Chairman Mao vs. President Assad: People’s War in Syria

Comment:  An interesting paper from an undergrad with experience in Syria.  I agree with the author in that studying Mao remains very relevant in the 21st Century.

Chairman Mao vs. President Assad: People’s War in Syria

by Jack Mulcaire

Journal Article | November 5, 2012 - 5:30am

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/chairman-mao-vs-president-assad-people%E2%80%99s-war-in-syria

The last few weeks of the war in Syria have seen a lot of back and forth action and big body counts, but between the lies and the omissions and the fog of war, it's hard to perceive a narrative. But look closely and apply a bit of military history, and it comes through clearly: the war is in what Mao called the second phase of people’s war. Mao’s ideas about “people’s struggle” are eminently relevant to 21st century warfare. The stages of Maoist people’s war are episodes in a story as old as asymmetric warfare and it is useful to understand them because asymmetric warfare of various types is the most common type of war today. The ongoing actions of the Free Syrian Army follow a pattern Mao recognized and described.