Paper short abstract:

The paper focusses on an armed conflict involving undercover action. The example of the struggle of the German urban guerilla groups during the 1970’s demonstrates the hitches stirred up, the abilities required and the problems of legitimization raised by a conflict characterized by clandestineness.

Paper long abstract:

The use of secret, covert and clandestine forms of action in armed conflicts creates specific frictions the opponents have to deal with. The case of West German urban guerilla groups and the struggle they rouse against the Federal Republic from the beginning of the 1970's is enlightening. These small, isolated and, from the point of view of what a "real" warfare would be, largely underequipped fighters made of clandestineness a central resource of their action and a main feature of their conflict with the security agencies. The impossibility to know when and where they would hit their next target opened up a space of uncertainty that turned their weakness into an effective arm and a political grandeur. Acting in and out of the "underground" involves specific practical and cognitive abilities: simulating normality, processing deception and handling suspicion belong to them and this paper precisely accounts for them. But by setting up a space of uncertainty, the members of the armed groups throw themselves into that very same space. The police and secret services adjust to the characteristics of the action of the urban guerilla groups and likewise also adopt techniques of simulation, deception and suspicion and turn them against their opponents. This process makes of the arm of the weak an arm of the strong. But it also raises issues concerning the state and its legitimacy. That is the reason why the paper concludes on the question of what it means for a democratic state to wage a "shadow war".