In the Iraq War, the Iraqis had neither planes nor helicopters, but Coalition forces had antiaircraft guns ranging from the shoulder-fired Stinger to rockets that could knock down enemy aircraft scores of miles away.
The formal part of the Iraq War was over in three weeks. The American forces, which made up the overwhelming majority of the Coalition troops and did by far most of the fighting, lost only 122 troops. The formal war was followed by the guerrilla war. Because of that, as this book went to press American losses approached 1,400.
That calls for a look at “dumb” weapons — the kind guerrillas use.
In 1962, a young officer serving as an adviser to Vietnamese troops stepped on a punji stick smeared with excrement. The sharpened bamboo spike penetrated the sole of his boot and passed entirely through his foot and the instep of the boot. As a result, Captain Colin L. Powell was laid up quite a while in an army hospital. Some men who had the same experience died of the infection incurred.
The punji stick was a favorite improvised weapon of the guerrillas in Vietnam. Some were placed behind trip wires so a victim would fall on them and receive multiple wounds. Others were planted in pits hidden under a rotating platform covered with leaves. Flexible steel spikes in a wooden frame over a pit were another variation. Called a “venus flytrap,” it was almost impossible for a victim to pull his leg out. Jungle warfare made it possible for guerrillas to use a wide variety of deadfalls and other man traps. Another favorite was a poisoned arrow launched by elastic bands made from inner tubes and triggered by a trip wire. Poisoned arrows shot from crossbows, weapons that in east Asia have been used since prehistoric times, killed 20th century soldiers in Vietnam.
Improvised weapons ranging from punji sticks to roadside bombs are weapons American troops may be facing in increasing numbers. United States superiority in “smart” weapons and other high-tech devices makes it unlikely that American forces will be seriously challenged by conventional military organiza-tions. Anyone who thinks that these primitive devices do not constitute a serious challenge should study the Vietnam War.
The simple fact is that while weapons have increased in sophistication and lethality for thousands of years, human beings are still put together the same way. An arrow — arrows will penetrate some forms of body armor that will stop a bullet — can kill an American soldier today just as it could kill a French knight in 1346. A roadside bomb consisting of old artillery shells detonated by a small explosive charge — a weapon that is about as dumb as they come — will kill a person just as dead as the most sophisticated cruise missile.
It is true that few places have the abundance of unguarded caches of artillery shells, bombs, and rockets as Iraq. Every country in the world, however, uses explosives in construction and mining. Any guerrilla organization can steal this material without exerting itself. Gasoline and diesel oil are even easier to obtain. These can be used for a variety of weapons, ranging from the lowly Molotov cocktail to anfo (ammonium nitrate and fuel oil) bombs like the one Timothy McVeigh exploded in Oklahoma City. Ammonium nitrate, the other component, besides fuel oil, of McVeigh’s bomb, is a commonly used fertilizer.
It can easily be obtained in it pure form or leached from brand-name fertilizers.
Ordinary flour can be used to make a bomb that purposely reproduces the kind of explosion that accidentally occurs in grain elevators. The list of household products that can be used to make explosives is amazing. It includes granulated sugar, Vaseline, auto battery acid, swimming pool cleaner, and common matches.
Matchheads alone can make a dangerous explosive. All of these explosives can be used in mines and booby traps; many can also be used as propellants in improvised guns.
Information on making explosives, as well as making improvised guns and rockets has been widely disseminated. There are at least 40 books in print on the subject, one of which is published by the United States Army. This training manual also includes directions for making a slew of homemade weapons.
Guerrillas using such primitive weapons will, of course, try to obtain better ones. The classic way to obtain better weapons is to get them from the enemy. In Vietnam, early in the war, many of the Viet Cong carried M 1 and M 2 carbines that they had apparently obtained from South Vietnamese troops, either by sale or capture. Iraqi guerrillas apparently have not obtained many, if any, American weapons, but the Russian-built weapons they have — especially the Kalashnikov rifles and RPG 7s — make pretty good guerrilla weapons. The biggest handicap the Iraqis have is their generally dreadful marksmanship.
Superior weapons mean that just about any regular force can defeat just about any guerrilla force in a formal battle. That’s why guerrillas don’t fight formal battles. Guerrillas ambush troops on the move, plant mines and other IEDs (improvised explosive devices) on supply routes, and attack isolated bases.
They kill supporters of an occupying power. (Most guerrilla enemies are occupying powers.) Guerrillas gave Napoleon’s armies a terrible time in Russia and Spain. And over time, they’ve gradually become more effective. In South Africa, the British had to flood the Orange Free State and the South African Republic (sometimes called the Tranvaal) with more troops than the entire enemy population. And even then, they didn’t win until they had incarcerated virtually the whole civilian population in concentration camps. A few years later in Africa, the guerrillas of Abd el Krim, with weapons considerably inferior to those of the Afrikaners, drove the Spanish army out of Morocco and came close to doing that to the French. French air power proved to be too effective against guerrillas in an open desert.
In modern times, those within the memory of most living people, guerrillas have gone from success to success. Consider Africa. Almost every nation on that continent, from Algeria to Zambia, is independent because of a successful guerrilla war. In Malaya, the British put down a guerrilla movement, but that was because the movement was limited to members of a despised minority, the Chinese. Most of the population opposed the guerrillas. Mao Zedong, the most successful guerrilla in modern times, compared guerrillas to fish and the population to the sea. The population shelters the guerrillas and keeps them supplied and informed. Until that human “sea” dries up, the guerrillas are a potent force. They have become more potent in recent years because of three things: (1) instant, world-wide communications; (2) the growth of nationalism; and (3) the development of weapons adapted to guerrilla warfare.
Today guerrillas use television and computers to transmit their propaganda and influence global public opinion. The Irish, in their war of independence made international public opinion their most potent weapon, and modern communications have given propaganda even more potential. In the early years of the last century, colonial powers had a relatively easy time because nationalism was largely confined to Europe and the Americas. In other places loyalty was primarily to the tribe or clan. Today, nationalism is visible everywhere, and in many Muslim lands it’s allied with religious zeal. And early in the century, the