Guerrilla Author:Charles W. Thayer Mr. Thayer's book comes at one of those periods in history when, as a by-product of the Cold War, irregular warfare is in the news. It is a subject on which he writes with authority, having had wide firsthand experience of Communists and Communism and having, in particular, served during the war with Tito's Partisans, a useful forcing ground for... more » irregular soldiers. Moreover, despite his West Point training and his distinguished services as a career diplomat, he possesses, amongst other attributes, the sort of mind which makes a man a natural guerrilla...
The publication...of [this] present work is greatly to be welcomed... So long as the present ideological conflict between East and West continues, so long as the mutual balance of terror makes a hot war improbable, and so long as the stresses and strains of nationalism and racialism add fuel to the fire, the Western Allies are likely to find themselves involved willy-nilly in a prolonged series of cold war operations, in many of which, by their very nature, the guerrilla and the counter-guerrilla will inevitably have their part to play. It is therefore important to keep under constant review the laws and principles which govern the conduct of irregular warfare....
In Guerilla...Mr. Thayer illustrates these...by a number of graphic examples, skillfully chosen from the irregular campaigns of the last twenty years. It is to be hoped that those in our respective countries who are concerned with such matters will study these examples and the valuable conclusions which he draws from them with the attention that they deserve....« less