Talk:Urban guerrilla warfare

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Perhaps this should be renamed Urban guerrilla warfare or merged into guerrilla warfare. --Descendall 04:52, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] name

Guerilla warfare is inherently rural, with an emphasis on controling the countryside (this is a major weakness of armies), based on the recognition that the conventional (government, occupying, paramilitary, etc.)forces have their strongholds in cities. Many guerilla wars demonstrate this, such as the Eritrea war, in which the last major real estate controlled by the Ethiopian army was Asmara, and one or two small coastal cities. Due to this fact, guerilla warfare generally does not work in urban areas, which tend to be compact and well served by roads. This means there just isn't enough space to hide the training camps (however well concealed), weapons caches and safe houses. Look at nazi-occupied Europe-armed resistance was strongest in fairly large, open Countries that had large rural or semi-rural parts, such as France, Yugoslavia, Ukraine, and parts of Italy. Smaller, more urban Countries such as the Netherlands were, for the reasons I mentioned above easier for an enemey to occupy (though it is worth noting the bold and heroic actions of the Dutch resistance). It also helped that the Netherlands and Denmark are (more or less) flat, as this type of terrain is often easier to control than Mountains or high hills (just look at Yugoslavia, or Spain; the original guerilla war in the sense that it was the origin of the term). I hate to ramble, but what I'm getting at is that the nature of guerilla war is rural; in fact, "urban geurilla" is more or less a euphemism for terrorism, albeit a euphemism that has been used by some groups to self-describe. Needless to say, most would consider such groups terrorists-just think about it-"urban guerilla" is contradictory. Considering that it is primarily a pr term, it seems this article should be merged with terrorist.152.163.100.137 06:38, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think so. Terrorism usually targets civilians. Stuff like taking potshots at occupational soldiers in your city isn't what I'd consider terrorism. --Descendall 07:43, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I also don't agree with your rambling, for different reasons. True, rural guerillas are usually a greater threat than urban ones (and can be harder to eradicate), but urban guerilla warfare no doubt exists. When the occupants of a city turn against its' rulers, a city can become a hotbed of deadly insurgency. Unlike the coutrysde, it usually can't be carpet bombed. The traditional tacticts of [urban warfare] (sniping, booby traps, ambushes, melting away into a sympathetic civillian population) can, and have, been used by insurgents and other irregular forces. The point I'm trying to say is that "urban guerilla warfare) is not a misnomer.