Saturday, January 23, 2010

Praxis: Some light reading on Guerrilla Counter Intelligence.

Bejabbers! Would ye believe I'm in it?!? And I've been dead for almost nine decades now!

Guerrilla Counter Intelligence: Insurgent Approaches to Neutralizing Adversary Intelligence Operations by Graham H. Turberville; Joint Special Operations University Report 09-1, January 2009.


Go here.

Download.

Print out.

Read.

Pass it around your local Michael Collins Reading Circle.

For informational purposes only. ;-)

Mike
III

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://ravallirepublic.com/articles/2010/01/15/news/news74.txt

Anonymous said...

O'Ryan Sends:

The JSOU publication is a good one, however I estimate that most of it's contents will be lost on the modern American guerrilla. The reasons are simple but difficult to fix, to wit:

Militia culture focuses on the kinetic activities, not the quieter domains of intelligence, perception management and clandestine operations. Most militia (and I use the term broadly) think in terms of fighting a II or III GEN war, not in terms of modern insurgency. Militias have no real influence operations or the intelligence apparatus to drive them. I've been told that perception management is like “lying” and “that's what the government does, not what we do.” Without perception shaping and the entirety of low-level psychological operations, every kinetic victory the militia has will be embarrassing nullified by the Oppositions use of the same. They'll never keep up let alone win. The people will always be against them. They will never win the vital human terrain.

When Militia members look at intelligence at all, it's from a II-III GEN perspective: the situation map, Forward Edge of Battle Area, platoons and fronts. I've not seen much application of network analysis and target exploitation. There is no real HUMINT collection because the militia lack fundamental capability in this domain. HUMINT is the guerrillas fundamental collection modality because the guerrillas fundamental opponent are human networks---not tanks, Chinese divisions or NORTHCOM massing it's forces in Colorado. It's really a shame because HUMINT is relatively easy and requires little technology.

The militias need more intelligence training and application. Low-level HUMINT, analysis, Close Target Reconnaissance and HUMINT enabled SIGINT and less talk radio. Mark Koernke is not an intelligence source and military publications are written for an audience with a large supporting infrastructure. There is plenty of information available for militias to develop really a spectacular intelligence capability, but the militias, for a variety of reasons, have not matured to this.

Because militias lack basic HUMINT capability, they lack basic HUMINT knowledge and are unable to perform counter-intelligence. There are no fine grained background checks to vet prospective applicants---ensuring that the Opposition can always stay inside their OODA loop. There is no Intelligence Preparation of the Environment to develop the intelligence fabric for operations. Because of this, the militias are always several moves behind while the Opposition is always several moves ahead. The militias cannot “detect” the Oppostion let alone “finish” them.

An indicator of militia evolution will be their development of a low-level intelligence capability that has degraded, denied or disrupted an operation against them.

I've met a few individual actors that understand this. Some have interesting military backgrounds, others are entirely self-taught and to good effect. They don't get involved in militias because militias are a giant boy's club with OPSEC problems. Further, militias just don't want to learn anything that would upset their self image of modern Minutemen fighting with honor on some contemporary Breed's Hill.

The Opposition is allot more cuthroat. Plus they do intelligence very well---as we have seen with the Oppositions use of informants (or 'sources' in the HUMINT lexicon).

Until the militias develop a functional intelligence capability, they will never be a fighting force.

Anonymous said...

"I've been told that perception management is like "lying" and "that's what the government does, not what we do." Without perception shaping and the entirety of low-level psychological operations, every kinetic victory the militia has will be embarrassing nullified by the Oppositions use of the same. They'll never keep up let alone win. The people will always be against them. They will never win the vital human terrain."

You're right. Any organization that gets away with lying that much is a government. The couch potato population will never agree to be responsible for itself, because Democracy doesn't work. The way you frame the choices, heads the militia becomes the new government, or tails the old government survives. Either way, the peculiar institution of government continues.

Except, there are more choices than that. The militia doesn't have to act like a government to win; if it truly wants to win, it has to act like the opposite of a government. It has to empower grassroots liberty.

Anonymous said...

About the ravali county montana "celebrating conservatism" questionnaire, here is what one comment said at TPM Muckraker Talking Points Memo said:

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/montana_citizens_group_distributes_questionnaire_d.php

January 23, 2010 8:36 AM

"We actually need another high visibilty militia smack down. Seriously. If the government lets these idiots continue to exist unanswered, every militia/Bircher teabagger group in the country is going to try and have their own little rebellions. The Feds need to come down on these morons like a ton of bricks, brutally and on live national TV. That will get all these other groups back in line.
I have run into plenty of the secessionist/rebellion crap from teabagging idiots out on other boards, and unless you want all kinds of little enclaves popping up all over the midwest and South, this needs to be addressed. Loudly. But then as milquetoast as the President has been about HCR, maybe he'll try to handle it with a hands off approach .
I apologize if I seem passionate about this topic, but having served in the military, I tend to take a very dim view of activity like this, which I believe is *treason*."

Anonymous said...

Continuation of the discussion about the Montana group, this time explicitly discussing civil war:

Isepick

January 23, 2010 11:58 AM

".... I think someone at ATF could make enough just cause out of that document to get some federal search warrants together. Or child services could look into what enviroment the poor kids are in. These loonies will do the rest the moment the agents come knocking. Should make for some good TV.

Also note this is the same state that brought us Max Baucus."

Ailence:

"So, you're looking to start a civil war? No thanks."

Isepick:

"NO, I'm looking to quell a minor rebellion before it blooms into a civil war, which is exactly what will happen if these idiots are allowed their way. Because then every other group with a grudge against the federal guvmint will immediately try the same thing. It needs to be handled swiftly and decisively (shock and awe.)

Besides, how would a properly authorized federal search warrant start a civil war, unless they were looking to rebel anyway? Note the code phrase 'organic Constitution' in their little document, go look and see what that means. These people pervert any meaning of the real Constitution beyond belief.

If they are such great patriots, then they should be glad to water the tree of Liberty with their own blood. I am more than inclined to help them."

Interesting

Anonymous said...

That little liberal site is filled with hate towards Patriots. They work to negate the "private" aspect of the SA, and would just love to celebrate the death of individuals on our side.

It truly is horrifying to see what they wrote there over just the last few days...