Book Review for Total Resistance Swiss Army Guide To Geurilla Warfare and Underground Operations

This book was originally written in response to the cold war after WWII, to provide a primer on resistance operations against Soviet Bloc occupation of Switzerland. It was later adopted by the French as information for Finland, as well as adopted by many leftist organizations. Various translations of the works were made including one for the US Special Forces, likely for groups like Green Berets who were suppose to engage in mobilization of insurgent forces. Paladin Press, now defunct, eventually also published a version that is widely available online from sites like Archive.org. In Germany this book was eventually added to their ban list for youth reading materials, as were Tarzan comics.

Overall, while the book is very dated, it is remarkable that most of the infrastructure and systems from the 1960s is still to some extent the same, although with some modernizations. For instances we still use raillines, we still use telephone lines, we still use electrical lines. The postal service is still operating, many of the professional occupations are not greatly shifted from police to engineers to medical. Although there are many modernizations, the core fundamentals of our industrial societies are greatly unchanged at their core units. We still greatly depend no transportation, electrical, and communications systems in our everyday life. Access to industrial systems and agriculture remain just as critical. Many of the items needed for rough living, and list of food items are still found in many ration and MRE kits and prepper pantries.

So while the book should not be taken at face value as current and ringing true, it is a good groundwork to understand how guerilla operations could be conducted prior to the age of high technology. Now with better surveillance systems and technology, there I dare say is probably a need for some greater level of technological involvement in resistance movements but many of the methods of sabotage would likely still be functional as many of the core infrastructure systems remain much the same. It is hard to imagine that conventional war could ever come to North America, but it does shed light on history and how some lesser developed states may still be engaging in civil conflicts and wars where wars still exist. A good read for SHTF for the strategy of denying any benefit from occupation, on the Swiss model of self defence - leave your enemy no benefit from occupying.