1998-1999)--The Kosovo Liberation Army began a guerrilla war in February, 1998 against Serb Yugoslav authority. On March 24, 1999, in response to atrocities committed by the Serbs and their unwillingness to negotiate at the peace table (The Rambouillet Conference), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) began a 78-day air campaign which succeeded in causing Serb leader Slobodan Milosovic to withdraw his army from Kosovo.
Strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare
The strategy and tactics of guerrilla warfare tend to focus around the use of a small, mobile force competing against a large, unwieldy one. The guerrilla focuses on organizing in small units, dependent on the support of the local population.
Tactically, the guerrilla army would avoid any confrontation with large units of enemy troops, but seek for and eliminate small groups of soldiers to minimize losses and exhaust the opposing force. Not only personnel, resources also are preferred targets. All of this is to weaken the enemy's strength; to cause them to eventually no longer be able to prosecute the war, forcing them to withdraw.
It is often misunderstood that guerrilla warfare must involve disguising as civilians to cause enemy troops fail in telling friend from foe. However, this is a not a primary feature of a guerrilla war. This type of war can be practiced in everywhere there are places for combatants to cover themselves, and where such advantage can not be made use of by a larger and more conventional force.
Tactics of guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is distinguished from the small unit tactics used in screening or reconnaissance operations typical of conventional forces. It is also different from the activities of pirates or robbers. Such criminal groups may use guerrilla-like tactics, but their primary purpose is immediate material gain, and not a political objective.
Guerrilla tactics are based on intelligence, ambush, deception, sabotage, and espionage, undermining an...