In his new book, "The Unconquerable World," Jonathan Schell explains how "people's war" came to be the dominant form of international conflict in the nuclear age. People's war subordinates all aspects of warfare to politics, because only through politics can the strength of the people be harnessed to defeat an enemy that is materially more powerful.

Some people's wars are violent (Vietnam) and some are not (the collapse of the Soviet Union, the defeat of apartheid in South Africa). What they all have in common is a concerted challenge to an oppressive or imperialist force. Though the Americans do not see themselves as oppressors or imperialists -- they see themselves as liberators -- and claim the insurgency is not a national movement, the current situation in Iraq has many earmarks of a people's war.

A central aspect of the conflict is the use of the media as a weapon. It appears the hostage-taking tactics utilized by some Iraqi militants are meant to draw the world's attention to the attack on Fallujah so that pressure will be brought to bear on the United States to back off. Though these kidnappings have a slapdash, improvised quality to them, they've been effective in ways that even their perpetrators hadn't dreamed of.