Tequila, very true, Mao had to occupy a physical space as does UBL. What I was looking at is that the actual space is not important, he could set up in the south or the north, so long as he could live.

I'm going to extemporize a bit here, because I'm not clear as to what the answer is. When I read about Lettow-Vorbeck I asked myself how could he survive, how could he keep his men together against the overwhelming odds. Also I was looking at Lawrence and comparing his actions to Lettow, both took small forces and targeted the enemies bases and lines of communication, in this case railroads and supply dumps, physical in nature. The destruction of these caused reaction in great disproportion to the efforts expended by both Lawerence and Lettow. Further the Turks and Brits could not gain the same reaction from Lawerence or Lettow, respectively, by doing the same thing. The loss of physical bases hurt them but did not demoralize them to the point of giving in. They fought on, perhaps it is the underdog mentality?

In the American Revolution the British took Manhatten and Philadelphia, it was a crushing blow, in a European war at the time it would have been all over. Yet Washington retires to Valley Forge then crosses the Deleware and wins a stunning small victory and suddenly the cause is reborn.

Also in the American Revolution, when the Indian raids got out of hand on the frontier. Washington sent General Sullivan to destroy the Iroquis Nation. He ran straight into their base and burned it down, they never recovered. Yet as goesh points out the native american resistance lasted a long time beyond that, ever pushing their bases further west until they ran out of physical space in which to allow their ideology/way of life to exist.

What I am seeing is that an insurgent unlike the counter-insurgent can move his physical base freely to any location where his ideaology base can exist without direct attack from the government. From this base he can strike in small groups at will destroying fixed bases of the government.

I think of Che at this point, in Bolivia, he was unable to develop the physical base to allow himself the freedom of action, eventually being pinned and killed.

How would this twin bases -physical and ideological- concept equate to trans-nationals or to local insurgents? What are the weaknesses?