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Colonial war (in some contexts referred to as small war) is a blanket term relating to the various conflicts that arose as the result of overseas territories being settled by foreign powers creating a
colony In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...
. The term especially refers to wars fought during the nineteenth century between European armies in
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
and
Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
.


Description


Classification

Traditionally, wars could be divided into three categories: wars of conquest, wars of liberation, and wars between states. These classifications can likewise be distinguished among colonial wars. Still, the term "colonial war" typically refers to a war of conquest. Wars of conquest, in a colonial context, can be further broken down into two stages: a period of typically brief, regular warfare between an invading power and an indigenous force (which may be, in comparison to the invader, irregular in composition or organization) followed by a period of
irregular warfare Irregular warfare (IW) is defined in United States joint doctrine as "a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations." Concepts associated with irregular warfare are older than the te ...
.
Counter-insurgency Counterinsurgency (COIN) is "the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces". The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the activities of guerrillas or revolutionar ...
operations may be undertaken in order to prepare territory for settlement. Once a foothold has been established by an incoming power, it may launch expeditions into neighboring territory in retaliation against hostility or to neutralize a potential enemy.


Common characteristics

Colonial wars differed from "regular" wars (conflicts between neighboring states) in several ways. The first was that they were more political affairs than military ones. In contrast to regular wars, in which the goals of the belligerents were limited, colonial wars were absolute; conquering powers sought to exert total and permanent control over a territory and its population and ensure lasting stability. In spite of this, resources allotted to colonial campaigns were with few exceptions limited. The meanings of defeat and victory were usually more complicated in colonial wars, as in many cases the invading power would face a belligerent that was not encapsulated by a city, government or ruler. There was often less of a distinction between indigenous citizens and the regular armed forces of defending nations. This lack of centralized authority meant that formal peace agreements were rarely made. Without government structures that could be taken over, administration of conquered peoples and territory was more difficult. To counter this colonial armies would establish or rebuild markets, schools and other public entities following a conflict, as the Americans did in the
Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
following the
Spanish–American War , partof = the Philippine Revolution, the decolonization of the Americas, and the Cuban War of Independence , image = Collage infobox for Spanish-American War.jpg , image_size = 300px , caption = (cloc ...
. In contrast to indigenous forces, European armies (the most common colonizing forces) were always professional forces, removed from the general population. Tasked with the work of rebuilding and administering
colonies In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...
, colonial armies were often active while regular armies in mother countries remained idle until conflict arose. As such, soldiers in these armies would develop their own military culture and practices. Most of a colonial soldier's knowledge would come from direct experience and not from a formal
military education Military education and training is a process which intends to establish and improve the capabilities of military personnel in their respective roles. Military training may be voluntary or compulsory duty. It begins with recruit training, proceed ...
. European armies were almost always technically superior to the indigenous forces they faced, though this could not always be used to their advantage, as equipment like
heavy artillery The formal definition of large-calibre artillery used by the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms (UNROCA) is " guns, howitzers, artillery pieces, combining the characteristics of a gun, howitzer, mortar, or multiple-launch rocket syst ...
required roads (often not present) and deploying formations such as
cavalry Historically, cavalry (from the French word ''cavalerie'', itself derived from "cheval" meaning "horse") are soldiers or warriors who fight mounted on horseback. Cavalry were the most mobile of the combat arms, operating as light cavalry in ...
presented great logistical challenges. European armies also maintained good discipline, had high
morale Morale, also known as esprit de corps (), is the capacity of a group's members to maintain belief in an institution or goal, particularly in the face of opposition or hardship. Morale is often referenced by authority figures as a generic value ...
, were well trained and were educated in their possible deployments and in performing maneuvers. Regardless of the skill of their commanders, native armies usually lacked such cohesion and understanding of warfare. Colonial powers also employed colonial troops in their campaigns, most of whom were of a mixed composition between metropolitan men and officers and indigenous conscripts.


Historical era

Colonial warfare became prevalent in the late 15th century as European powers increasingly seized overseas territories and began colonizing them. The era of colonial wars is generally considered to have ended following the conclusion of the
Portuguese Colonial War The Portuguese Colonial War ( pt, Guerra Colonial Portuguesa), also known in Portugal as the Overseas War () or in the former colonies as the War of Liberation (), and also known as the Angolan, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambican War of Independence, ...
in 1974, though some consider the
Falklands War The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial d ...
of 1982 to be the last true colonial war. Colonial wars are considered to be some of the first instances of irregular warfare and resulted in some of the first studies of
counter-insurgency Counterinsurgency (COIN) is "the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces". The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the activities of guerrillas or revolutionar ...
practices.


Policy, strategy, and tactics

Colonial military practices and tactics were usually regarded as secondary to regular warfare by colonial powers. Due to this emphasis on more direct conflicts, imperial operations and development in colonial ventures often received less attention from the armed forces of nations responsible for them. Locally stationed military officials sometimes developed and conducted their own war policies free from metropolitan restraint. Other times, metropolitan policy was implemented at their discretion. French commanders cared little for state policy when conducting their campaigns in
Western Sudan Sudan is the geographical region to the south of the Sahara, stretching from Western Africa to Central and Eastern Africa. The name derives from the Arabic ' (), or "the lands of the Blacks", referring to West Africa and northern Central Afric ...
in the 1870s and 1880s, while German soldiers in Africa frequently operated contrary to the directions of the colonial bureaucracy. Colonial wars often strained relations between civil and military officials, who competed for control over policy. As in
total war Total war is a type of warfare that includes any and all civilian-associated resources and infrastructure as legitimate military targets, mobilizes all of the resources of society to fight the war, and gives priority to warfare over non-combat ...
, invading powers often directed actions against indigenous non-combatants and local economies. This included the burning of villages, theft of cattle, and systematic destruction of crops as committed by the French in pacification campaigns in Algeria, and the Germans in the
Herero Wars The Herero Wars were a series of colonial wars between the German Empire and the Herero people of German South West Africa (present-day Namibia). They took place between 1904 and 1908. Background Pre-colonial South-West Africa The Hereros wer ...
of southern Africa. In extreme cases, some powers advocated for the extermination of troublesome peoples, as the Germans did following the Herero conflict, resulting in the
Herero and Namaqua genocide The Herero and Namaqua genocide or the Herero and Nama genocide was a campaign of ethnic extermination and collective punishment waged by the German Empire against the Herero people, Herero (Ovaherero) and the Nama people, Nama in German South We ...
. Such actions were usually undertaken when there was a lack of political or military goals for an invader to achieve (if there was no central government to seize or organized army to subdue) as a means to subjugate local populations. European powers held the common perception that Asians and Africans "only understood the language of violence" so that they would not be subdued but through heavy-handed means. They refused to make concessions to indigenous forces for fear of appearing weak. Invading powers were much more easily frustrated when an indigenous force chose to wage a
guerrilla war Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tac ...
instead of committing to pitched battles, such as in the
Franco-Hova Wars The Franco-Hova Wars, also known as the Franco-Malagasy Wars were two French military interventions in Madagascar between 1883 and 1896 that overthrew the ruling monarchy of the Merina Kingdom, and resulted in Madagascar becoming a French colon ...
or the
First Indochina War The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam) began in French Indochina from 19 December 1946 to 20 July 1954 between France and Việt Minh ( Democratic Republic of ...
. Indigenous leaders such as Abdelkader ibn Muhieddine of Algeria,
Mahmadu Lamine al-Hajj Mahmadu Lamine (died 9 December 1887) was a nineteenth-century Senegalese Tijani marabout who led an unsuccessful rebellion against the French colonial government. Early life, education, and hajj Lamine, also known as al-Hajj Muḥammad ...
of Senegal, and
Samori Ture Samory Toure ( – June 2, 1900), also known as Samori Toure, Samory Touré, or Almamy Samore Lafiya Toure, was a Muslim cleric, a military strategist, and the founder and leader of the Wassoulou Empire, an Islamic empire that was in present-da ...
of the
Wassoulou Empire The Wassoulou Empire, sometimes referred to as the Mandinka Empire, was a short-lived (1878–1898) empire of West Africa built from the conquests of Malinke ruler Samori Ture and destroyed by the French colonial army. In 1864, Toucouleur ...
were able to resist European colonialism for years after disregarding traditional methods and using guerrilla tactics instead. In practice, regular and irregular forms of warfare generally happened within quick succession of one another. A handful of traditional battles were won by indigenous Asian and African forces with numerical superiority or the element of surprise over colonial powers, but over time they faced staggering losses and discouraging defeats. Such trends were marked by the German suppression of the
Maji Maji Rebellion The Maji Maji Rebellion (german: Maji-Maji-Aufstand, sw, Vita vya Maji Maji), was an armed rebellion of Islamic and animist Africans against German colonial rule in German East Africa (modern-day Tanzania). The war was triggered by German Colon ...
, the defeat of the
Zulus Zulu people (; zu, amaZulu) are a Nguni ethnic group native to Southern Africa. The Zulu people are the largest ethnic group and nation in South Africa, with an estimated 10–12 million people, living mainly in the province of KwaZulu-Nata ...
at the hands of British forces at the
Battle of Rorke's Drift The Battle of Rorke's Drift (1879), also known as the Defence of Rorke's Drift, was an engagement in the Anglo-Zulu War. The successful British defence of the mission station of Rorke's Drift, under the command of Lieutenants John Chard of the ...
, and the destruction of Mahdist cavalry by British Maxim machine guns at the
Battle of Omdurman The Battle of Omdurman was fought during the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan between a British–Egyptian expeditionary force commanded by British Commander-in-Chief (sirdar) major general Horatio Herbert Kitchener and a Sudanese army of the ...
. Britain and France developed field manuals to prepare soldiers for colonial warfare, whereas Germany lacked a defined system for educating its troops on colonial deployment. Artillery was used by colonizers primarily as a means to demoralize indigenous fighters. Indigenous forces were usually made up of foot soldiers.


North America

The first major colonial wars in
North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the C ...
were fought by Spanish
conquistador Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (, ; meaning 'conquerors') were the explorer-soldiers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, ...
s. Up until the
American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
, most of the colonial conflicts in North America, if they were not
amphibious operations Amphibious warfare is a type of offensive military operation that today uses naval ships to project ground and air power onto a hostile or potentially hostile shore at a designated landing beach. Through history the operations were conducted ...
, took place in the wilderness. Most of the first British colonists in the region were farmers and merchants, not professional soldiers. At the onset of the
Colony of Virginia The Colony of Virginia, chartered in 1606 and settled in 1607, was the first enduring English colony in North America, following failed attempts at settlement on Newfoundland by Sir Humphrey GilbertGilbert (Saunders Family), Sir Humphrey" (histor ...
they underwent military drilling and fortified their settlements. However, this practice was soon abandoned and a
militia A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...
system was adopted. Regular militias consisted of all able males from 16–60 years of age who used their own firearms and served without pay. Training was minimal and occurred once a year, at which point militiamen would have to demonstrate their proficiency with their weapons. In the areas under the greatest threat from Native Americans, the militias would garrison several fortified dwellings, though militiamen usually defended their own homes. From these militias, paid "rangers" were hired to patrol the frontier line and occasionally conduct offensive raids on Native American villages. With the exception of the raiding expeditions of the
French and Indian War The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the s ...
, the majority of early colonial campaigns between colonizing powers in North America were fought in order to secure strategic
fort A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...
s. The purpose of nearly all movements against forts was to bring sufficient
artillery Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during sieges, ...
close enough to breach their walls. As such, any typical attack involved the transport of cannon by a labor force, covered by an escort of troops, which would then be used to secure a compromised fort. On the
American frontier The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...
in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...
, experienced Native trackers were employed as auxiliary scouts to gather intelligence on hostile Native Americans' positions and movements. Most Native Americans performed
hit-and-run In traffic laws, a hit and run or a hit-and-run is the act of causing a traffic collision and not stopping afterwards. It is considered a supplemental crime in most jurisdictions. Additional obligation In many jurisdictions, there may be an ...
attacks on United States troops and settlers, often with horses. If their camp was discovered, their activities would be disrupted, usually via an early morning surprise assault. Trackers were usually native or mixed-race, though some were white. Indigenous people were often demoralized when they saw other natives working with United States forces. Native American tribes in west were culturally predisposed to political and military independence. In turn, they struggled to unite against white settlers from the east, and were often distracted from doing so by internal conflicts of their own. Some individual tribes even had trouble uniting among themselves. Still, some managed to form coalitions, such as the alliance between the
Sioux The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin (; Dakota: /otʃʰeːtʰi ʃakoːwĩ/) are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations peoples in North America. The modern Sioux consist of two major divisions based on language divisions: the Dakota an ...
,
Arapaho The Arapaho (; french: Arapahos, ) are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota. By the 1850s, Arapaho ba ...
, and
Cheyenne The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enroll ...
which dominated the northern region of the
Great Plains The Great Plains (french: Grandes Plaines), sometimes simply "the Plains", is a broad expanse of flatland in North America. It is located west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains, much of it covered in prairie, steppe, and ...
during the mid-nineteenth century. Regardless, all native peoples were at an economic and industrial disadvantage to the United States.


Africa

The first colonial wars in
Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
occurred between the Portuguese and various coastal inhabitants as the former sought to expand its trading empire with Asia. In spite of their efforts, the Portuguese conquistadors were only able to establish limited territorial holdings in
Sub-Saharan Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the African co ...
regions, facing tropical disease and organized resistance from Africans armed with iron weapons. They were also greatly outnumbered and encountered difficulty in getting their
musket A musket is a muzzle-loaded long gun that appeared as a smoothbore weapon in the early 16th century, at first as a heavier variant of the arquebus, capable of penetrating plate armour. By the mid-16th century, this type of musket gradually di ...
s to function in the humid climate. In the 1600s and 1700s, other European powers such as the Dutch, the British, and the French began to take interest in Africa as a means to supply slaves to their American colonies. They gradually established their own enclaves along the West African coast where they could actively trade with local rulers. This remained the state of affairs up through the early 1800s, as few Europeans showed interest in claiming large territories in the continent. The European colonial campaigns in Africa were generally conducted by European forces with support from native troops. While European soldiers were generally more reliable, they were susceptible to diseases in tropical climates that local Africans had adjusted to, making it more optimal (less money had to be spent on medical treatment) for the latter to be deployed in Sub-Saharan environments. As such, European formations were often deployed on the continent for limited periods of time, while native units were used for longer expeditions. The powers concurred that the "African methods of warfare" were "inherently cruel". Such logic was used to justify the commission of atrocities in conflict. African peoples were relatively disjointed, leading European powers to employ a strategy of
divide and rule Divide and rule policy ( la, divide et impera), or divide and conquer, in politics and sociology is gaining and maintaining power divisively. Historically, this strategy was used in many different ways by empires seeking to expand their terr ...
, aggravate internal tensions, and make use of
collaborationism Wartime collaboration is cooperation with the enemy against one's country of citizenship in wartime, and in the words of historian Gerhard Hirschfeld, "is as old as war and the occupation of foreign territory". The term ''collaborator'' dates to t ...
. In response, African leaders sometimes formed coalitions. General Thomas Robert Bugeaud oversaw the first deployment of mobile columns in a colonial war in 1840 when he ordered formations to raid and plunder Arab settlements to aid in the French pacification of Algeria upon realizing that local civilians were playing a key role in the war effort. By the early 20th century, colonial campaigns in Africa had become increasingly "modern". Colonial powers were forced to commit larger bodies of troops for conquest or to suppress rebellion, as the British had to in the
Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...
or the Italians did in their conquest of Libya. Some of this was due to the fact that in many —but not all— places the technological gap between European armies and native forces had shrunk considerably, mostly with the proliferation of quick-firing rifles. Most of this change was brought on by the evolution of Africans' tactics and strategy. They had abandoned pitched battles and had instead adopted methods of
guerrilla warfare Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run tactic ...
. In this fashion, the
Boer Boers ( ; af, Boere ()) are the descendants of the Dutch-speaking Free Burghers of the eastern Cape frontier in Southern Africa during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. From 1652 to 1795, the Dutch East India Company controlled this area ...
s (in South Africa), the Herero and Nama (in
German South-West Africa German South West Africa (german: Deutsch-Südwestafrika) was a colony of the German Empire from 1884 until 1915, though Germany did not officially recognise its loss of this territory until the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. With a total area of ...
), the Moroccans, and the Libyans all enjoyed considerable success against their opponents before their eventual respective defeats.


Asia

Asia, like Europe, was home to several powerful empires. Between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries both dramatically increased their commercial activities, especially with one another. However, unlike Europe, Asia's military capabilities developed very little. Most Asian armies were drawn up by local ruling elites from fighting classes of men with whom they had personal ties. They were funded by plunder, rent payments, and taxes. However, payment through taxes was frequently undermined by corrupt individuals in imperial bureaucracies, who would
embezzle Embezzlement is a crime that consists of withholding assets for the purpose of conversion of such assets, by one or more persons to whom the assets were entrusted, either to be held or to be used for specific purposes. Embezzlement is a type ...
the funds for personal use. This changed significantly with the widespread adoption of
gunpowder Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, carbon (in the form of charcoal) and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). Th ...
between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, giving rise to renewed imperial power in China and Japan.
Cannon A cannon is a large-caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder during ...
capable of breaching fortified walls and ending
siege A siege is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or a well-prepared assault. This derives from la, sedere, lit=to sit. Siege warfare is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict characteriz ...
s was the principal weapon. However, once the new artillery was incorporated into imperial forces, there was little incentive to experiment with new military technologies or forms of organization. Any major recruitment overhauls were likely to upset local power structures. With the suppression of nomadic
steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the temperate grasslands ...
raiders (through the use of muskets) and the relatively limited presence of European merchantmen, there was little external pressure to alter their methods of warfare. The Asian empires also began to experience internal divisions. Competition between local elites over tax revenue burdened populaces, contributing greatly to the collapse of the
Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...
in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Population growth also strained farmers and their children, breeding sectarian violence in China in the 1770s. Meanwhile, European states were frequently warring with one another, and developed new weapons and tactics to maintain military dominance.
Drilling Drilling is a cutting process where a drill bit is spun to cut a hole of circular cross-section in solid materials. The drill bit is usually a rotary cutting tool, often multi-point. The bit is pressed against the work-piece and rotated at ...
allowed for the conscription and recruitment of masses of unskilled men who would be disciplined in the performance of maneuvers. New tax systems made it possible to fund standing armies and ensure soldiers a regular salary. Enhanced power structures solidified the control commanders and political leaders had over their forces, making them effective even when operating far from seats of authority. The
Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
further increased Europeans' technological capabilities. Ultimately, Asia's antiquated governments and military establishment were unable to match the Europeans' institutions. European military dominance over Asia would become apparent in India in the eighteenth century and in China and Japan in the nineteenth century. As in Africa, European colonial ventures in
Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
were usually bolstered by native soldiers.


Australia and Oceania

The
Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...
Native Mounted Police Force regularly employed native trackers against
Indigenous Australians Indigenous Australians or Australian First Nations are people with familial heritage from, and membership in, the ethnic groups that lived in Australia before British colonisation. They consist of two distinct groups: the Aboriginal peoples ...
' communities. The force was disbanded in the 1890s after all of the native populations had been subjugated.


Europe

Timothy Snyder Timothy David Snyder (born August 18, 1969) is an American historian specializing in the modern history of Central and Eastern Europe. He is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute ...
, Professor of History at Yale University, describes the
Russo-Ukrainian War The Russo-Ukrainian War; uk, російсько-українська війна, rosiisko-ukrainska viina. has been ongoing between Russia (alongside Russian separatists in Ukraine) and Ukraine since February 2014. Following Ukraine's Re ...
of 2022 as a colonial one.Timothy Snyder, "The War in Ukraine Is a Colonial War: For centuries, the country has lived in the shadow of empire. But its past also provides the key to its present" ''The New Yorker'' April 28, 202
online


See also

* Colonialism *
Insurgency An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion against authority waged by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare from primarily rural base areas. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric nature: small irreg ...
and
counter-insurgency Counterinsurgency (COIN) is "the totality of actions aimed at defeating irregular forces". The Oxford English Dictionary defines counterinsurgency as any "military or political action taken against the activities of guerrillas or revolutionar ...
*
Society of Colonial Wars The Society of Colonial Wars is a hereditary society composed of men who trace their descents from forebears who, in military, naval, or civil positions of high trust and responsibility, by acts or counsel, assisted in the establishment, defense ...


Notes


Citations


References

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Colonial War Wars by type History of European colonialism