The Normalization of Guerrilla Warfare

Katherine Irajpanah from Cornell University will give a presentation at the MIT Security Studies Program's Wednesday Seminar. Summary: Why did rebels infrequently embrace guerrilla warfare as a military strategy in the nineteenth century but near-universally adopt it after the twentieth century? In this seminar, Professor Irajpanah presents research that suggests changing beliefs about guerrilla warfare, responding to emergent decolonial politics of the late nineteenth century, facilitated this phenomenon. The research examines this argument through an exploration of extra-, intra-, and inter-state wars from 1816 to 2022. Professor Irajpanah will qualitatively illustrate the normative trajectory of guerrilla warfare through two discussions: rebel debates during the Philippine-American War (1899-1902) and cross-temporal perceptions of guerrilla warfare by revolutionary socialist leaders.