"military studies"102: "The fallacyof leaderless resistance."

For you more military minded: I am posting a link to an interesting article
re: "The fallacy of leaderless resistance."
This is a long article for reading and pondering;

I don't think I'd fully engage in a discussion of armed "resistance tactics" on an open forum.

But it points out the holes in alot of "hot air internet bravado".Specifying the actual ineffectiveness of a true leader less armed resistance. grabbing your rifle; shooting things in rage is a form of noisy anarchy not effective political protest or change.

A Brief Overview
Nothing defines the blatant ineptitude and rank incompetence of the radical resistance more starkly than the concept of so-called “leaderless resistance” (hereafter, LR). By its very nature LR amounts to little more than anarchy and, as demonstrated by some of the most recent examples, very rapidly degenerates into simple banditry.

Furthermore, one notes for the record that the most vociferous proponents of LR have, in common with those to whom that fantastic idea appeals, exactly zero experience in guerrilla warfare, its theory, or practice.


Simply stated, the concept of LR posits that individuals or small, close-knit groups, acting on their own initiative, performing their own targeting and relying on their own resources, can strike at the government’s infrastructure at will without fear of infiltration. Tactically, LR ranges from individual nuisance acts for the sake of causing a nuisance on one end of the spectrum to small unit terrorism for terrorism’s sake on the other.

However, nothing can be said about LR’s potential operational impact because, by definition, through rejection of any superior organizational structure, it can have no operational impact.

lengthy article continuesat:

Anyway enjoy:
www.australianguerrilla.com...

In the70's people were all about their perfect bug-out-bag and "backpack survivalism" was the rage; It is pretty well accepted now " backpack survivalism" is a poor strategy; and it is pretty much impossible to carry everything you need to survive in a "warrior of the wasteland" fictional style and still move for very long.

The same is coming to light for the "Lone wolf" armchair "John Connors". An individual without clear strategy; objectives; a support infrastructure and logistics in place is not going to be very effective in accomplishing much against a closed police state society .He may create some fireworks.. cause some mayhem but the powers will still be there the next day.

Be responsible; informed gun owners don't fall for "provocation": violence is the reaction "they" wish to draw forth from us.(it makes their"job" an easier "sell".)

"I'm out"...The net is still up now is the time to take advantage of it: education is important...
(end of "transmission")

reply to post by 46ACE


That is why I am trying to move closer to family. All of my buds where I live have moved. I do have a lone wolf plan to get home. And it doesn't involve getting into firefights.

It involves lots of hiding, moving at night and along waterways...oh yea, and lots of luck.

reply to post by 46ACE


Interesting, thanks.

I think you make some good points here...but you seem to be mixing things up a bit IMHO. Leaderless resistence is one thing, survivalism is another. The two should not be confused.

Leaderless resistence can be enormously powerful in the right context but it is ultimately a form of armed conflict. Survivalism, on the other hand, involves preparation rather than proactive strikes and it need not be violent at all. In fact I would hazard to say that the most effective survivalists are those who need never resort to violence at all.

Originally posted by silent thunder
reply to post by 46ACE

 

Interesting, thanks.

I think you make some good points here...but you seem to be mixing things up a bit IMHO. Leaderless resistence is one thing, survivalism is another. The two should not be confused.

Leaderless resistence can be enormously powerful in the right context but it is ultimately a form of armed conflict. Survivalism, on the other hand, involves preparation rather than proactive strikes and it need not be violent at all. In fact I would hazard to say that the most effective survivalists are those who need never resort to violence at all.

I agree.
Mypoint in comparison and contrast was the "similarity in" (the "maturing of" ) preconceived closely held notions. I was surprised at the premise of the article. I learned something. My point was throwing a bucket of reality on the prospective " john Connors"..
People envision invading foreign "blue helmets controlling their towns under "martial law.

WHY I'll ....I'll get my ar or Ak and shoot those invaders where they stand their post. The result is they'll just send more guys and specialist versed in unconventional warfare..
Iam NOT advocating selling your weapons for canned butter and throwing in the towel but theres more to being effective( a.k.a. "winning") than buying alot of ammunition.

I have always believed in the ultimate supremacy of the armed American citizen but when it came down to brass tacks ( tactical planning) I realized we were unorganized individuals without a grand strategy.and with out agreeing on an outcome all the firepower and determination in the world is not going to achieve Amorphic,ill defined, unagreed upon goals. As pointed out in the article.

Well now. Although I respect that this article comes from respected sources, I have to say that I am slightly concerned that you should pay attention to any briefing or data, which fails entirely to fairly and correctly use simple terms like "anarchy".

en.wikipedia.org...

Using terms like Anarchy (which is a legitimate political situation first, and a lousy propegandised description of a non conservative hell according to right wingers second, although the second definition was created to steer people away from what is a completely understandable and logical political attitude) incorrectly or unfairly, shows almost from the get go that this article is heavy on the propeganda, and very less heavy on genuine logic.

First of all, this article almost entirely ignores the ex forces, law enforcement and intelligence element that likely exists inside of a nation. Not everyone with the training required to enact a meaningful resistance or any militarised action against government, is currently employed by government. Redundant cops, vetrans , men on medical discharge from the forces, are not exactly in small number at the moment, and not all are going to be men who will take the will of government at face value and knuckle under.

These people will have the training that these armchair wargamers lack, and some will know plenty about insurgency , espionage, data mining, making oneself invisible or hard to detect when operating computers on the net, camo techniques, weapons and tactics, and so on. This information can be distributed , and taught to others.

The issue of a leaderless resistance is very simple and has no logical flaw. Technicaly , the French resistance had no one leader. It had several highly connected players who had an overview of the war as a whole, but they were not leaders. They just had enough information to be listened to , and that is no where near the same thing.
In cell based resistance a leader is simply not required. In fact, when fighting an enormous entity such as a government , leadership and a single source of direction is a weakness, not a strength.

The anarchist option for instance, requires no leader, just shared intent. True anarchism has nothing to do with senseless acts of violence, theft, and outright banditry. If you actualy go and find out what genuine anarchism means, you will understand that a leaderless society is not only possible but preferable to a capitalist dictatorship, or a socialist one by far.

So you are taking issue with the authors negative connotation of the word "anarchy"(?)

When has "anarchy" ever accomplished anything except breaking a few windows while snorting" we're mad as hell!" we're striking back at" the man"!...Pointless really,pointless raging by idle teens...

I feel the "common usage"( or my understanding of it ) was appropriate and adequate and for its use in the article.Fine Political hair splitting was unnecessary; it got the point across..

yes there are many vets about ( "count me as one")..The authors' point was that weapons and war skills matters less than a coordinated strategy and support infrastructure. The "shooters" band together and believe they are "enough". You seem to be arguing against that conclusion. I used to also; this has caused me to "rethink"...

"shooters" don't see the other necessary functions filled by other units in a modern military.
I.e.In a larger force intelligence is handled by other units. in the lone cell it is handled by the same individuals who will implement the action. if they are noticed or identified the operation is over and the cell neutralised or at least compromised.

I just threw the article out there, I won't get too overly involved in discussion in an open forum of such a sensitive ("pub only") topic.

reply to post by 46ACE


I only take issue with the use of the word anarchy because it speaks to the bias level and accuracy of the entire article as a whole.

This is a straight up fact: Lets say I wanted to get involved with an effort to remove and replace my government using martial means. You couldnt organise a meaningful armed resistance, with a proper intel network, agents, soldiers, weapons, tanks, planes, satellite comms,and so on and so forth, without getting found out and pummelled before getting off a shot, because governments couldnt fail to notice such a thing.

Therefore, although it might not be a dead cert to work, the ONLY way that any one , anyone at all could hope to prosecute a rebalancing of a nation, the taking of power from the powerful, is by keeping your group number small and your footprint harder to detect .

"back pack surivivalism is a poor strategy" What are you going to do? Carry everything one item at a time?

Lenin knew of the fallacies of leaderless resistance, hence why he despised the anarchist movements of his time. His vanguard party view of revolutionary theory is proven to work.