In 1992 former Grand Dragon of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Louis Beam penned an article entitled “Leaderless Resistance”:http://www.louisbeam.com/leaderless.htm which basically describes an emergent network, something I wrote about as a “possible extension of 5GW”:http://www.cominganarchy.com/2006/03/10/truly-formless-5gw/. Filled with spelling mistakes, snide slants against the Justice department and questionable historical facts, it is nevertheless an interesting look into the mind of an insurgent.
The essay is an attempt to outline a new organizational design to fight against state tyranny. Beam calls for the abolition of a pyramid-style organization because “nothing is more desirable” for federal agencies than opposing groups who are “unified in their command structure.”
bq. Experience has revealed over and over again that anti-state, political organizations utilizing this method of command and control are easy prey for government infiltration, entrapment, and destruction of the personnel involved. This has been seen repeatedly in the United States where pro-government infiltrators or agent provocateurs weasel their way into patriotic groups and destroy them from within.
Thus a cell system is the most advisable route for resistance groups, but it must be deeply decentralized with no headquarters giving command or direction. These are the “Phantom cells.” How can they coordinate their attacks?
bq. … in any movement, all persons involved have the same general outlook, are acquainted with the same philosophy, and generally react to given situations in similar ways. … Since the entire purpose of Leaderless Resistance is to defeat state tyranny (at least insofar as this essay is concerned), all members of phantom cells or individuals will tend to react to objective events in the same way through usual tactics of resistance. Organs of information distribution such as newspapers, leaflets, computers, etc., which are widely available to all, keep each person informed of events, allowing for a planned response that will take many variations. No one need issue an order to anyone.
Sounds a lot like “stigmergic learning”:http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2004/07/stigmergic_syst.html. Beam’s article apparently comes from the ideas of a colonel in the early 1960s. If true, it is more evidence of historical analogues to the concept of netwar.
Anyways, Beam’s statement that “it is the duty of every patriot to make the tyrant’s life miserable” is reminiscent of “UBL’s fatwa”:http://www.ict.org.il/articles/fatwah.htm which proclaimed that killing Americans is an “individual duty for every Muslim.”
“in any movement, all persons involved have the same general outlook, are acquainted with the same philosophy, and *generally react to given situations in similar ways* … all members of phantom cells or individuals will tend to react to objective events in the same way through usual tactics of resistance.”
Of course, this presents potential problems for such a group, if true, because profiling would suggest methods for fighting them that could be carried out against the whole movement. The similarities, in all three points, represent soft spots or weaknesses. Additionally, this strongly reminds me of game theory.
However, a decentralized emergent movement would probably require such similarity, and I suppose the application in many places at different times of force, directed by a general Grand Objective, might also produce “copycats,” or spread the message, or “infect” others. Attacking the innocent — civilians not attached to the tyrannous state — would be extremely counter-productive.
Very Interesting.
It actually made me think of the book ‘The Moon is a Harsh Mistress’ by Heinlein. The rebellion there is in one that appears to be centralized with ‘Adam Selene’ as the leader but not only does all the decision making take place at the level below him in the cell structure, ‘Adam Selene’ doesn’t exist at all. He is a fictional figurehead used to project the ‘unifying idea’ of the rebellion and to prevent departures from the plan, as well as facilitate communication.
Every effort made by the Warden to find ‘Adam Selene’ was a waste of resources, while the real leaders of the rebellion were free to move toward their goal. Their tactics were 4GW, but their organization was very 5GW when compared to Younghusband’s Keyser Soze reference on the ‘Truly Formless 5GW’ post.
“John Robb says”:http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/johnrobb/2006/03/louis_beam.html:
bq. The big problem with the theory is that it assumed a need for a cohesive motivation/doctrine. It doesn’t.
Interestingly, it seems that this could apply to any group. Just be anti- the established order and there you have white supremacist groups, jihadists and communists. An underlying motivation of these groups is to destabilize and destroy the established order (some anarchists could fit in here, too), whereby the group then assumes power. (Of course, this could apply when the group is someone I would sympathize with, such as dissident groups in the former USSR and in Iran). So how do we fight these groups?
It seems that there really needs to be little cohesiveness to the thinking of these groups. They just all have to hate the established order and be willing to do whatever it takes to bring it down. Is this why so many extreme leftists and jihadists and white supremacists (and even anarchist revolutionaries) seem to see eye to eye on the hating and destruction of the West and capitalism? It always seemed strange to me that white supremacists could join forces with jihadists and even with communists, but when the overriding goal is destruction, then maybe they’ll get in bed with anybody.
Sorry if my take on this is elementary! I’m definitely no geopolitical expert, not by any stretch.
I read John Robb’s assertion at his site, but I’m pretty sure I disagree.
Our disagreement may merely be a result of different baselines for defining “cohesion.” I agree that no definite doctrine would be required — i.e., no systematized outline — but at root there would be a similarity or connections which may even go unstated or unacknowledged by the groups. It is a little like analyzing spreading cell phone use: many sub-groups form around the idea of connecting via cell phones, in many locations, without ever knowing each other, and with no doctrine of cell phone use; but each group is motivated by the same need or desire to connect quickly. (Even if one group uses it for business, one for teeny-bop gossip, one for coordinating terrorist acts…)
Sometimes, John Robb’s theory seems a little too much “magical thinking” or seems to depend too much on deus ex machina; and at those times, I think he is merely describing the common game theory notion that people are probably a lot more alike than unalike, and that emergence is merely the result of these similarities coming to fruition without guidance of a mastermind or Grand Organizer. This happens all the time, in many ways, and probably always has; I can believe that militant groups or “Global Guerrillas” would also “emerge” in many places nearly simultaneously; but I cannot support the notion that this emergence should be considered a single “movement” any more than, say, the emergence of broad cell phone use or the emergence of city-states from nomadic tribes. What happens when these different “disconnected” groups begin warring on each other because they are quite unalike in various ways? That would show the lie that some singular “leaderless” movement has formed.
(Even the supposition that such a movement occurs has as its foundation the assumption that some commonality exists between them, such as *snow’s* “hate [of the] established order.”
Excellent point.
In a comment over at tdaxp, I compared Sadr to the microbes the bodies harbor to fight salmonella, as outlined in Howard Bloom’s Global Brain. A body politic worrying about “global guerrillas” makes as much sense as body physic worrying about “bacteria.”
Of course, bacteria are well defined and known to exist, so perhaps the analogy isn’t a good one after all…
And of course this ties into “my earlier point”:http://www.cominganarchy.com/2006/03/10/truly-formless-5gw/ regarding government leaders worried about a 5GW formless “Grand Organizer” and directing all resources to battle against this bacteria could result in attrition of the self. If you think every bit of bacteria is working together to destroy you, then you become your own worst enemy.
Then again, even paranoids have enemies. ;)
These groups are linked together by their ideas. They form part of a meme-based-network (MBN) that overlays with the actual terrorist/resistance cell/groups/bands networks.
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