The dynamics of urban guerrilla warfare lie in the urban guerrilla's violent clash with the military and police forces of the dictatorship. The police have superiority in this clash. The urban guerrilla has inferior forces. The paradox lies in the fact that although the urban guerrilla is weaker, he is nevertheless the attacker.

For their part, the military and police forces respond to the attack by mobilizing and concentrating infinitely superior forces in their campaign to persecute and destroy the urban guerrilla. He can avoid defeat only if he capitalizes on the initial advantages he has available, so compensating for his weakness and lack of material.

These advantages are:

1. surprise;
2. better knowledge of the terrain than the enemy;
3. greater mobility and speed than either the police or other repressive forces;
4. an intelligence service superior to that of the enemy; and,
5. command and decisiveness in an operation so superior to that of the enemy that every guerrilla fighter is inspired and never thinks of hesitating, while the enemy, stunned by surprise, is incapable of effective response.