In 1937, Mao was in retreat after ten years of battling the Nationalist troops of Chiang Kai-shek. During this period, he wrote a succinct pamphlet that remains one of the most influential documents on warfare to this date. This treatise, the first systematic analysis of guerilla warfare, established Mao as the architect of a new method of warfare. The treatise is translated and introduced by General Samuel B. Griffith. USMC, a leading military strategist of the era.