If Fallujah is re-infiltrated with a contingent of insurgents and if it re-emerges as an insurgent stronghold, it will signal a victory in employing a fundamental strategy of guerrilla warfare?to seek to win by not losing. This strategy translates into tactics aimed at avoiding defeat in any one battle. Further, it also aims to preserve and regenerate cadres to wage relentless violence, which demonstrates commitment to a long-term fight and an operational resiliency. This tactic aims to corrode the will of the adversary?s forces from continuing the fight by making it costly, indefinite, and ?unwinable? vis-?-vis strategic interests, blood, and treasure. The course of Fallujah?s renaissance will likely serve as a fulcrum event for both sides of the insurgency and as an indicator of the fitness of both sides.

Should Fallujah remain relatively free of insurgents, it would represent a demonstration of a durable rout by US and Iraq forces of an insurgent stronghold and its pacification and/or clearing of insurgent elements. Insurgents might be able to infiltrate the city or rally new recruits from the city’s environs and set up a base of operations within the city. This would represent a damaging, and potentially bankrupting, riposte to current and long-term US and Iraqi forces, to government counter-insurgency strategies, and the national renaissance. Re-emerging in Falluja would further demonstrate a sobering resiliency and durability of insurgent cadres. In addition, the ability to inspire new recruits would highlight the apparent purchase of at least some aspects of the kaleidoscope of insurgent agendas, which coalesce in fighting for the ouster of foreign troops and the Iraqi government. The re-infiltration of insurgent forces into Fallujah would also underline the daunting task for counter-insurgency forces in identifying insurgents among Fallujah?s populace and also rebutting and muting the recruiting draw of insurgent agendas.