were divided into three regionsCentral Algiers, Algiers West, and Algiers Eastwhichoperated under regional councils identical to the zonalcouncil. Each region was divided into sectors, which, inturn, were subdivided into districts. In all, the Z.A.A.'sthree regions comprised ten sectors, or thirty-four districts.The organization of the Z.A.A. contained two distinctelements: the National Liberation Front (F.L.N.) , or po-litical arm, and the National Liberation Army (A.L.N.) , ormilitary arm. Both were integrated into the same geo-graphical breakdown, but were highly compartmentedand were united only at the regional and zonal levels.

Units of the A.L.N. and F.L.N. worked side by side in10


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PREPARATION FOR WAR 11each district, but the regional council was responsible forcoordination of their action.

The political organization (F.L.N.) of each district-based on the demi-cell of three men, then the cell, thedemi-group, the group, and the sub-district was underthe com m and of a district leader, who controlled 127 men(see the table below).

D e m i -C e l l C eU1Demi- 2 Demi-CellsCell plus a CellLeader

D emi-Group2 Cellsplus aDemi-CroupLeader

Group2 Demi-Croups plusa CroupLeader

Sub-D is tr ict2 Croupsplus aSub-DistrictLeader

Dis tr i c t2 Sub-Districtsplus aDistrictLeader

3 men 7 men 15 men 31 men 63 men 127 men

The m ilitary organization (A.L.N.) of the district con-sisted of 35 armed men. The district commander and hisdeputy were at the head of three armed groups, eachheaded by a leader and deputy and composed of threecells of three men each.

in-.__ j i i

m 1 commander of aimedgroup* o/ the district 1 deputy to thegroup commander

I_ Letter drop*

3 leaden ofarmed group*,3 deputies togroup kadafs

0(5)0--ScdbolS(The political organization had at its disposal somearmed shock groups of its own that were not part of the

A.L.N.; they constituted the F.L.N/S "police" and were


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Z * MODERN WABFABXcharged with the execution of sentences pronounced bytheir judiciary.)

The zonal council assistant for external liaison and in-telligence had at his disposal a certain number of commit-tees in which were grouped the F.L.N/s intellectuals. Thefollowing were the principal committees and their duties.

Liaison Com m ittee m aintained contact with thew i l a y a s , or major military districts (Algeria was dividedby the F.L.N. into six w i l a y a s ) ; with the Committeefor External Coordination (C.C.E.), forerunner of thepresent Provisional Government of the Algerian Repub-lic (G.P.R.A.); and with the Exterior; Tunisia, Morocco,France.

Information Comm ittee at that time the embryo ofthe special services. Editorial Com mittee maintained United Nations dos-siers, "reprisal" dossiers, relations with the intellectuals,documentation for the French and other foreign press, etc.

Justice Comm ittee general surveillance of French citi-zens of Moslem origin (F.M.A.); judged cases betweenMoslems in civil and criminal law, imposed various fines,etc.

Financial Com mittee gathered funds from the popu-lation at large, using units of the F.L.N., and, in largeramounts, directly from big companies, banks, leading mer-chants, etc.

Health Comm ittee embryonic in Algiers. The sick andwounded were mostly cared for in secret in the hospitals ofthe city.

Trade Union Com mittee maintained permanent con-tact with various syndical organizations, such as the Gen-eral Union of Algerian Workers (U.G.T.A.) and the Gen-eral Union of Algerian Merchants (U.G.CA.)

A final important element of the whole Z.A.A. organiza-


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PREPARATION FOR WAR 23tion was the bomb-throwing network directly respon-sible to the zonal council. Carefully kept apart from otherelements of the organization, the network was brokendown into a number of quite distinct and compartmentedbranches, in communication only with the network chiefthrough a system of letter boxes.A chart of the organization of the bomb-throwing net-work isshown below.

ChidofNetwoik/ ^

Maaufacturt of tbt btdy ofthe bomb and delivery to (fctflock Md fta-hiaf atop,

Flniihinf, intuObf e*p)fo,fcalinc. afExiaf the dtioMlor

IMhcry W oottpUMdto tcamiof bomb-pUck

In the city of Algiers alone, the clandestine warfareorganization comprised approximately 1,200 armed m en(A.L.N.) , and 4,500 persons unarmed or semiarmed(F .L.N.) . At that time, there were scarcely a thousandpolice, equipped only to fight comm on criminals in timeof peace. Taken by surprise by an adversary of which itwas totally ignorant, the police had no chance of comingout on top. The army's intervention was therefore unavoid-able.A clandestine organization of such size and complexity


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14 'MODERN WARFABKrequires for its creation both time and a precise technique.The higher cadres, up to regional level, had all receiveda more or less thorough Marxist training; they had enteredthe organization voluntarily.The lower cadres and the rank-and-file were at first re-cruited from the seamier elements of the city, delinquentsor habitual criminals. By the very fact of their pasts, theywere already quite well adapted to the missions they weregoing to be assigned.Later on, the organization received a constant influx ofnew mem bers which kept up or augmented its forces. Themanner in which they were recruited has been revealedto us through numerous interrogations. To the question"How did you enter the A.L.N.?"which was often put tothemmost of the yo un g terrorists replied:"I w as a good worker and was earning an honest living.One day, I was stopped by a fellow who insisted I pay acertain sum to the F.L.N. At first I refused, and*was beatenup by the three men he had with him. I paid. The nextmonth the same sum was asked. I paid it without argu-ment. Some time later, I became a collector myself. I re*ceived a list of persons who were to contribute and a smallarmed team to protect me during the collection. Then, asI was athletic and in good health, I was asked to enter intothe armed organizationthe A.L.N.the Army of NationalLiberation. I wanted to refuse, but a few pointed threatsmade me accept. From that time on I was lost, because tobe admitted to the A.L.N., one first had to prove his worth;that is, to carry out an armed attack in the city. The con*ditions under which this was to be accomplished were ex-plained to me. One evening, at a fixed time and an ap-pointed place, an individual unknown to me was to giveme a loaded weapon w ith the mission to kill the first personI came across. I was then to flee,dropping the weapon intoa trashcan that the unknown person had pointed out to me.


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PREPARATION FOR WAR 25I did what wasrequired of me and, three days later, I en-tered as a member into a cell of the A.L.N."It was in this manner in the month of January, 1957, thatDoctor X of Algiers was assassinated by a young manwho did not even know the name of his victim.The means of putting pressure on the citizenry werequite varied. The following is an example of one used bythe members of the zonal council to assure their ownsecurity:

When one or several members of the council wanted toinstall themselves in a house in the Casbah, they first senta team of masons to construct a hiding place there. Themasons immediately gathered together the people in thebuilding and told them, in substance: "You are soon to re-ceive important personages. You will be responsible fortheir security with your lives." And sometimes, to indicatethat this was no idle threat, a burst of gunfire cut down onthe spot the residents who seemed to them most suspectFrom then on, the movementsof the residents were strictlycontrolled; never could more than half of them be outsideat a time. The secret was well keptYassef Saadi, political-military commissar of the Z.AA.was able to install himself within 200 yards of the office ofthe army commandant of the Algiers sector and remainthere without being found for several months before hisarrest.


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4 . TerrorismThe Principal W e a p o n o fModern W a r f a r e

The war in Indochina and the one in Algeria have dem-onstrated the basic weapon that permits our enemies tofight effectively with few resources and even to defeat atraditional army.This weapon is terror ism.

Terrorism in the service of a clandestine organizationdevoted to manipulating the population is a recent devel-opment. After being used in Morocco in 1954, it reachedits full development in Algiers in December, 1956, andJanuary, 1957. The resultant surprise gave our adversariesan essential advantage, which may have been decisive. Ineffect, a hundred organized terrorists were all that wasnecessary to cause us to give up the game quickly to theMoroccans.

Terrorism, then, is a weapon o f warfare, which can nei-ther be ignored nor minimized. It is as a weapon of war-fare that we should study it.The goal of modern warfare is control of the populace,and terrorism is a particularly appropriate weapon, since itaims directly at the inhabitant. In the street, at work, athome, the citizen lives continually under the threat of vio-lent death. In the presence of this permanent danger sur-rounding him/ he has the depressing feeling of being anisolated and defenseless target. The fact that public au-26


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PREPARATION FOR WAR I/thority and the police are no longer capable of ensuringhis security adds to his distress. He loses confidence in thestate whose inherent mission it is to guarantee his safety.He is more and more drawn to the side of the terrorists,who alone are able to protect him .

The intend ed objective, which is to cause the populationto vacillate is thus attained.What characterizes modern terrorism, and makes for itsbasic strength, is the slaughter of generally defenselesspersons. The terrorist operates within a familiar legalframework, while avoiding the ordinary risks taken by thecommon criminal, le t alone by soldiers on the field of bat-tle, or even by partisans facing regula r troops.The ordina ry crim inal kills a certain individual, usuallyonly one, for a specific purpose. Having achieved it, hemay no longer consti tute a danger to society. His crime isbased on an easily discernible motiverobbery, venge-ance, etc. To succeed, he qui te often has to run risks suffi-cient to cause his arrest. His crime is thus carried outwithin a know n fram ew ork. W ell-defined police procedurecan easily be applied, which takes whatever time is neces-sary to obtain justice, while respecting the rights of boththe individual and society.The soldier meets his adversary on the field of batt le andin uniform. He fights within a framework of traditionalrules that both sides respect. Aware of the dangers thatconfront him, the soldier has always had a high regard forhis opponent, because both run the sam e risks. W hen thebattle is over, the dead and the wounded of the two campsare treated with the same humanity; prisoners are with-drawn as quickly as possible from the battlefield and aresimply kept from fighting again until the end of the war.

For the partisan and the irregular who oppose a regulararmy, the very fact that they violate the rules of warfarein fighting without a uniform (avoiding the risks involved)


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l8 MOfltCRN WARFAREdeprives them of the protection of these same rules. Iftaken prisoner while armed, they may be shot on the spot.But the case of the terrorist is quite otherwise. Not onlydoes he carry on warfare without uniform, but he attacks,far from a field of battle, only unarmed civilians who areincapable of defending themselves and who are normallyprotected under the rules of warfare. Surrounded by avast organization, which prepares his task and assists himin its execution, which assures his withdrawaland his pro-tection, he runs practically no risks neither that of retail-ation by his victims nor that of having to appear before acourt of justice. When it has been decided to kill someonesometime somewhere, with the sole purpose of terrorizingthe populace and strewing a certain number of bodiesalong the streets of a city or on country roads, it is quiteeasy under existing laws to escape the police.

In Algiers, during 1956, the F.L.N. set up the clandes-tine warfare organization already described, and it was im-possible for the police forces to arrest a single terrorist. Inthe face of the ever increasing number of attacks, the po-lice ought to have acknowledged their impotence and ap-pealed to the army.Without the massive intervention of thef army (in par-ticular of the Tenth Parachute Division) at the beginningof 1957, the entire city would have fallen into the handsofthe F.L.N., the loss carrying with it the immediate aban-donment of all Algeria.

In a large city, police forces can partly restrict the actionof the terrorists and delay their complete control of thepopulace. Obliged to act secretly, the organization's func-tioning will be slow and difficult. Massive and drastic ac-tion by the army may even be able to stop it entirely, as inAlgiers in 1957.But in the unprotected regions that comprise the major


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PREPARATION FOB WAR 19portion of the national territory, particularly the vast areaof inhabited countryside where police forces are small ornonexistent, terrorist action encounters no opposition atthe beginning of a conflict and is most effective.

Isolated raids first reveal the existence of a partially or-ganized movement. These attract attention and promotecaution among the populace. Then, selective terrorism be-gins to eliminate lesser persons of influence, petty bureau-crats and various police officials who did not understandthe first warnings or were slow in reacting to them. Admin-istrative cadres are restrained or eliminated. The silenceand collusion of the unprotected inhabitants have beenwon. Agents of the enemy have a free hand to organizeand to manipulate the population at will.

From then on, within the midst of these people takenover by terrorism, the small armed bands whose task it isto wage guerrilla warfare are able to install themselves, inthe phrase of M ao Tse-tung, like fish in water. Fed, in-formed, protected, they are able to strike without difficultyagainst the forces of order.M o d e r n warfare requires the unconditional support ofthe populace. This support must be maintained at anyprice. Here again, terrorism plays its role.An unceasing watch is exercised over all the inhabitants.Any suspicion or indication of lack of submission is punish-able by death, quite often preceded by horrible torture.

The atrocities committed by the F.L.N, in Algeria tomaintain its hold over the populace are innumerable. I willcite but one example to demonstrate the degree to whichthey were carried in certain areas.In the month of September, 1958, the forces of ordertook possession of the files of a military tribunal of one ofthe regions of the F.L.N. In the canton of Michelet alone,in the arrondissement (district) of Fort-National in Ka-91-5016


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*0 MODERN WARFAREbylle t more than 2,000 inhabitants were condemned todeath and executed between November 1,1954, and April17,1957.Quite clearly, terrorism is a Xveapon of warfare, and itis important to stress it.Although quite old, until recently it has been utilizedonly by isolated revolutionaries for spectacular attacks,principally against high political personalities, such as sov-ereigns, chiefs of state, and ministers. Even in Indochina,where guerrillas achieved such a remarkable degree ofdevelopment that it permitted the Vietminh finally to win,terrorism has never been systematically employed. Forexample, the plastic bomb attacks outside the munici-pal theater in Saigon, which caused the greatest numberof victims, were not carried out by the Vietminh (see Gra-ham Greene's book The Quie t A m e r i ca n ) .

The terrorist should not be considered an ordinarycriminal. Actually, he fights within the framework of hisorganization, w ith ou t personal interest, for a cause he con-siders noble and for a respectable ideal, the same as thesoldiers in the armies confronting him. On the commandof his superiors, he kills without hatred individuals un-known to him, with the same indifference as the soldier onthe battlefield. His victims are often women and children,almost always defenseless individuals taken by surprise.But during a period of history when the bombing of opencities is permitted, and when two Japanese cities wererazed to hasten the end of the war in the Pacific, one can-not w ith good cause reproach him.*The terrorist has become a soldier, like the aviator or theinfantryman* Yassef Saadl, chief of the Autonomous Zone of Algiers ( Z . A . A . ) , saidafter his arrest: "I had my bombs planted in the city because I didn't havethe aircraft to transport them. But they caused fewer victims than theartillery and air bombardments of our mountain villages. I'm in a war,you cannot blame me."


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PREPARATION FOR WAR * 21But the aviator flying over a city knows that antiaircraft

shells can kill or maim him. The infantryman wounded onthe battlefield accepts physical suffering, often for longhours, when he falls between the lines and it is impossibleto rescue him. It never occurs to him to complain and toask, for example, that his enemy renounce the use of therifle, the shell, or the bomb. If he can, he goes back to ahospital knowing this to be his lot. The soldier, therefore,admits the possibility of physical suffering as part of thejob. The risks he runs on the battlefield and the sufferinghe endures are the price of the glory he receives.The terrorist claims the same honors while rejecting thesame obligations. His kind of organization permits him toescape from the police, his victims cannot defend them-selves, and the army cannot use the power of its weaponsagainst him because he hides himself permanently withinthe m idst of a population going about its peaceful pursuits.But he must be made to realize that , when he is captured,he cannot be treated as an ordinary criminal, nor like aprisoner taken on the battlefield. W hat the forces of orderwho have arrested him are seeking is not to punish a crime,for which he is otherwise not personally responsible, but,as in any war, the destruction of the enemy army or its sur-render. Therefore he is not asked details about himself orabout attacks that he may or may not have committed andthat are not of immediate interest, but rather for preciseinformatien about his organization. In particular, eachman has a superior whom he knows; he will first have togive the name of this person, along with his address, so thatit will be possible to proceed with the arrest without delay.No lawyer is present for such an interrogation. If theprisoner gives the information requested, the examinationis quickly terminated; if not, specialists must force his se-cret from him. Then, as a soldier, he must face the suffer-ing, and perhaps the death, he has heretofore managed to


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2 MODBBN WABPABBavoid. The terrorist must accept this as a condition inher-ent in his trade and in the methods of warfare that, withfull knowledge, his superiors and he himself have chosen/Once the interrogation is finished, however, the terroristcan take his place among soldiers. From then on, he is aprisoner of war like any other, kept from resuming hostili-ties unti l the end of the conflict.It would be as useless and unjust to charge him with theattacks he was able to carry out, as to hold responsible theinfantryman or the airman for the deaths caused by theweapons they use. According to Clausewitz:

War ...is an act of violence intended to compel an oppo-nent to f u l f i l l our will. . . , Self-imposed restrictions, almostimperceptible and hardly worth mentioning, termed usagesof International Law, accompany it without impairing itspower. Violence ...is therefore the means; thecompulsorysubmission of theenemy to ourwill is theultim ate object. . . .In such dangerous things as war, the errors which proceedfrom a spirit of benevolence are the worst. As the use ofphysical power to the utmost extent by no means excludesthe cooperation of the intelligence, it follows that he whouses force unsparingly, withou t reference to the bloodshedinvolved, must obtain a superiority if his adversary uses lessvigor in itsapplication. ...To introduce into the philosophy of war itself a principle ofmoderation would be an absurdity,f

These basic principles of traditional warfare retain all oftheir validity in modern warfare .Although violence is an unavoidable necessity in war-fare, certain unnecessary violence ought to be rigorously

* In France during the Nazi occupation, members of the Resistance vio-lated the rules of warfare. They knew they could not hide behind them, andthey were perfectly aware of the risks to which they were exposingthemselves. Their glory is to have calmly faced those risks with fullknowledge of the consequences.t Karl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. Col. J. J. Graham (New York:E. P. Button and Co.),12-3.


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PREPARATION FOB WAB *3banned. Interrogations in modern warfare should be con-ducted by specialists perfectly versed in the techniques tobe employed.The first condition for a quick and effective interroga-tion is to have interrogators who know what they can askthe terrorist under questioning. For this, it is first of all es-sential to place him precisely within the diagram of theorganization to which he belongs. A profound knowledgeof the organization is required. It is useless to ask a fundscollector about caches of weapons or bombs. Every clan-destine organization is strictly compartmented, and hewould know nothing about them. To ask him would be auseless waste of time. On the other hand, he does know towhom he rem its the funds and under wh at conditions. Thisis the only subject abou t which he should be questioned.It is known that the ordinary terrorist operates as part ofa three-man team; there fore he knows his com rade and hisdemi-cell superior. This is the only information he will beable to furnish, but he m ust give it qu ickly ; otherwise, theindividuals sought will have the time to disappear, thethread will be broken, and a lengthy search will quiteoften come to naught.The interrogators must always strive not to injure thephysical and moral integrity of individuals. Science caneasily place at the army's disposition the means for obtain-ing what is soughtBut we must not trifle with our responsibilities. It is de-ceitful to permit artillery or aviation to bomb villages andslaughter wom en and children, while the real enem y usuallyescapes, and to refuse interrogation specialists the right toseize the truly guilty terrorist and spare the innocent

Terrorism in the hands of our adversaries has become aformidable weapon of war that we can no longer permitourselves to ignore. Tried out in Indochina and brought to


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24 MODERN WABFABBperfection in Algeria, it can lead to any boldness, even adirect attack on metropolitan France. Thanks to the Com-munist Party, which is already on the scene and is familiarwith underground operations, it would encounter no greatdifficulty.Even a band of gangsters, lacking any political ideologyat all, but without scruples and determined to employ thesame methods, could constitute a grave danger.

In the light of present events, we can imagine in itsbroad outlines the unfolding of future aggression:A few organized and well-trained men of action willcarry out a reign of terror in the big cities. If the goalpursued is only to strew the streets nightly with a certainnumber of anonym ous corpses to terrorize the inhabitants,a specialized organization would have no difficulty, withinthe framework of existing laws, in escaping the pursuit ofthe police. The num erous attacks being com mitted nightlyin our large cities, which are nothing other than a prelude tofacilitating the creation and training of an important war-fare organization, demonstrate in a tangible way the in-adequacy of a traditional police force against modern ter-rorists. Whenever a broad attack is unfolded, the policerun the risk of being quickly overwhelmed.In the countryside, and particularly in the hilly regionssuch as the Massif Central, the A lps, or Brittany, the popu-lation has no permanent protection. Small bands couldeasily block traffic through difficult passes by killing thepassengers of the first two or three automobiles. A fewbrutalities, such as savagely executed preventive assassina-tions in the surrounding villages, will cow the inhabitantsinto providing for the maintenance of the bands and willdiscourage them from giving useful information to the au-thorities.Occasional police operations timidly carried out withinadequate forces will fail pitifully. These failures will en-


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PREPARATION FOR WAR 2$courage a goodly number of adventurers to team up withthe original outlaws, who will rapidly develop into rebels.

In this fashion, imm ense zones will be prac tically aban-doned to our adversaries and will be lost to our control.The way will be open to the guerrilla. With terrorism inthe cities and guerrillas in the countryside, the war willhave begun. This is the simple mechanism, now wellknown, which can at any instant be unleashed against us.


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5 . I d e n t i f y i n g the A d v e r s a r y

To carry out a war effectively, to win it, it is indispen-sable to identify the adversary exactly. This condition mustbe fulfilled so that our shots will strike home.Formerly, this was a simple task. According to the pe-riod of our history, he was to be found on the other side ofthe Rhine or the other side of the Channel. He had his waraims, simple and precise, as we had ours. It would havebeen useless to attempt to convert him to our cause or tohope to cause him to give up the fight without having de-feated him.To gain a victory, the nation and its army put to work allmaterial and moral resources. Any person who dealt withthe enemy, or who favored his objectives in any way, wasconsidered a traitor and was treated as such.

In modern warfare, the enemy is far more difficult toidentify. No physical frontier separates the two camps.The line of demarcation between friend and foe passesthrough the very heart of the nation, through the same vil-lage, and sometimes divides the same family. It is a non-physical, often ideological boundary, which must howeverbe expressly delineated if we want to reach the adversaryand to defeat him.Since the mili tary a rt is s imply a n d completely one ofac t i on , it is only when we have identified the enemy thatthe apparently complex problems posed to the army bymodern warfare can be reduced to realistic proportions

2 6


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PREPARATION FOR WAR * 2/and easily resolved. The criteria for arriving.at such a pointwill be difficult to establish; however, a study of the causesof the war and the aims pursued by the adversary will per-mit us to discover them.The period of preparation before the opening of hos-tilities generally takes place under cover of a legallyestablished political party; our opponents can thus getthemselves within our frontiers and under the protectionof our laws. Covered by legality, they will strive to createa climate favorable to their cause within the country andabroad and to establish on our own territory the essentialelements of their warfare organization.The fact that modern warfare is not officially declared,that a state of war is not generally proclaimed, permits theadversary to continue to take advantage of peacetime leg-islation, to pursue his activities both openly and secretly.He will strive by every means to preserve the fiction ofpeace, which is so essential to the pursuit of his design.Therefore, the surest means of unveiling the adversaryis to declare a state of war at the earliest moment, at thevery latest when the first symptoms of the struggle are re-vealed in political assassinations, terrorism, guerrilla activi-ties, etc.At this stage the* preparation of the opponent will bequite well advanced and the danger very great; to mini-mize this would be a disastrous mistake. Henceforth, anyparty that has supported or continues to support the enemyshall be considered a party of the enemy.The nation attacked must fall in behind the governmentand its army. An army can throw itself into a campaignonly when it has the moral support of the nation; it is thenation's faithful reflection because it is composed of thenation's youth and because it carries within it the hopes ofthe nation. Its unquestioned actions should be praised bythe nation to m 'nte"* the nobility of the just cause it has


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a8 MODERN WARFAREbeen charged to make triumphant. The army, whose re-sponsibility it is to do battle, must receive the unreserved,affectionate, and devoted support of the nation. A ny prop-aganda tending to undermine its m orale, causing it to doubtthe necessity of its sacrifices/ should be unmercifully re-pressed.

The army will then know where to strike. Any individ-ual who, in any fashion whatsoever, favors the objectivesof the enemy will be considered a traitor and treated assuch.

In totalitarian countries, ideological boundaries are ex-tended to the country's geographic limits, so that theremay be no doubt as to the enemy to be struck. All enemiesof the established power are eliminated or driven out ofthe national territory.

Although we should avoid these extreme measures,which are unquestionably incompatible with the ideals ofliberty dear to us and to the civilization we are defending,we cannot, obviously, defeat an enemy we have not clearlyidentified.

We know that the enemy consists not of a few armedbands fighting on the ground, but of an organization thatfeeds him, informs him, and sustains his morale. This is astate of affairs that democracy tolerates within an attackednation, but it enables the enemy to act secretly or openlyin such a way that measures which might deal him a deci-sive blow are either never taken or are indefinitely de-layed


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6 . D e f e n s e of the T e r r i t o r y

Since the stake in modern warfare is the control of thepopulace, the first objective is to assure the people theirprotection by giving them the means of defending them-selves, especially against terrorism.

W e then have to create and train organizations capableof detecting the elements our enemies will strive to intro-duce into our territory preparatory to the open struggle.Finally, if hostilities break out, if terrorism and guerrillaactivity have established them selves over a large portion ofour territory, we must combat them with the appropriatemethods, which will be far more effective than those which

would have been considered and used in peacetime.THE I N H A B I T A N T S ' O R G A N I Z A T I O N

Military schools teaching classic doctrines of warfarerely upon a number of decision factorsthe mission, theenemy, the terrain, and the resources.But one factor that is essential to the conduct of modernwarfare is omittedthe inhabitant.The battlefield today is no longer restricted. It is limit-less; it can encompass entire na tions. The inhabitant in hishome is the center of the conflict. Amidst the continuingmovement of military actions, he is the stablest element.Like it or not, the two camps are compelled to make himparticipate in the combat; in a certain sense, he has be-come a combatant also* Therefore, it is essential to prepare


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MODERN WARFABKhim for the role he will have to play and to enable him tofulfill it effectively on our side.

For the inhabitant to elude the threats of the enemy, tocease to be an isolated target that no police force can pro-tect, we m ust have him participate in his own defense. Tothis end, we have him enter into a structured organizationencompassing the entire population. No one shall be ableto avoid this service, and each person at any moment willbe subject to the orders of his civil or military superiors toparticipate in protective measures.Control of the masses through a tight organization,often through several parallel organizations, is the masterweapon of modern warfare. This is what permits the en-emy to uncover quickly any hostile element within a sub-jugated population. O nly w hen we have created a similarorganization will we be able to discover, and as quicklyeliminate, those individuals the enemy tries to introduceamong us.The creation of such an organization may run into se-rious difficulties, but they are not insurmountable if wefirmly desire to succeed. There will be no lack of good will;danger will create it. The experience of the battle of Al-giers provides us with a sound basis for this assumption.First, we designate an energetic and intelligent man ineach city who will, with one or more reliable assistants,build the projected organization with a minimum of helpfrom the authorities.The principle is very simple. The designated leader di-vides the city into districts, at the head of each of which heplaces a chief and two or three assistants. These, in turn,divide the district into sub-districts and designate a chiefand several assistants for each of them . Finally, each build-ing or group of houses receives a chief and two or threeassistants who will be in direct contact with the populace.Careful investigation is necessary before designating


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PREPARATION FOR WAR * 32members of the organization and to prevent failures.Nevertheless, making each member responsible for thedesignation and control of his im m ediate subordinates willpermit rapid creation of the organization on a sound foun-dation.

In our overseas territories or during a period of crisis athome, when for a variety of reasons we may not be sure ofthe loyalty of the people particularly if the enemy organi-zation previously created is sufficiently strong to oblige thepopulation to walk carefullythe problem will be morecomplex, since the inhabitants will reject any responsibil-ity that might subject them to the adversary's retaliation.

In this case, the pyramid of our organization is createdfrom the bottom up by the police forces charged withmaintaining order. Mobile gendarmerie squadrons, withtheir accustomed police contacts with the people, will beespecially qualified to perform this delicate task.First, they conduct a careful census of the entire popu-lation. The basic leader of the organizational structure willbe the head of the family. He is made responsible for allinhabitants of his apartment or house, and for keeping upto date the list established at the time of the census.During the taking of the census, we designate at thenext echelon a chief of a group of houses (or of a building,or a floor of a building), who will be responsible for a cer-tain number of heads of family, four or five at most.

Finally, when the census is completed and a close rela-tionship established with the population, chiefs of sub-districts will be designated. According to the way in whichthe city is divided up, it will be possible tor a sub-districtleader to be made responsible for some ten chiefs of housegroups. Since this individual will play a key role, the dis-trict commander should appoint him and then only aftercareful investigation. The essential quality of a potentialsub-district leader is that he have firm attachments in the


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32 * MODERN WARFABSsub-district (a business or shop, affluence, a large family).That is, he should have a standard of living or family tiesthat it would be difficult for him to abandon.

There will be no structural echelon above the sub-district leader. His role is too important for him to beeasily commanded, and he will be too vulnerable a targetfor the enem y. The organization will actually be a pyramidof which the sub-district leader will constitute the apex.In case of war, a special civil and military organism isset up for an entire medium-sized city or for districts in thelarger cities. Its essential role is to transmit orders to thesub-district leaders, to see to their execution, and to gatherinformation the sub-district leaders will provide. Havingpermanent contact with the sub-district leaders, this spe-cial organism will ensure continuing and correct executionof instructions issued to the various echelons of the organi-zation.The population census will permit each inhabitant to begiven a ce n s us ca rd , one or two copies of which will re-main in the possession of the forces of order.The card will include a photograph of the individual, aswell as, say, his house-group number (e.g., 3), the letter ofthe sub-district ( B ) , the number of the district (2), andthe letter designating the ci ty (A) . The result will consti-tute what amounts to a catalog number (A.2.B.3.) , whichwill, in the course of frequent checks, enable us to keeptabs on each individual and on the ability of the leadersupon whom he depends.

This organization will permit the command to enlist theparticipation of the populace in its own protection. To acertain extent, it will be able to participate in the tasks ofthe forces of order and carry out simple police missions.Detection, surveillance, and occasionally the arrest of dan-gerous individuals will be managed without difficulty, andthe transmission of instructions will always be easy and


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PREPARATION FOR WAR 33quick. The organization will rapidly become one of theessential elements of the territorial command and willassume an ever increasing importance. A special office,which we shall call the bureau of the i nhabi tan t s 9 organi-zat ion a n d control , will be necessary to monitor the organi-zation's activity.In case of emergency, this organism would be in a posi-tion to establish w ithou t delay very strict control over foodsupplies, animals, and all resources our adversaries coulduse against us. This organization will enable the preciseidentification of the outlaw: Any individual who is slowto establish himself and does not enter the organizationwould, in effect, be an outlaw,A careful search of the population is necessary to findmen capable of being leaders of the organization at itsvarious echelons. The bulk of the population is by habitor tradition normally devoted to established authority andthe forces of order. The people will be ready to help if weask their aid, on the condition that we will at all times sup-port and protect those who are on our side. This pro tectionis one of the essential missions of the inhabitants' organi-zation.

Good will is never lacking even in the most troubled oftimes. Indochina and, later, Algeria have amply proventhis. But we ought never to forget that ambition has al-ways been a powerful incentive for a young and dynamicelite that wishes to get out of its rut and arrive. It is largelyto this youth that we must appeal. We must bind them tous and compensate services rendered according to theirworth.Finally, of course, we may always assure ourselves oftheir loyalty by placing them w ithin an organization it willbe difficult to leave once adm itted.This inhabitants' organization certainly runs counter toour traditional spirit of individualism and may promote


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34 MODERN WABFABBdangers to our liberties that we must not minimize. Theanalogy with certain totalitarian organizations will affordour adversaries easy opportunities to attackus.But we cannot permit ourselves to be deluded. There isa fundamental difference. Our organization is a defensiveone, the sole aim of which is to ensure the protection of thepopulace, particularly against the danger of terrorism. Noindividual entering it need abdicate a particle of his basicliberties; but in the face of a common enemy, each willgive under discipline his total and unreserved assistance tohis fellows and his superiors. Once the war is won or thedanger has passed, our organization will have no reason toexist.Abuses are always possible. The organization will haveto be seriously controlled, so that it remains solely a meansof protection against the external enemy and does not be-come a vehicle for internal political pressure. This cannothappen if it is created in a spirit of justice and if the bur-dens it necessitates are equitably shared among all the in-habitants of a given region, no matter what their socialcircumstances may be.One should not lose sight of the fact that this is the solemeans we have to assure the protection of peaceful citizensand to prevent terrorism from forcing them into a harshand inhuman servitude.Formerly, nations spent huge sums for the constructionof fortifications designed to protect themselvesagainst in-vasion. Today, the inhabitants' organization, the elite for-mation designed as a framework for protection and to giveus information about the enemy's clandestine penetrationof our territory, constitutes the modern means of defenseaga in s t modern warfare.Any country that does not create such an organizationruns a permanent danger of being invaded. The financialoutlays called for cannot be compared with those needed


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PREPARATION FOB WAB * 35for the construction of elaborate fortifications. We have noexcuse if we do not create such an organization.

COUNTRYWIDE INTELLIGENCEWith a reliable intelligence service, we would be ableto detect all infiltration attemp ts against our territory and

to discover who are those indispensable to the enemy'spreparation of his projected offensive action.The inhabitants will know them, since they suffer ter-ribly from their activities, but will not denounce theseagents unless they can do so wi thout risk. Fear of reprisalwill always prevent them from communicating to us infor-mation they possess.

The inhabitants' organization, which in large measureassures their security, will therefore be an important or-ganism for information. In its very creation, it passes theentire population through a sieve and learns the circum-stances in which each person lives. Co ntac ts are m ad e, anda certain confidence in the forces of order established.Then, frequent meetings of responsible leaders at vari-ous echelons will permit regular and frequent relations be-tween the authorities and qualified representatives of thepeople. M uch inform ation will also be ga thered , the sourceof which our adversaries will not succeed in discovering.W e will thus have created an initial element of securityand understanding.

We cannot hope to transform all the inhabitants intoagents. But since modern warfare asserts its presence onthe totality of the population, we have to be everywhereinformed. Therefore, w e m ust have a vast intelligence net-work, which ought to be set up, if possible, before theopening of hostilities.During a period of crisis, we complain of not beingbetter informed. W e accuse the people unjustly of con-cealing the truth or of not giving us die information they91-5016


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36 MODERN WARPABBpossess. And very often, because we have not preparedanything, we will be tempted to obtain by violence infor-mation that a well-organized service would have given uswithout difficulty.Select ive terrorism, as we have seen, will, even beforethe opening of hostilities, put an end to our regular intelli-gence agents. Leaders and small functionaries are its firstvictims. The threat of the enemy's warfare organizationquickly condemns the population to silence. When hos-tilities begin, we shall be cut off precipitously from allsources of information if we have made no provision toguard against it.Even before the inhabitants have been organized, weought to give a portion of the populace the chance of in-forming us securely. The time is past when a specializedservice could recruit a few agents haphazardly and from aquite special sector of society.W e have to have numerous and secretly established cen-ters of accelerated training, where we will be able to trainquickly a great number of inhabitants in the agent roleswe shall ask them to play. Their training will be essentiallypractical: It will be limited to teaching them a few ele-mentary procedures for transmitting simple information(telephone, letter box, dead-drop, etc. ) f which will be suffi-cient to ensure their protection.W e then distribute them throughout all phases of hu-man activityfactories, yards, administrative offices, thelarge public services everywhere people gather we willbe present, thanks to them. W e shall almost always be ableto recruit them in the very circles of interest to us; if not,we shall get them jobs appro pria te to their professional orvocational aptitudes that will serve th em as cover.These "benevolent" agents can give us information ontheir milieu and inform us of the agents the enemy at-tempts to infiltrate into the population that is, such basic


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PREPARATION FOR W AR 3/activists as fund collectors, propagandists, strike leaders,etc., who usually constitute the first echelon of the oppo-nent's organization. Working among them, often in theirvery midst, our agents can discover them without diffi-culty.This intelligence network, despite its extent and the con-siderable number of agents it will put to work, can becreated at little expense. Their employment itself will pro-vide the agents with a steady income. Various premiumsfor production will usually be sufficient to sustain theirenthusiasm.Information is nothing in itself, particularly during acrisis, if it is not quickly exploited. Therefore, we mustcreate an intelligence-action service capable of exploitingits own information in the shortest possible time.Certain individuals of our broadly based intelligencesystem, after proving their exceptional qualities, will beable to enter the intelligence-action service. They oughtto be capable of detecting, following, and sometimes evenarresting the enem y agents they uncover.But our best agents will be furnished to us by the enemyhimself. During the course of interrogations, we should al-ways bear in mind that the majority of individuals ar-rested, if we have enough flexibility, can change camp.Many among them have passed over to the service of theenemy only through duress and have been kept theresolely by a continuing threat of blackmail. If we gener-ously offer them another path with our protection, theywill become our most faithful collaborators.

As for others, it will suffice to lead them to denounceopenly members of the organization whom they know,particularly their superiors and their subordinates. Fromthen on, they are no longer able to betray us and will col-laborate with us if only to assure their own protection.Finally, experience has demonstrated that, although


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3# * MODERN WABFABXconfessions and conversions may be diflBcult to obtain atlower echelons, they are, at a higher level, and especiallyamong intellectuals, usually easy and quick.It is thus that we shall recruit the basic agents of ourin te l l igence-act ion service. Well trained by specialists ofthe forces of order, they will themselves be prepared toexploit their own information in the destruction of theopposing organization.But, except for a few individuals capable of playing adouble-agent role, profitable use of them is of short dura-tion. W e shall have to renew them frequently, particularlyafter all their information has been exploited.This service should cooperate with all the elementscharged with exploiting leads, be prepared to followclosely all police operations, and be au couran t of all ar-rests so as to utilize to the maximum all recruitment pos-sibilities.A well-organized intelligence service can make us awareof the structure of the warfare organization our opponentsseek to implant upon our territory.The most effective solution would no doubt consist ofdestroying these opponents before they constitute a dan-ger. However, if for various reasonsin general, politicaloneswe are not authorized to do this, we ought to ob-serve their development closely so as to be in a position toarrest them the moment the order is given.The best way to be well informed consists in introducingour own agents into the organization of the enemy and incorrupting his agents. This is a delicate task that only a fewproven agents will be able to accomplish.As the adversary's organization begins to expand, ouropponents, working hi an enemy country, will find thattheir freedom of action becomes more limited. They runinto increasing difficulties as they recruit more and morepersons; they are no longer able to exercise tight control


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PREPARATION FOR W AR 39over all their agents. Then we will have the opportunitiesof introducing our own agents into their organization, andwe ought to exploit them.Here again, the best candidates will be furnished to usby the enemy himself. The security of a clandestine organ-ization is assured by rigorous compartmentation. Personalcontacts are, for reasons of security, rare at higher eche-lons. A well-trained intelligence-action service should beable to make frequent arrests of members of the enemyorganization in utmost secrecy. We should try to makethem pass quickly into our service, permitting them to re-main within their own organization after having estab-lished a sure system of communications.We should not underestimate our adversaries, norshould w e overestimate them and a ttr ibute to them powersthey do not possess. They, too, will always have inn um er-able difficulties to overcome. The thing that makes theirtask easy is the absence of a special service created to com-bat them, and the practically total freedom we permitthem in the field of clandestinity.If we prepare ourselv.es in peacetime to face modernwarfare, if we provide the people with a means of defend-ing themselves, if we take precautions to be informed atall times of the preparations and the intentions of our ad-versaries, then we shall have no difficulty in quick ly takingthe necessary action when the time comes to reduce ouradversaries to impotence.This capability will not go unnoticed; in itself, it may besufficient to discourage any at tempt at a trial of force andserve to maintain the peace. If, however, our adversariesshould decide to pass over to open warfare, we wo uld haveat hand the means of crushing any enemy who attempts tocarry the war onto our territory.But if the measures decribed above are not adopted, ouradversaries will be able to undertake an open struggle to


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40 MODERN WARFAREattain their final objective, which is to overthrow the es-t abl i shed authority a n d t o rep lace i t with their ow n s y s -tem.

Since it is the population that is at stake, the struggle willassume two aspects:

Documents

Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency