WILL LATIN AMERICA EMBRACE GUERRILLA GEOPOLITICS? / PROJECT SYNDICATE

Will Latin America Embrace Guerrilla Geopolitics?

The resurgence of guerrilla warfare in Ukraine and Iran has underscored the potential benefits of asymmetric action in today’s increasingly multipolar world. Latin America, in particular, should consider how to leverage its many strengths to remedy its relatively weak position on the global stage.

Jorge G. Castañeda and Carlos Ominami

MEXICO CITY—The wars in Iran and Ukraine have put the spotlight back on guerrilla warfare. 

Conflicts in which smaller groups, forces, or countries resist or defeat much stronger adversaries using unconventional tactics, weapons, and strategies date back to the Scythian resistance to Persian Emperor Darius I. 

But this type of fighting is more commonly linked to the Spanish insurgency following Napoleon’s 1808 invasion (guerrilla means “small war” in Spanish).

While guerrilla warfare can be a defensive response to an attack or incursion, as in 19th-century Spain, it has also been employed by revolutionary groups seeking to overthrow a regime or a colonizer, like in Algeria, Cuba, and Vietnam in the 1950s and 1960s. 

Soon after the successful Cuban Revolution, Che Guevara—the Argentine adventurer who led the revolt alongside Fidel Castro—wrote Guerrilla Warfare. 

This short how-to manual, which contained simple practical advice and dubious theoretical assertions, served as a north star for Latin American armed groups in the 1960s. 

Guevara also tried to implement these teachings (unsuccessfully) in the Congo and Bolivia.

Many in the West saw guerrilla warfare, particularly the Algerian National Liberation Front’s (FLN’s) fight against the French in Algeria and the Viet Cong’s efforts in South Vietnam, through the lens of terrorism. 

As a result, experts on international law and the law of war, including Richard Falk and the late Charles Chaumont, sought to establish a legal foundation for this type of military activity.

The resulting legal arguments were contradictory. 

Chaumont argued that weaker combatants were obliged to devise forms of struggle adapted to their military inferiority and their special circumstances. 

That could mean attacking civilian targets, such as cafes in Algiers. 

The idea, while dubious, echoed a real dilemma: one man’s terrorist was another’s freedom fighter.

The guerrilla arsenal has expanded to include autonomous drones and maritime chokepoints, which now define asymmetric warfare in Ukraine and Iran. 

Their experiences have shown that smaller, weaker countries—not just rebellious factions or armed groups—can use such tactics to resist larger, more powerful adversaries, resulting in stalemates.

With weapons, intelligence, and logistical support from the United States and the European Union, Ukraine has managed to contain the Russian invasion and even regain some of the territory it lost at the start of the war. 

Ukraine has also inflicted heavy casualties on the Kremlin’s army and attacked strategic targets deep inside Russia, owing to its impressive advances in drone design, production, and deployment. 

Whether this will be sufficient to compel Russian President Vladimir Putin to accept a negotiated peace remains uncertain.

The ultimate outcome of the US-Israeli war against Iran is just as murky. 

By closing the Strait of Hormuz—more through the threat of attack rather than through actual assaults on container ships—and dragging the Gulf countries into the fray, Iran is in a position of strength. 

Moreover, the Islamic Republic seems more patient than US President Donald Trump, who is desperate for some sort of victory and has already made grave miscalculations. Iran may well emerge as the victor.

As we have seen before, misreading facts on the ground—both on the battlefield and at home—almost invariably leads to defeat. 

Vietnam eventually won its war against the US, owing to its willingness to endure pain, seemingly unlimited supplies of arms from China and the Soviet Union, and domestic US opposition to the conflict. 

The FLN’s military victories, coupled with the French people’s growing aversion to colonial wars, forced France to accept Algerian independence. 

Even Castro and Guevara toppled Fulgencio Batista’s regime partly because public and political sentiment in Havana had turned against the dictator.

The resurgence of guerrilla warfare has underscored the potential benefits of asymmetric warfare in today’s increasingly multipolar world, encouraging countries and regions to assess how they can effectively leverage their unique strengths.

Latin America, for example, is a minor player on the international stage, accounting for 8% of the global population and 6% of global GDP. 

But the region could compensate for its relative weakness by emphasizing its many advantages. 

These include being the world’s largest net food exporter, possessing the biggest freshwater reserves, and having the highest biodiversity levels. 

Latin America also holds the world’s largest deposits of copper and lithium, as well as vast reserves of other strategic minerals and rare earths.

Despite being the world’s most violent region based on homicides per capita, Latin America has long lacked conventional wars between countries: the last such conflict occurred in 1995 between Ecuador and Peru. 

Moreover, the region has been a nuclear-free zone since the Treaty of Tlatelolco was signed in 1967 (with the possible exceptions of Cuba through the 1980s and the Panama Canal Zone, which was abolished in 1999).

Unfortunately, recent victories by right-wing candidates in Chile, Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia suggest that some in the region will be inclined to acquiesce to the US, rather than pursue active non-alignment. 

Brazil faces a tight presidential election in October, with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva confronting an extremist conservative challenger and a slight ebb in popularity (the 80-year-old first ran for president in 1989). 

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is popular but presides over a stagnant economy and widespread violence, subjecting her to constant pressure from the US, to which she inevitably caves.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney best described the evolving situation at Davos: if middle powers are not at the table, they are on the menu. 

Latin America is currently not at the table, but if Trump’s National Security Strategy is anything to go by, it looks like a main dish. 

In such an environment, it would not be surprising if Guevara’s book finds a new audience.

Jorge G. Castañeda, a former foreign minister of Mexico, is a visiting professor at Sciences Po and the author of America Through Foreign Eyes (Oxford University Press, 2020).

Carlos Ominami is a former minister of economy of Chile and a co-author of The Non-Aligned World: Striking Out in an Era of Great Power Competition (Polity, 2025).