In this kind of war, defeat and mass death can be a good, effective opening move. You start a rebellion, knowing everyone who marches out with you will die; you all get wiped out; and a few years later, your successors march into the fortifications of the occupying power.
That’s not a fantasy. It actually happened, more than once—though almost all the examples are recent ones, because this strategy depends on a certain squeamishness in the occupying army, and armies didn’t get squeamish until very recently.
As far as I can tell, nobody saw this two-stage pattern until I spotted it, and goddamn it, I want a little credit for once. Not money, because I know by now that you D.C. schmoozers would sooner die than throw a quarter my way—but a little credit, at least. I’ve had enough of you ripping my stuff off, using me as a natural resource, playing whalefall to your hagfish. So listen up, hagfish: What follows is the Brecher Two-Stage Martyr/Killer Theory of Insurgency, and if you don’t mention me when you get your six-figure, three-letter agency grant to research it, I’ll give you a sample of stage two, if it takes my last wheezing breath.