[G. Adams]

I never said anything about saving populations, I am talking about winning in war. Saving populations is a political goal, not a military one, and it is these additional goals a guerilla force can use to it's advantage to win.

Thinking militarily, a guerilla force is dependant upon the civilian population in order to continue. This is the most basic fact of guerilla warfare. Therefore, a state must, either through conversion or destruction, end this relationship between civillian and guerilla. It is like the arms factories and a state military, if you want to stop an army you cut off it's supplies. With guerillas, you cut out their supporters.

I would argue that the German war machine was well capable of taking on the guerillas if they were prepared to take sufficient action. If stopping the guerillas was my only goal, I would have gone town to town bombing it into dust, and burning every field the country has. A long operation, but within the capability of the German military. It is because there are additional political aims that need to be achieved that the guerilla can play upon. Germany wanted a country to take over, not a wasteland, and it wanted a population to work for it, at least for the duration of the war. From a purely military standpoint, an army who's goal is only victory over all it's enemies, it is possible to do pretty much anything as long as there are no opposing regular armies. I am not reccomending these actions, simply highlighting how it could be done.

Show me a time when a guerilla force has won outright against a state prepared to do anything to stop it? It doesn't happen.