RAND_MR1382

of these larger units, they remained under central command and control, which left
them with little initiative to pursue further action in the wake of their occupations of the
small towns in Chiapas. Consequently, much of the Zapatista force simply sat in place
until orders were given to retreat into the Lacandón jungle. Also, these dispersed
detachments were simply too far away to come to the aid of the main forces in a timely
manner when the latter came under attack by the Mexican army.
This dispersion of the fighting forces turned out to be a serious problem for the main
EZLN components, because it bled off fighters at a time when the EZLN fully expected to
be engaging in pitched battles. Indeed, their tactical doctrine was also much influenced
by Mao, whose dictum was that “Guerrillas concentrate when the enemy is advancing
upon them” (from Griffith, 1961, p. 103). For example, in the firefight in the Ocosingo
market, the EZLN units stood their ground, with most of one operating field unit,
comprising hundreds of fighters, engaging the Mexican army openly. The results were
disastrous: The insurgents were quickly pinned down and exposed to heavy fire from
artillery and helicopters. There is some evidence that the EZLN military leadership tried
to avoid this engagement by calling for a prompt retreat, but the Zapatista commander
on the ground in Ocosingo continued to follow what he took to be his standing orders,
and EZLN casualties were very high (scores dead, over one hundred wounded). 11
EZLN leaders quickly became aware of the flaws in their traditional guerrilla strategy,
and they promptly began adapting. They retreated from their exposed positions in the
cities and towns and dissolved their large combat units, replacing them with much
smaller fighting bands of roughly squad size (12–16 men). Their doctrine of open
confrontation, which they expected would spark a national uprising (which showed no
signs of emerging), 12 was replaced with a series of ambushes and minor skirmishes.
Combat operations were thus dying out, and when the public, the media, and humanrights
NGOs, both domestic and transnational, got involved, the EZLN was ready to shift
gears to a very different sort of conflict in which the principal maneuvers would take
place off the battlefield.
The most apparent organizational shift in the EZLN was its decentralization and
downsizing of maneuver forces. 13 This took place within weeks of the initial attacks on
the cities and towns of Chiapas. The other significant development was the EZLN’s
campaign to attract NGOs and other members of “global civil society” to their cause. As
discussed below, these nonstate actors mobilized quickly, and they helped to constrain
the Mexican government’s military response to the uprising, even during a period when
the United States may have been tacitly interested in seeing a forceful crackdown on the
rebels. While reaching out to these nonstate political allies, the EZLN altered its own
declaratory political goals, calling explicitly for reform instead of the overthrow of the
government. As these changes occurred, the EZLN’s “war of the flea” gave way to the
Zapatista movement’s “war of the swarm.”