Irregular military

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Irregular soldiers in Beauharnois, Quebec, Lower Canada, 19th century.

Irregular military is any non-standard military component that is distinct from a country's national armed forces. Being defined by exclusion, there is significant variance in what comes under the term. It can refer to the type of military organization, or to the type of tactics used. An irregular military organization is one which is not part of the regular army organization. Without standard military unit organization, various more general names are often used; such organizations may be called a troop, group, unit, column, band, or force. Irregulars are soldiers or warriors that are members of these organizations, or are members of special military units that employ irregular military tactics. This also applies to irregular infantry and irregular cavalry units.

Irregular warfare is warfare employing the tactics commonly used by irregular military organizations. This involves avoiding large-scale combat, and focusing on small, stealthy, hit-and-run engagements.

Regular vs. irregular

The words "regular" and "irregular" have been used to describe combat forces for hundreds of years, usually with little ambiguity. The requirements of a government's

chain of command cause the regular army to be very well defined, and anybody fighting outside it, other than official paramilitary forces, are irregular. In case the legitimacy of the army or its opponents is questioned, some legal definitions have been created.[citation needed
]

In international humanitarian law, the term "irregular forces" refers to a category of combatants that consists of individuals forming part of the armed forces of a party to an armed conflict, international or domestic, but not belonging to that party's regular forces and operating inside or outside of their own territory, even if the territory is under occupation.[1]

The

Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907) (Hague IV) conditions.[2]
In other words, "regular forces" must satisfy the following criteria:

  • being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates to a party of conflict
  • having a fixed distinctive emblem recognizable at a distance
  • carrying arms openly
  • conducting operations in accordance with the
    laws and customs of war

By extension, combat forces that do not satisfy these criteria are termed "irregular forces".

Types

The term "irregular military" describes the "how" and "what", but it is more common to focus on the "why" as just about all irregular units were created to provide a tactical advantage to an existing military, whether it was

political
and emotional associations that develop. Here is a list of such terms, which is organized more or less from oldest to latest:

  • legionaries
    .
  • feudal peasants and freemen liable to be called up for short-term military duty.[3]
  • letters of marque to attack foreign vessels during wartime and to destroy or disrupt logistics of the enemy during "peacetime", often on the open sea by attacking its merchant shipping, rather than engaging its combatants or enforcing a blockade against them.[4]
  • Revolutionary – someone part of a revolution, whether military or not.[5]
  • Peninsula War in Spain against France.[6]
  • Montoneras – they were a type of irregular forces that were formed in the 19th century in Latin America.
  • unprivileged combatant[7] (for example the Hostages Trial
    [1947–1948]).
  • Militia – military force composed of ordinary citizens.
  • Ordenanças – The Portuguese territorial militia system from the 16th century to the 19th century. From the 17th century, it became the third line of the Army, serving both as local defense force and as the mobilization system that provided conscripts for the first (Regular) and second (Militia) lines of the Army.
  • Second World War
    .
  • Freedom fighter
    – A type of irregular military in which the main cause, in their or their supporters' view, is freedom for themselves or others.
  • Paramilitary – An organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but which is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces.
  • non-combatants
    to gain political leverage. The term is almost always used pejoratively. Although reasonably well defined, its application is frequently controversial.
  • False flag or pseudo-operations – Troops of one side dressing like troops of another side to eliminate or discredit the latter and its support, such as members of the Panzer Brigade 150, commanded by Waffen-SS commando Otto Skorzeny in Operation Greif during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II and Selous Scouts of the Rhodesian Bush War.
  • Iraqi Insurgency, rather than larger rebel organizations like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
    .
  • Fifth column - A group that carries out sabotage, disinformation, espionage, and/or terrorism within a group that responds to external enemies
  • Bandit - It is generally treated as an organized crime, but it has the character of a resistance movement depending on the political and social situation.
  • Private army - Combatants who owe their allegiance to a private person, group, or organization.
  • rules of war
    than non-mercenaries, and many countries have criminalized "mercenary activity".

Intense debates can build up over which term is to be used to refer to a specific group. Using one term over another can strongly imply strong support or opposition for the cause.

It is possible for a military to cross the line between regular and irregular. Isolated regular army units that are forced to operate without regular support for long periods of time can degrade into irregulars. As an irregular military becomes more successful, it may transition away from irregular, even to the point of becoming the new regular army if it wins.

Regular military units that use irregular military tactics

Most conventional military officers and militaries are wary of using irregular military forces and see them as unreliable, of doubtful military usefulness, and prone to committing atrocities leading to retaliation in kind. Usually, such forces are raised outside the regular military like the British

43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry and the Chindits
.

Although they are part of a regular army,

United States Special Forces are trained in missions such as implementing irregular military tactics. However, outside the United States, the term special forces does not generally imply a force that is trained to fight as guerillas and insurgents.[citation needed] Originally, the United States Special Forces were created to serve as a cadre around which stay-behind resistance forces could be built in the event of a communist victory in Europe or elsewhere. The United States Special Forces and the CIA's Special Activities Center can trace their lineage to the OSS
operators of World War II, which were tasked with inspiring, training, arming and leading resistance movements in German-occupied Europe and Japanese occupied Asia.

In Finland, well-trained light infantry Sissi troops use irregular tactics such as reconnaissance, sabotage and guerrilla warfare behind enemy lines.

The founder of the

People's Republic of China, Mao Zedong actively advocated for the use of irregular military tactics by regular military units. In his book On Guerrilla Warfare, Mao described seven types of Guerilla units, and argues that "regular army units temporarily detailed for the purpose (of guerilla warfare)," "regular army units permanently detailed (for the purpose of guerilla warfare)," and bands of guerillas created "through a combination of a regular army unit and a unit recruited from the people" were all examples of ways in which regular military units could be involved in irregular warfare.[8] Mao argues that regular army units temporarily detailed for irregular warfare are essential because "First, in mobile-warfare situations, the coordination of guerilla activities with regular operations is necessary. Second, until guerilla hostilities can be developed on a grand scale, there is no one to carry out guerilla missions but regulars."[9] He also emphasizes the importance for the use of regular units permanently attached to guerilla warfare activities, stating that they can play key roles in severing enemy supply routes.[10]

Effectiveness

While the morale, training and equipment of the individual irregular soldier can vary from very poor to excellent, irregulars are usually lacking the higher-level organizational training and equipment that is part of regular army. This usually makes irregulars ineffective in direct, main-line combat, the typical focus of more standard armed forces. Other things being equal, major battles between regulars and irregulars heavily favor the regulars.

However, irregulars can excel at many other combat duties besides main-line combat, such as

skirmishing, harassing, pursuing, rear-guard actions, cutting supply, sabotage, raids, ambushes and underground resistance. Experienced irregulars often surpass the regular army in these functions. By avoiding formal battles, irregulars have sometimes harassed high quality armies to destruction.[citation needed
]

The total effect of irregulars is often underestimated. Since the military actions of irregulars are often small and unofficial, they are underreported or even overlooked. Even when engaged by regular armies, some military histories exclude all irregulars when counting friendly troops, but include irregulars in the count of enemy troops, making the odds seem much worse than they were. This may be accidental; counts of friendly troops often came from official regular army rolls that exclude unofficial forces, while enemy strength often came from visual estimates, where the distinction between regular and irregular were lost. If irregular forces overwhelm regulars, records of the defeat are often lost in the resulting chaos.[citation needed]

History

A group of bashi-bazouks, Ottoman postcard

By definition, "irregular" is understood in contrast to "regular armies", which grew slowly from personal bodyguards or elite militia. In Ancient warfare, most civilized nations relied heavily on irregulars to augment their small regular army. Even in advanced civilizations, the irregulars commonly outnumbered the regular army.

Sometimes entire tribal armies of irregulars were brought in from internal native or neighboring cultures, especially ones that still had an active hunting tradition to provide the basic training of irregulars. The regulars would only provide the core military in the major battles; irregulars would provide all other combat duties.

Notable examples of regulars relying on irregulars include Bashi-bazouk units in the Ottoman Empire, auxiliary cohorts of Germanic peoples in the Roman Empire, Cossacks in the Russian Empire, and Native American forces in the American frontier of the Confederate States of America.

One could attribute the disastrous defeat of the Romans at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest to the lack of supporting irregular forces; only a few squadrons of irregular light cavalry accompanied the invasion of Germany when normally the number of foederati and auxiliaries would equal the regular legions. During this campaign the majority of locally recruited irregulars defected to the Germanic tribesmen led by the former auxiliary officer Arminius.[11]

During the

decline of the Roman Empire
, irregulars made up an ever-increasing proportion of the Roman military. At the end of the Western Empire, there was little difference between the Roman military and the barbarians across the borders.

Following Napoleon's modernisation of warfare with the invention of conscription, the Peninsular War led by Spaniards against the French invaders in 1808 provided the first modern example of guerrilla warfare. Indeed, the term of guerrilla itself was coined during this time.

As the Industrial Revolution dried up the traditional source of irregulars, nations were forced take over the duties of the irregulars using specially trained regular army units. Examples are the light infantry in the British Army.

Irregular regiments in British India

Gardner's Irregular Horse of Hindustani Mahomedans

Prior to 1857 Britain's

Indian Rebellion of 1857.[14]

Irregular military in Canada before 1867

Before 1867, military units in Canada consisted of British units of volunteers.

During French rule, small local volunteer militia units or colonial militias were used to provide defence needs. During British control of various local militias, the Provincial Marine were used to support British regular forces in Canada.

Other instances of irregulars

Boer Militia

Use of large irregular forces featured heavily in wars such as the

Syrian Civil War and especially the Eastern Front of World War II where hundreds of thousands of partisans
fought on both sides.

The Chinese People's Liberation Army began as a peasant guerilla force which in time transformed itself into a large regular force. This transformation was foreseen in the doctrine of "people's war", in which irregular forces were seen as being able to engage the enemy and to win the support of the populace but as being incapable of taking and holding ground against regular military forces.

Examples

Irregulars in today's warfare

Modern conflicts in

Darfur conflict, the rebellion in the North of Uganda by the Lord's Resistance Army, and the Second Chechen War
are fought almost entirely by irregular forces on one or both sides.

The

Kurdish Peshmerga with US Army Special Forces as an irregular counter-insurgency force against the Kurdish Sunni Islamist group Ansar al-Islam at the Iraq-Iran border and as an irregular force against Saddam Hussein during the war in Iraq in 2003.[21][22]

Irregular civilian volunteers also played a large role in the

2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine.

See also

Legal aspects, categories

References

Bibliography

  • Flavius Vegetius Renatus, Epitoma rei militaris
  • Dr. Thomas M. Huber, Compound Warfare: An Anthology
  • Clifford J. Rogers, Military Technical Revolution debate among historians
  • John M. Gates, US Army & Irregular Warfare
  • Harold P. Ford, CIA and the Vietnam Policymakers: Three Episodes 1962–1968
  • Robert R. Mackey, "The UnCivil War: Irregular Warfare in the Upper South, 1861–1865", University of Oklahoma Press, 2004,

References

  1. ^ Bybee, Jay S., "Status of Taliban Forces Under Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention of 1949", 7 February 2002 "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 September 2009. Retrieved 19 August 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. ^ Newman, Simon (29 May 2012). "Military in the Middle Ages". thefinertimes.com. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
  3. ^ "Privateer | Definition of privateer". Retrieved 1 December 2015.
  4. ^ "Revolutionary | Definition of revolutionary". Retrieved 1 December 2015.
  5. ^ "Battlefield: Vietnam – Guerrilla Tactics". PBS. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
  6. ^ Duffy, Michael. "First World War.com – Encyclopedia – Franc-Tireur". firstworldwar.com. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
  7. ^ Tsetung, Mao (1961). On Guerilla Warfare. Praegar Publisher. pp. 71–72.
  8. ^ Tsetung, Mao (1961). On Guerilla Warfare. Praegar Publisher. pp. 72–73.
  9. ^ Tsetung, Mao (1961). On Guerilla Warfare. Praegar Publisher. p. 73.
  10. .
  11. ^ Kim A. Wagner (2009). Stranglers and Bandits: A Historical Anthology of Thuggee. Oxford University Press.
  12. ^ Christopher Alan Bayly, C. A. Bayly (1996). Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780-1870. Cambridge University Press.
  13. .
  14. ^ The CIA Secret Army, publisher Time Inc, Douglas Waller, 3 February 2003
  15. ^ All Necessary Means: Employing CIA Operatives in a Warfighting Role Alongside Special Operations Forces, Colonel Kathryn Stone, Professor Anthony R. Williams (Project Advisor), United States Army War College (USAWC), 7 April 2003.
  16. .
  17. ^ Woodward, Bob Bush at War, Simon & Schuster, 2002

Further reading