Talk:Urban guerrilla warfare

2005 comment

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

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.150.101.159.246 13:43, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

This is easily solved. If some good references are added, the article demonstrates the validity of the term. If no references can be found, the article should be nominated for deletion. This, it seems to me, is Wikipedia policy. Notinasnaid 13:59, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

"In action no urban guerrilla movement has managed to move beyond the first portion of its operations - creating conditions where the government takes extreme repressive measures to limit the activities of the insurgents. The formation of a number of brutal military regimes in Latin America is directly linked to the efforts of guerrillas. However the next stage has never been achieved, a popular uprising to overthrow the government. Instead, the guerrillas are killed, captured, forced into exile, brought into government, or sufficiently marginalized to render them ineffective in achieving their stated goals."

I can off the top of my head come up with at least one example that contradicts this statement. Consider Michael Collins campaign against the Brits: A fucking successful attempt if I'm not mistaken.

> I've removed the above-quoted paragraph, as it seems to make too strong a claim without support. Guerrillas have arguably made a surprisingly strong showing in conflicts such as Israel vs. Hezbollah (2006), as well as the Iraqis and Taliban vs. the US during the past decade. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.22.161.100 (talk) 09:54, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

List

Since this is a pretty subjective term and most violent non-state groups carry out some operations in cities I don't think it's helpful trying to have a comprehensive list of examples by country, especially if it ends up containing the Cornish National Liberation Army. This should either be trimmed or just deleted.Prezbo (talk) 08:55, 25 February 2010 (UTC)