Book review : Irregular warfare : the future military strategy for small states

Abstract

In this book, Sandor Fabian examines the utility of irregular warfare as a formalised defence strategy for small states. Focussing primarily on insurgency and guerrilla warfare in six case studies, Fabian calls for institutionalising irregular warfare strategies within the strategic approach of small states, owing to their paucity of resources and the relative unfeasibility of other options. While the text ventures into an understudied area of research with significant real-world implications, the expectation of a detailed study of this field is undermined by two critical factors. First, by its morphological defects relating to the basic definition of a ‘small state’; and second, the underdeveloped linkages between the strategies of irregular warfare that it describes and the political behaviour of small states in the international system.