Reddit mentions of Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present

Thank you everyone for the laughs and the subtle concern. As mentioned here, I've been incredibly busy. This is all good stuff and I'm truly blessed. A few of the goings on:

• I am currently on the east coast for my brother's graduation from US Marine Corps Warrant Officer Basic Course. He enlisted with me in 2005 and has been killing it ever since. Last year he completed his masters degree in electrical engineering from North Carolina State and now he's moving on to be an electronics maintenance officer. I'm incredibly proud and spending as much time as I can with the guy since we've hardly been able to see each other since we both stepped on those yellow foot prints at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego. Picture related.
  
  
• If you're thinking, "Damn, Cody looks skinny." You're right. This is intentional and unfortunately a bit unintentional. I've got some injuries (military) that have been seriously aggravated since the move and early spring they got fired up again. So I've been nursing those and thus training hasn't been exciting at all. In addition to that I had a big wake up call that came in the form of sleep apnea, which of course was weight related. I'm not one to live my life on machines and value my health and independence (thus the cabin) and so I've made a concerted effort to regain my respiratory and cardiovascular health, which brought about the needed weight loss. I'm lighter now than I have been in a long time but I'm happy with it because I'm no longer snoring like a hellbeast and I'm also breathing while sleeping again, whereas I wasn't before, multiple times per hour each night. So while I may not be hyuge right now, at least I'm not suffocating myself to death at night. (My wife is also very thankful.)
  
  
• I had some technical hurdles recently that put a damper on my YouTube production abilities. From this I've purchased a new video camera, whereas before I was using my wife's DSLR video feature. Not nearly as good. Still high quality, but I hope this new camera turns out even better videos than you've seen on my channel previously. As some of you may have noticed already the editing on my channel has improved a little and so has the creativity of the content itself. Whether it's the Bench Press Form Check video or the new Gainsline or Summon the Gainer 3 you'll notice my abilities have gone up. I credit this to doing much more film study and attempting to apply some of those same concepts into a micro adaptation within my YouTube. I get pretty much zero dollars from YouTube because I get so few views, but that's not what it's about for me. I genuinely enjoy making videos and I see this as the next step in advancing my own enjoyment. My only hope is that all of you enjoy them just the same. And please, if you have a request or recommendation please let me know, because I'd like to help the best I can and I'm always eager to learn something new.
  
  
• In addition to the above I'm also taking my own education seriously. Having wrapped up a semester of full time college earlier this month I'm now on summer break and so brings - FREEDOM! If you're wondering, which you're probably not but I'm going to tell you anyways, I got an A,A,B,A this semester across my four classes. None of them being underwater basket weaving or nontraditional interpretative dance therapy. That last A is an elective however, for drawing.
  
  
• To wrap up this update I'm also working on a personal writing project that requires some heavy research. As previously mentioned and well known in these parts, I'm a US Marine. What may not be known so well is that I served as an infantryman (0311) for five years and did another 4.5 as an MCCS Marine (4133). During my near decade on active duty I had four deployments, one to Iraq, two to Afghan, and one aboard ship at sea. Two of those I volunteered for. My last one I fought to go on. My time in the Corp gave me the love of lifting but also the love of studying warfare, in particular insurgencies. I've had my nose deep in the books doing lots of research for a book I plan on writing. Here's bigg'un I just got as a gift from ma and pa and I can't wait to start it. I've already broken a promise to myself on timeline, so who knows when it'll be finished. But I'm happy that I've had the discipline to begin putting paper to pad. When it is finished I hope some of you enjoy it, even though it will be far from the topic of weight lifting. It's fiction and about war, and that's all I will divulge at this time.
  
  Once more, thank you all for the laughs and subtle concern. Thank you /u/linuxuser86 for making this post. If any of you have questions please email me any time: clgz@ymail.com
  

Lots of great answers everyone. I see that I have a lot of reading to do and that is a good thing. Just for anyone also interested I compiled all of the named books into a list and sourced them, for your reading pleasure.



The Accidental Guerrilla by David Kilcullen

Counterinsurgency by David Kilcullen

Out of the Mountains by David Kilcullen

Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons From Malaya and Vietnam by John Nagl

Tactics of the Crescent Moon: Militant Muslim Combat Methods by John Poole

Modern War: Counter-Insurgency as Malpractice by Edward Luttwak

A Savage War of Peace by Alistar Horne

The Bear Went Over the Mountain by Lester Grau

Invisible Armies by Max Boot

Vid Putivla do Karpat by Sydir Artemovych Kovpac

Fire in the Lake by Frances FitzGerald

Inside Rebellion by Jeremy M. Weinstein

There are a lot of leftist groups in South America which have had some real longevity, if not success, such as The Shining Path and FARC. There's the Taliban, who really started out as a protection racket for the Pakistani ISI and bloomed into a Islamist revolutionary army, and then a state, and then an insurgency. The Bush War between the Rhodesians, especially the Selous Scouts, and groups like the ZANU is pretty fascinating. Probably the most successful was Giuseppe Garibaldi who started as an insurgent fighter in both South America and Europe before eventually unifying the Italian state.

I'd highly recommend Invisible Armies by Max Boot. I think it would be right up your alley.

EDIT: After rereading your post I think you may be looking more toward "unconventional warfare" teams than "Guerrilla groups". I'd check out the CIA and Special Forces operations with the Montagnards in Southeast Asia, who ran five or ten man teams with local fighters against communist forces in Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos. The Brandenburgers of the German Abwehr were also really fascinating. They ran teams of commandos who were often bi-national or born overseas to run operations in their respective ethnic areas behind enemy lines in World War Two. One of their more famous ops had Russian speaking commandos dressing up as NKVD troops in Crimea and then directing Soviet troop formations on the way to the front in the wrong direction. After the war quite a few of them disappeared, with some ending up in the French Foreign Legion, if legends are to be believed.

Cannot agree more.

Here is a book I thought was brilliant book.

https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Armies-History-Guerrilla-Warfare/dp/0871406888

If you're quite interested, I'd recommend Invisible Armies by Max Boot. It'll take some time to get through but it covers every major insurgency in recorded history and he's a pretty good writer so the read goes faster than expected.