A Primer on Guerrilla War, with an Aside about Gaza

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I think this proceeds from a misunderstanding of what guerilla forces actually are. They do not hide amongst the civilian population. They arise from the civilian population.

Unlike regular soldiery which is also drawn from the civilian population, there are no typical organizational trappings or physical structures for guerillas. Guerilla fighters arise typically when states mal-administer and oppress a civilian population.

It's become quite common from the 20th century for these guerilla forces to arise, because technological differences have made it often easy for one side to attack the regular forces of another, often from afar.

So nowadays there often arises a situation where a population is seriously oppressed but also denuded of the regular forces which they would have formed and used to respond to that kind of attack in the historical past.

In the late 19th century and early 20th century, the first reaction of powerful empires with these asymmetrical technologies …