Small Wars Manual

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The Small Wars Manual is a United States Marine Corps manual on tactics and strategies for engaging in certain types of military operations.

The USMC's role in small wars has a long and complex history. During the early years of the 20th century, the Corps was widely viewed as the nation's overseas police and initial response force. Moreover, the actual execution of these roles were a natural adjunct of the Corps' officially directed mission of sea-based power projection, in turn buttressed by its fundamental expeditionary operational character; i.e., the availability for "sudden and immediate call."

As a result of this "natural fit" and the experience of a series of guerrilla wars and military interventions loosely known as The Banana Wars, the Marine Corps began to systematically analyze the character and requirements of operations short of war proper, or "Small Wars". Major S.M. Harrington of the Marine Corps Schools delivered a formal report The Strategy and Tactics of Small Wars in 1921. In addition, Major C. J. Miller wrote an 154 page report on the 2nd Marine Brigade's operations in the Dominican Republic titled Diplomacy and Spurs in the Dominican Republic in 1923. Versions of these and other reports were serialized in The Marine Corps Gazette and additional articles on the subject appeared in The Marine Corps Gazette and the Proceedings of the US Naval Institute. The results of these efforts were encapsulated in the manual Small Wars Operations in 1935. For the 1940 revision, it was renamed The Small Wars Manual (SWM). A classic of military science, it remains relevant today as the foundation of much current thinking and doctrine.

Small Wars Manual

United States Marine Corps Portal

Table of Contents (for the 1935 edition)

Chapter I - General Characteristics of Small Wars
Chapter II - The Strategy of Small Wars
Chapter III - Psychology in Small Wars
Chapter IV - Concentration
Chapter V - Transportation
Chapter VI - Port of Embarkation
Chapter VII - Training Management for Small Wars
Chapter VIII - Operations Orders and Instructions (Navy)
Chapter IX - Debarkation
Chapter X - Supply Plans
Chapter XI - Neutral Zones and Movement Inland
Chapter XII - Disarming Population, Collecting and Custody of Arms
Chapter XIII - Armed Native Organizations
Chapter XIV - Relationship-Military, Naval and Civil Authorities
Chapter XV - Military Territorial Organization and Methods of Pacification
Chapter XVI - Principles and Functions of the Marine Staff
Chapter XVII - Signal Communications
Chapter XVIII - Infantry Weapons and Equipment
Chapter XIX - Light Artillery in Small Wars
Chapter XX - The Defense, Attack and Occupation of Towns
Chapter XXI - Animal Transportation and Mounted Detachments
Chapter XXII - Convoys and Convoy Escorts
Chapter XXIII - Organizing the Infantry Patrol
Chapter XXIV - The Infantry Patrol in the Field
Chapter XXV - Aviation
Chapter XXVI - River Operations
Chapter XXVII - River Crossings
Chapter XXVIII - Chemical Agents
Chapter XXIX - Medical
Chapter XXX - Withdrawal from Foreign Territory
Chapter XXXI - Military Government
Chapter XXXII - Supervision of Election

[edit] References

The Small Wars Manual: Fleet Marine Force Reference Publication 12-25. Sunflower University Press, July 1940.
Bickel, Keith B. Mars Learning: The Marine Corps' Development of Small Wars Doctrine, 1915-1940, Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2001.
Green, Lt. Col. T. N., The Guerrilla and How to Fight Him: Selections from the Marine Corps Gazette, ed. for the Marine Corps Gazette, New York: Praeger, 1962