AFAIK there have been very few successful wars waged against guerrilla forces which have the support of the local population. I can think of only one clear example:
Boer War: which invented the concept of Guerrilla warfare. Britain only won by scorched earth tactics destroying farms and burning fields and taking Boer non combatants into concentration camps, along with building tens of thousands of block houses across the Transvaal (Tactics which would now be against the Geneva conventions).
Vietnam, we know what happened, Afghanistan held off against the Soviet Union. Iraq I think most people would regard as a failure in that the goal of a stable democratic nation was not met, fighting continues. The US in Afghanistan, The Taliban still controls large areas of the country.
So what other examples are there of a war where there was a clear victory against guerrillas / insurgents who have the backing of local population? Are there ANY examples of a clear victory by a country that followed the rules of the Geneva conventions?
in theMalayan Emergency (1948-1960), British colonial forces beat the Communist Malayan National Liberation Army. The insurgency resumed against the Malaysian government between 1967 and 1989 but was again defeated.
In the Philippine-American Warof 1899-1902, the US defeated forces fighting for Philippine independence after the Spanish-American War, with the Moro Rebellion that continued after it being defeated in 1913.
Interesting that it really only ended in 1989, when the Soviet Union collapsed. Also it was mostly ethnic chinese in the Malaysian Communist Party, not Malays, so its arguable that they had the support of the local population. Same with the Boer war, they had the support of some of the locals but they’d only settled the Orange Free State and the Transvaal for around 70 years before being defeated and annexed by Britain.
Does a group have to be entirely eliminated to count as being defeated? TheSendero Luminoso or Shining Path in Peru has been defeated for all intents and purposes. It once controlled large parts of the country but is down to a few hundred holdouts. I would say that Peru’s war against them was successful.
The US defeated Geronimo and other Indian leaders who used guerrilla tactics in the Apache Wars. Geronimo himself surrendered in 1886, although some conflicts continued until 1924.
Ok yes I’d call that a victory. But I guess I should have clarified in the OP, what I meant was a successful war against a previous government that controlled a recognised sovereign nation. So the Boer war counts, while technically the Malayan Emergency and Shining path do not, they never were the governments of a sovereign nation.
And yes the Orange Free State and the South African Republic (Transvaal) were recognised sovereign states, Britain recognized them in 1854, then annexed them in 1902.
Would the Sri Lankan Civil War fit the criteria of the OP?
It ended with the defeat of the Tamil Tiger insurgency in 2009, after decades of warfare irregular and otherwise.
Northeastern Thailand was rife with communist guerrillas during the Vietnam War. As recently as the early 1980s, many areas were not safe to enter. Some credit the American action in Vietnam as delaying the communists enough to allow the Thai government to build up infrastructure in this poorest of Thailand’s regions and put paid to the guerrillas.
The present insurgency in southern Thailand dates to only 2004. A previous insurgency, also circa the Vietnam War era, was successfully wiped out. I recall graphic details of guerrillas being burned alive in trash bins for sport among other gruesome methods.
Guerilla warfare has been around longer than that. The revolt of the Maccabees against Seleucid rule is described as, what we would now call guerilla warfare. From Wikipedia:
Foreign armies defeating guerillas is very difficult. However, countries dealing with their own guerilla problems are successful more often than not. There’s a reason guerilla warfare is for the weaker side. Because they are weak. If guerilla warfare was superior to conventional warfare, we’d all just fight guerilla wars.
That’s going to eliminate a lot of cases, including Vietnam and the campaign by the mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviets, since in neither case did the insurgency represent a previous sovereign government.
Yes fair enough, what I’m really interested in are cases where a homegrown guerilla insurgency was solidly defeated by an occupying power, not where a a government defeated an internal guerrilla insurgency in a civil war.
The only Carlista War that was officially won by the side which included Carlistas was the Spanish Civil War of 1936-9. All the previous ones were officially lost by the insurgents; I say “officially lost” because in every case the actual sociopolitical objective was obtained (for most people, “the dinastic issue” was actually more of a sideline, albeit one triggered by the background issue of “no, just because you’re in charge doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want”). The reason we had several Carlista Wars (my Carlista relatives counted six, starting with the Gamazada and ending with '36) is that the next time the wind shifted, another important point would be attacked… Madrid simply couldn’t track that “You Don’t Change Laws Because You Feel Like It”.
True enough, however consider that Geronimo’s band was between 15 to 50 guys strong most of the times (IIRC at one time they banded together with a few other tribes for serious war-pathing, for a combined force of 300 or so). Meanwhile the US and Mexico had to field some 4000 blokes over six months before he was caught.
So, victory, sure, but considering the cost they might as well have let him raid a couple pissant pueblos every summer
The Brits put down a lot of their colonial uprisings, and we did as well in the Philippines. Seems that there are three levels of guerilla wars:
Guerilla warfare against sovereign, native governments. The guerillas usually lose.
Guerilla warfare against colonial occupiers. The guerillas usually lose, but lose a little less often.
Guerilla warfare against occupiers who don’t consider the territory to be their own. The guerillas usually win, because the occupier has no commitment to the occupation.
And that last sentence is the key. Whether or not guerillas can win a war depends on how determined the occupier is to stay. I suspect that Kuwaiti guerillas wouldn’t have gotten very far against Saddam Hussein, because he was quite determined to hold onto what he felt was an Iraqi province. Likewise, the Palestinians are never going to defeat Israel. Israel is an interesting case, because it’s an example of a guerilla war being completely unsuccessful with no future prospects for success, but it has managed to endure nevertheless.
The Vietnam and the mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviets would count, as would the Malayan Insurgency, the Philippine-American War, and the Apache War. By that definition, however, the Syrian and Iraqi campaigns against the Islamic State would not.
