COMPOUND WARFARE: That Fatal Knot

In the long history of warfare, a recurring theme is the combined use
of regular and irregular forces to pursue victory. The American
colonists relied upon regular Continental Army troops and local militia
in their war for independence. British troops commanded by
Wellington fought alongside Spanish peasant guerrillas against
Napoleon in Spain. The Chinese Communists under Mao Zedong
organized local militia units, regional forces, and a regular army for use
in their struggle to topple the Nationalist government. In these and
many other cases, the practice of employing regular and irregular forces
together was not only applied, but also instrumental in bringing victory
to the side that at the beginning of the conflict seemed clearly inferior to
its opponent.
In 1996, in an article entitled “Napoleon in Spain,” Dr. Thomas M.
Huber of the Combat Studies Institute (CSI) coined the term
“compound warfare” to describe this phenomenon of regular and
irregular forces fighting in concert, as he examined the reasons for
Napoleon’s failure to pacify the Iberian Peninsula. The article, written
to support CSI’s course in modern warfare at the U.S. Army Command
and General Staff College, received high praise from student officers,
from the CSI faculty, and from the Institute’s director at the time,
Colonel Jerry Morelock. Impressed by Dr. Huber’s analysis of the
synergistic effects achieved by Wellington’s British Army and Spanish
guerrillas as they worked together against Napoleon’s forces, Col.
Morelock suggested that other members of CSI examine examples of
this pattern of warfare in other times and places. This book is a
compilation of their studies.