History of guerrilla warfare History of guerrilla warfare The history of guerrilla warfare stretches back to ancient history. While guerrilla tactics can be viewed as a natural continuation of prehistoric warfare, the Chinese general and strategist Sun Tzu, in his "The Art of War" (6th century BCE), was the earliest to propose the use of guerrilla warfare. This directly inspired the development of modern guerrilla warfare. Communist leaders like Mao Zedong and North Vietnamese Ho Chi Minh both implemented guerrilla warfare in the style of Sun Tzu, which served as a model for similar strategies elsewhere, such as the Cuban "foco" theory and the
Sun Tzu most of the notable figures from the Spring and Autumn period. The name "Sun Wu" () does not appear in any text prior to the "Shiji", and may have been a made-up descriptive cognomen meaning "the fugitive warrior": the surname "Sun" can be glossed as the related term "fugitive" ("xùn" ), while "Wu" is the ancient Chinese virtue of "martial, valiant" ("wǔ" ), which corresponds to Sun Tzu's role as the hero's "doppelgänger" in the story of Wu Zixu. The only historical battle attributed to Sun Tzu, the Battle of Boju, has no record of him fighting in that battle.