Beginning with the first insurgencies in the ancient world—when Alexander the Great discovered that fleet nomads were harder to defeat than massive conventional armies—Max Boot, best-selling author and military advisor in Iraq and Afghanistan, masterfully guides us from the Jewish rebellion against the Roman Empire up through the horrors of the French-Indochina War and the shadowy, post-9/11 battlefields of today. Relying on a diverse cast of unforgettable characters—not only Mao and Che but also the legendary Italian nationalist Giuseppe Garibaldi, the archaeologist-turned–military commander T. E. Lawrence, and the “Quiet American” Edward Lansdale, among others—Boot explodes everything we thought we knew about unconventional combat. The result is both an enthralling read and our most important work on nontraditional warfare.
PROLOGUE: BAGHDAD PATROL, APRIL 9, 2007
Chapter 1. Romans vs. Jews, AD 66
Chapter 3. Tribal Wars of Mass Destruction
Chapter 4. Mesopotamia, 2334–2005 BC
Chapter 5. Persians vs. Scythians, 512 BC
Chapter 6. The Origins of Counterinsurgency in Assyria and Rome, 1100 BC–AD 212
Chapter 7. The Barbarian Invasions, AD 370–476
Chapter 8. Ancient Chinese Warfare beyond Sun Tzu
Chapter 9. Xiongnu vs. Han, 200 BC–AD 48
Chapter 10. Why the Weak Beat the Strong
Chapter 11. Scotland vs. England, 1296–1746
Chapter 12. The Counterinsurgents’ Advantage
Chapter 13. Hussars, Pandours, and Rangers, 1648–1775
Chapter 14. The Revolution against Britain, 1775–1783
Chapter 15. The Peninsular War, 1808–1814
Chapter 16. The Haitian War of Independence, 1791–1804
Chapter 17. The Greek War of Independence, 1821–1832
Chapter 18. Giuseppe Garibaldi and the Struggle for Italian Unification, 1833–1872
Chapter 19. The Liberal Achievement
Chapter 20. Why Did So Few Guerrillas Resist the European Advance?
Chapter 21. The “Forest Wars” in Eastern North America, 1622–1842
Chapter 22. Braves vs. Bluecoats, 1848–1890
Chapter 23. The Holy War against Russia in Chechnya and Dagestan, 1829–1859
Chapter 24. The First Anglo-Afghan War, 1838–1842
Chapter 25. Britain and the Pashtuns, 1897–1947
Chapter 26. Lyautey in Morocco, 1912–1925
Chapter 27. Britain’s Near-Defeat in South Africa, 1899–1902
Chapter 28. Why Imperialism Carried the Seeds of Its Own Destruction
Chapter 29. The Assassins, AD 1090–1256
Chapter 30. The Terrorist Who Helped Start the Civil War, 1856–1859
Chapter 31. Ku Kluxers and the War against Civil Rights, 1866–1876
Chapter 32. Anarchists, ca. 1880–ca. 1939
Chapter 33. The Nihilists on the Trail of Alexander II, 1879–1881
Chapter 34. Socialist Revolutionaries in Russia, 1902–1917
Chapter 35. The Irish War of Independence, 1919–1921
Chapter 36. Sinners or Saints?
Chapter 37. Blood Brothers and Brownshirts, 1914–1945
Chapter 38. “Lawrence of Arabia,” 1916–1935
Chapter 39. The Birth of the Special Forces in World War II
Chapter 40. A “Wayward Genius” in Palestine, Abyssinia, and Burma, 1936–1944
Chapter 41. Yugoslavia, 1941–1945, and the Limits of Scorched-Earth Counterinsurgency
Chapter 42. Did Commandos Make a Difference?
Chapter 43. The Slipping European Grip
Chapter 44. Mao Zedong’s Long March to Power, 1921–1949
Chapter 45. The Indochina War, 1945–1954
Chapter 46. The Algerian War of Independence, 1954–1962
Chapter 47. Briggs, Templer, and the Malayan Emergency, 1948–1960
Chapter 48. Why the British Succeeded—at Least Sometimes
Chapter 49. The Guerrilla Mystique in the 1960s–1970s
Chapter 50. Edward Lansdale and the Huk Rebellion, 1945–1954
Chapter 51. Lansdale and Diem, 1954–1956
Chapter 52. The Limitations of Firepower in Vietnam, 1960–1973
Chapter 53. Castro’s Improbable Comeback, 1952–1959
Chapter 54. Che’s Quixotic Quest, 1965–1967
Chapter 55. The Raid on Entebbe and the Terrorism of the 1970s
Chapter 56. What Terrorism Did and Did Not Achieve for the Palestinians
Chapter 57. The End of the (Marxist) Affair in the 1980s
Chapter 58. Tehran, Mecca, Islamabad, and Kabul, November 4–December 24, 1979
Chapter 59. The Red Army vs. the Mujahideen, 1980–1989
Chapter 60. The “Party of God” in Lebanon, 1982–2006
Chapter 61. Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, 1988–2011
Chapter 62. Al Qaeda in Iraq since 2003
Chapter 63. David Petraeus and the Surge, 2007–2008
Chapter 64. The Failures and Successes of the Global Islamist Insurgency
EPILOGUE: Meeting in Marjah, October 23, 2011
IMPLICATIONS: Twelve Articles, or The Lessons of Five Thousand Years
APPENDIX: THE INVISIBLE ARMIES DATABASE