re: #82 Guanxi88

These bastards have been studying insurgency and counter-insurgency warfare for years. They intend nothing but individual or small-group actions. These actions will not be co-ordinated, but will be mutually reinforcing; a shared ideology is usually sufficient to create the requisite levels of cohesion necessary to keep a “movement” alive when there’s no communication between and among members or groups. Leaderless resistance, it’s called, and it’s the hardest kind to fight. Look at what was required to put an end to this kinda stuff in iraq, and note, too, that we’ve only succeeded in tamping it down, not really in ending it. Note, too, that the geography of Iraq and its population suggest that similar strategy, adopted on a continental scale here in the US, among a larger, more mobile population, would be even less easily suppressed. All that’s needed for this assymetrical style of resistance is that it continue - there are no great battles, only an endless string of un-coordinated (and therefore unpredictable) attacks and actions. These, in turn, lead to the need, as part of counter-insurgency operations, for the legal and military authorities in a given area of operations to restrict mobility and such to the locals, which creates resentment against the government, creating a more favorable environment for the insurgents.

This is why a standing military is remarkably unsuited to fight this kind of domestic insurgency. What works is pure and simple investigative police work, understanding that your enemy may be better armed than you are during the investigative phase. Once identified, power can be brought to bear.

It’s a booger of a problem, but a traditional military model cannot be expected to succeed.