Prodding gently at sacred cows – Pineland & Leaderless Resistance
There was a recent article published on WRSA (HERE), a guest article from the Mountain Guerrilla blog. Reading it along with the original article that explains the concept of Leaderless Resistance (LR) (HERE), I am moved to comment.
It is not that the linked article is wrong; it is more a question of relevance and tone. In basic terms, it explains how U.S. Special Forces doctrine for Unconventional Warfare (UW) does not chime with the concept of LR. That is fine; clearly UW doctrine is superior and offers up the concept of a disciplined, led, resistance.
I question, however, the specific relevance. It is one thing to offer up doctrine, it is another to develop the situation and tailor the doctrine to the actual situation. The other side of this is using doctrine to beat people about the head, and basically, as the tone of the article appears to me, tell people that if they are not doing it the doctrinal way, then they are morons.
So what is Pineland all about? Pineland is the fictional country wherein the training on the Special Forces Qualification course takes place. In Pineland training occurs in UW and also FID, which is Foreign Internal Defense (concentrating on training and supporting a foreign military to further US interests abroad). This is all a Special Forces (i.e. Green Beret) task. What does this pan out as in reality? Examples include training Guerrillas in the Vietnam War, training Afghans to counter the Russians, leading to the creation of the Taliban, then training the Northern Alliance to overthrow the Taliban, then aiding the Moslem Brotherhood to overthrow Gadhafi in Libya and aiding Al Qaeda to overthrow the Syrian Government. Yes, a little glib, but you get my point.
So, Special Forces (as opposed to Special Operations Forces (SOF), which is a different thing), are prepared to support, train and help execute unconventional warfare in foreign countries, supported by the might of the US Military. Do Special Forces personnel have a role in helping Patriots combat tyranny in a future American resistance campaign? Clearly, yes – but only so long as they can tailor their training and doctrine to marry up with the reality of the situation, and do so when undergoing SHTF just like the rest of the population.
In the guest article, a couple of examples of extremists are used to show how LR does not work. Well, these guys, these examples, are simply terrorists. I’d shoot them myself. Blowing up civvies is not cool. The point is made that they formed cells but did not operate from a base of support, no auxiliary and no underground. True.
Well, here is the newsflash: In America there is not an insurgency. There is not a guerrilla campaign being waged. If there is, please let me in on the secret. For example, a terrorist/freedom fighter campaign, to be effective, must have a broad base of public support (granted it takes 3% of the population to keep a campaign alive). It must simply continue to exist for long enough to make a political solution expedient to the government. Just look at Northern Ireland and the ‘troubles’ since 1969. Small radical terrorist groups in the United States don’t have the support of the populace or the organization to last that long, thankfully. I really dislike terrorists. If terrorists can stay around for long enough, and generate enough political clout, they will not win militarily but they may reach political accommodation. For a military victory, the conflict would have to escalate to full civil war and conventional operations.
The thing is, the article on LR actually makes a lot of sense, within its own parameters. It starts from a basis of not having the ability to create operational security and having to work from there. If you don’t have the broad popular support for a resistance campaign, then you would find it hard to run an operation, (without the benefits of technologically superior external support as SF has), along the lines of classic UW. So in a way, what is the argument about? If you can run a classic UW ‘G’ campaign, then clearly that is superior, but if you can’t you may simply be left with the LR model.
In my novel ‘Patriot Dawn: The Resistance Rises’ I lay out an example of a how a ‘Tier 1’ resistance campaign may pan out. They can only do what they do because they had the network, the auxiliary, in place before the collapse and Regime takeover. They do much of the tactical training after the collapse with the benefit of a remote area to do so – and in fact training after a war begins is eminently feasible – after all, isn’t that what SF are doing with the ‘G’s’ in the camps during the insurgency they are supporting in Pineland? My guys, in the book, were able to get pretty top level Intel because they had the network and some pretty high tech communication methods within that, along with some very low tech methods for the fighters themselves. A lot of it came down to low tech harassment operations against Regime targets within a specific AO.
But let’s bring in a dose of reality. Trainers, like myself, are running tactical training for people. Why? There is a whole spectrum of interest in light infantry/UW style tactical training. The spectrum runs from part time preppers, gun guys, people who want to keep their family alive, through ‘1000 yard retreat snipers’ to those who feel they want to take an active part in fighting enemies ‘foreign and domestic’.
In reality, most prepper type people are trying to prepare to survive and defend themselves when the collapse, SHTF, arrives. Depending on what election/poll statistics you believe, or not, most of the country is asleep. So, arguably there is no widespread basis for support for a guerrilla campaign to restore the Constitution. Most Americans are sadly shadows of the founding fathers and greater generations, doing nothing to stand up for what is right. Such a campaign can’t begin without the political consensus among enough people. And right now, people are accepting security over liberty, complaining a little about the tyranny that is upon us, and relaxing in their luxurious lifestyles. More McDonalds anyone?
So personally I believe that we will either go peacefully, like little lambs, into the sunset of liberty and the rising police state, or there will be an event, such as a financial collapse, that will galvanize people to survive and fight. And many will die.
Thing is, in a collapse, most people will just be trying to survive They will be trying to get out of the cities and contrary to what some say, operations are likely to be conducted in the forests/boonies because that is where the survivors will be. It may not be where the Regime is concentrating force, but that only matters to those who can organize enough to move out and strike at enemies foreign or domestic where they are located. Such an SHTF situation is not the same as SF UW. There may be similarities, but the scenario is not the same. The doctrine must be adapted.
Most of the Patriot movement is fractured. People fight on blogs and can’t agree. That’s liberty, but that is not the same rather strict discipline demanded by UW operations among ‘G’ forces. Cell organizations, all that good stuff in the UW manual, don’t, for the large part, exist. People will be interested in surviving. Like it or not, the default setting is leaderless resistance/leaderless survival of small families, groups and individuals in hollers out there in the boonies. That is effectively what the ‘prepper’ philosophy is, and it does not include waging a UW campaign.
Am I saying that such fractured LR is the best method? No. Can we do better if we organize groups and tribes, area coordination, in advance? Yes. But don’t just trot out doctrine; adapt it to the circumstances.
What about Intel? Well, if you don’t have an Intel network in place, all your Intel will be locally gathered. That does have disadvantages for targeting and doctrinal procedures such as using the CARVER matrix. That ties in with OPSEC and the need for secure communications, which you may not have when facing Regime assets equipped with the latest technology. That was the whole LR argument, in a nutshell.
So what will it look like? Chaos. All those people going out and buying rifles, regardless of if it is their second amendment rights, are mostly part of the 50 yard AR/AK killer crowd. Carnage. That is why people want tactical training, so they can defend themselves in the areas that they are trying to survive in. The other side of that is the ‘1000 yard’ long range sniper, sitting pretty at his retreat. Wake up and smell the coffee, it’s not going to work. You have to sleep sometime, you have to patrol/observe the covered approaches, and you need a team on rotation to do so. The upshot of this is carnage. Leaderless carnage. Where are the rules of engagement here? Unless you put up a sign and give a clear warning, are you going to snipe every refugee, gun carrying or not, that moves into your AO? It makes for a risky pastime, going out walking SHTF, and it calls for some serious patrolling drills!
People are going to be dealing with collapse, survival and protecting their families. They can only go out and conduct resistance operations remote from their home base if that base (& family) is adequately protected. Read ‘Patriot Dawn: The Resistance Rises’ for examples of that. It is intended to be a realistic scenario based, rather than a doctrine based, tactical novel about how this could pan out if you were able to run a network & Resistance campaign. Who is the area commander who is going to designate legitimate high reward Regime targets and deconflict between cell operations? There isn’t one. Unless you start organizing it now. But then you run into other problems, such as using the cell structure without adequate secure communications. You can go low tech and use dead drops and such, but if you want rapid response it isn’t going to happen. The Regime will EW/DF your comms.
So we need to practice our tactical skills, in order to protect our areas and conduct effective patrols, potentially raids and ambushes, in the local area. Unless it is organized, there will be nothing but a leaderless resistance. Is that better than the classic UW doctrine? No. Is it reality? If it happened tonight then yes.
So I stand against an elitist stance that says that if you are not in a position to conduct operations in line with SF doctrine, then you are wrong. The situation is what it is. Do I think that organizing in advance is a good idea? Yes – and I laid it out in Patriot Dawn for that very reason.
When some of this doctrine meets with the reality of a collapse, much of it will prove to be pure fantasy. You have to make the doctrine adapt to the situation, not just trot it out and expect to match the situation to the doctrine.
Live Hard, Die Free.
MV
Extremely well thought out. You do what you can when you can.
Although I suppose this could be quibbling over semantics, I would say what you are describing is more of a come-as-you-are (almost said “spontaneous”, but that’s clearly not right…something has to light the fire) insurgency rather than so-called “Leaderless Resistance.”
I see the whole LR concept as an attempt to create a doctrinal template for an absence of a coherent structure. What LR most assuredly is not is a well-thought out clever plan to fight the regime by using mission orders and commanders intent in order to preserve OPSEC. Quite the opposite. LR is simply an absence of any sort of overarching plan or organization.
I see the concept of LR as an attempt to shoehorn the plans that individuals, families and small groups (and even some militias) have made (arrived at independently) to survive a collapse (or TEOTWAWKI or whatever you want to call it) into some coherent framework for action against a tyrannical regime. People like to construct models to try to make sense of the world around them. This is what political scientists, economists and other social scientists do. But you get what you pay for with these models, just as you do with LR.
Where you cut to the chase here, Max, and seem to be making more sense than some other discussions around this concept, is with the idea that, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go to war with the insurgency you have, not the one you wish you had. One way or another, it will all sort itself out.
The reason the LR concept arose in the mid 90’s was federal infiltration of the militias. It was a very simple way to end FBI manipulation. The ones who hate the LR the most are the ones who are feds or working for them.— Personally I stopped reading Mosby over a year ago, and if you and WRSA didn’t repost his “stuff” I’d have forgotten he was there.—Ray
Searching for like minded groups that hold similar values and notions about our current situation and what may come in the near future is hard, especially when many around will automatically lump us in with the “tin foil hat” types.
I believe much of what may come in the future will begin as a LR, over time as the momentum and magnitude spreads across our nation, I hope we will see a more focused coalescing of a resistance leadership, bringing together individuals and ultimately providing an umbrella of leadership in order to conduct a more formalized resistance.
I recently moved to Arizona and have been attempting to find legitimate patriots who are like minded and looking to come together, train, and prepare, and if needed- to resist. I have found several groups on meetup, keeping my fingers crossed.
Thanks for saying that Max.
You said it well.
It needed to be said coming from somebody with the stature that lends it credence.
Looks like I may have stirred up some waters along these lines in the comment section about LR.
I’m not backing down because I believe passionately about the remarkable things regular folks can accomplish, and the good in people of this place we call home.
It is all we have.
We all have to stick together.
We all must find common ground and the means to get there.
After all We are all in it together.
Thanks again.
In the community there are a lot of horses before the cart. The SFers go straight to doctrine and they need to capitalize and underline the need for “society.” Never mind the LRers they be meat on the street. Its why I suggested calling this training “Tactical self-defense” its aceptable to a large audience.
One thing the military is VERY good at is growing leaders in a structured way. “Don’t know what to do? FOLLOW US! We have a mission and we know what we’re doing.” No doubt – it does grow the ideal fighting force. However, not everyone fits the mold, either mentally or physically. Don’t discount those who know damn well they’ll go down early, but will stand their ground regardless. AND, you never know when one will be in the area when your small professionally trained unit is getting hammered. The element of surprise is also in military doctrine . . .
At this point there is a lot of focus on the “Leaderless Resistor” concept, and some very good examples to go along with the analysis. However, the salient point here that I picked up from MV is all about adapting the principals of training that you have acquired to the situation you are facing in your A.O. There is no crystal ball that anyone has, even the most experience current or former military operator to prepare non-mil patriots for what exactly to expect. This is the crux of MV’s response as I interpret it. That said, if every single one of us gets some kind of good solid training in combat rifle/SUT, then those basics are a foundation that should save your bacon in time of need.
This is the very reason I believe there are those who see what is coming and know they need to pass on their knowledge so that we all have a shot at keeping our liberty and freedom here. Good basic training is the foundation on which any patriot can build upon and improve. Without that basic structure, you’ve got nothing. Remember, you can hand a loaded rifle to a monkey and it will point and shoot until it runs out of ammo or it is shot dead by some one who knows how to use one. Don’t be the monkey, get the training and work outward from there.
Markcfi
FL
First, be prepared. Secondly, keep an open mind as you have wisely laid out. In a country as huge as ours, the wide and disparate nature of regional topography, population densities, and local customs will have a direct effect on the development of conflict despite the “plans” of oppressors and resistors. As the gentlemen above pointed out, we need to find our common ground – and doing what you can when you can (also above) will get us there.
Well said.
On a side note, glad I held off on the book review, as this cleared up a few things.
I suppose developing your own skill set to the maximum, plus gaining tactical knowledge to help your immediate social group survive post-collapse, is the point right now. Too much work pre-SHTF on setting up structures for cells and intel clearly invites regime infiltration. The more elaborate the preparation you do now, the more likely there would be such infiltration, and your group would be one of the early targets in the first wave of post-collapse regime attacks. I doubt there’s any workable way of initiating and prepping even a partially operational resistance network at this point. It must be a matter of planning and laying it all out as a set of potential actions a group takes to establish its local security, and then be able to link up with other groups post-collapse. But again, the more detailed any such inter-group (network) planning is, the more likely the regime will gain knowledge of it and tag it for early elimination. I guess each prepper should just focus on making himself an effective resistance ‘unit’ that can be integrated later into a post-collapse kinetic resistance network.
I’ve started watching a series called “Sons of Anarchy”, a fictional drama about a motorcycle gang struggling to survive against various state and federal agencies operating against it. It depicts very well the sort of push and pull that goes on within the SOA and against the outside agencies. The young hero has a detailed diary his father kept before he was killed years before, and in each episode he reads a short excerpt from that, giving executive and operational advice on how to keep the club going, and not get lost in the day-to-day grind of fighting back. It’s not hard to extrapolate this drama to what the real-life scenario would be in the weeks and months following a SHTF event. It stars Ron Perlman.
I think you are confused as to what preppers/survivalist really are and will really do when SHTF. The answer is the same as what is being done today NOTHING. I heard all this chatter back in the 80s and early 90s and one thing happened and poof it was all back to being quiet and denying. It’s the reason everyone focuses on defense rather than direct action today.
The reason they concentrate on defense is a moral one. Generally speaking, preppers and survivalists are going to be defending themselves, not going out looking for trouble. The “chatter” you heard in the 80’s and 90’s, abated, due to the Oklahoma City bombing (convenient huh?), and the Gov going on a rampage against anyone associated with the militia or survivalists. Direct Action will be a necessity after SHTF, under certain circumstances (Proactive Defense). Your theory that we’ll do nothing, is just that, your theory. Don’t transfer your fears and ineptitudes to those of us that realize that patience, planning and common sense are more important than going off half cocked. Training is important, since translating the manual into practical application can be difficult, and that’s where Max V comes in. Confidence can make or break ones ability to be decisive, and realist training breeds confidence.
There was nothing convenient about OKC
Thanks, someone needed to say what you said. That “doctrinal” article of Mr. Mosby’s was getting me down thinking any kind of resistance was futile unless you had some kind of huge alternative army. But you’d be infiltrated in a minute, and you’d also be recruiting from malcontents, who don’t like to follow orders in the first place. You can’t punish your recruits for not obeying you – too many pushups and they’ll just say this is BS and go home, and a resistance would not have the power of the state to give them a dishonorable discharge, etc. Which means there’d be more shooting of mutineers.
The only way one could do such a thing and not have it be like herding cats in a street gang, would be if one was the gov and created a parallel domestic army, as well equipped as… Oh, wait… uh oh…
thanks max. being as there is no concentration of retired sf stormtroopers running around my hood to join up with, i will do what i can individually and/or with a buddy or two. that said, lets get real. no insurgency will win this one, period. not on a national level. the only hope is for state/states to secede, providing political legitimacy to any irregular forces as well as logistics trains from a wider area/areas. its much easier to label resistance as terrorism than to apply that label to say texas. bombing texas would also be even less popular than syria, so the regime would be fighting with its big hammer locked in the tool box. while decrying the death of syrian children now, the regime will have no problem killing ours unless we have a “state” to rebut the terrorist label.