000			02307nam a22002057a 4500
999			_c3949 _d3949
005			20230123134452.0
008			230123b ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9780691216669
082			_a355.0218 _bBID
100			_aBiddle, Stephen D. _99164
245			_aNonstate warfare: _bthe military methods of guerillas, warlords, and militias
260			_bPrinceton University Press _aPrinceton _c2021
300			_axix, 436 p.
365			_aUSD _b27.95
520			_aSince September 11th, 2001, armed nonstate actors have received increased attention and discussion from scholars, policymakers, and the military. Underlying debates about nonstate warfare and how it should be countered is one crucial assumption: that state and nonstate actors fight very differently. In Nonstate Warfare, Stephen Biddle upturns this distinction, arguing that there is actually nothing intrinsic separating state or nonstate military behavior. Through an in-depth look at nonstate military conduct, Biddle shows that many nonstate armies now fight more “conventionally” than many state armies, and that the internal politics of nonstate actors—their institutional maturity and wartime stakes rather than their material weapons or equipment—determines tactics and strategies. Biddle frames nonstate and state methods along a continuum, spanning Fabian-style irregular warfare to Napoleonic-style warfare involving massed armies, and he presents a systematic theory to explain any given nonstate actor’s position on this spectrum. Showing that most warfare for at least a century has kept to the blended middle of the spectrum, Biddle argues that material and tribal culture explanations for nonstate warfare methods do not adequately explain observed patterns of warmaking. Investigating a range of historical examples from Lebanon and Iraq to Somalia, Croatia, and the Vietcong, Biddle demonstrates that viewing state and nonstate warfighting as mutually exclusive can lead to errors in policy and scholarship. A comprehensive account of combat methods and military rationale, Nonstate Warfare offers a new understanding for wartime military behavior.
650			_aMilitia _911573
650			_aNon-state actors (International relations) _911574
650			_aGuerrilla warfare _911575
942			_2ddc _cBK