Monday, May 24, 2010

All Civil War is Local: Reverse Engineering the Latest Insights In Counterinsurgency into a Template for Restoration Victory.



"The fact that the candidate you're being asked to vote for is at this moment rotting in an English jail shouldn't put you off! Sure, wasn't I in one myself till a week ago! They can jail us. They can shoot us. They can even conscript us! They can use us as cannon fodder in the Somme! But... we have a weapon more powerful than any in the whole arsenal of the British Empire! That weapon is our refusal! Our refusal to bow to any order but our own! Any institution but our own!" -- Liam Neeson in Michael Collins, 1996.


One of the joys of this weekend was meeting up with my brother from another mother over in Georgia -- he had been called to Atlanta by work on Friday and thus was within reach. He gave me a copy of the above book, Counterinsurgency by David Kilcullen.

Kilcullen is also the author of The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One.

I have not yet had time to finish the book, but I was struck by Chapter Five, "Deiokes and the Taliban: Local Governance, Bottom-up State Formation, and the Rule of Law in Counterinsurgency."

You can find this chapter on-line here at Google Books from pages 147 to 161.

It is based on a presentation Kilcullen made to the 2009 Wallace Wurth Memorial Lecture at the University of New South Wales, Australia. The speech can be found here. Kilcullen's presentation begins about 12 minutes in.

To understand what I am about to say, you must either read the above chapter, listen to the presentation, or both. Preferably both.

Assuming you have done so, and that you find much food for thought in Kilcullen's thesis, here is my initial reaction.

Kilcullen enunciates intellectually what I have long known in my gut, if more inchoately. Remember when I wrote "All civil war is local"?

When I quote (as I do frequently) Michael Collins speaking about "Our refusal to bow to any order but our own! Any institution but our own!" it is Kilcullen's thesis distilled down to its essence.

What Kilcullen reminds us is that all insurgencies are conflicts AT THE LOCAL LEVEL FIRST AND FOREMOST over legitimacy and competence. Legitimacy derives from the consent of the people and is an expression of their God-given inalienable rights to liberty, safety and property. Competence in providing those things is what determines success.

In this we have an advantage over the present domestic enemies of the Founders' Republic. Recall this from my Open Letter to American Law Enforcement.

Systemically, “duly constituted authority” derives its legitimacy from the founding documents of our country, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and from the Founders’ concepts of the rule of law. These have all been under attack for a hundred years or more by both corrupt political parties and their union and business familiars. The Constitution has become for some a joke and for others an inconvenient speed bump on the road to tyranny. As long as this degradation of the legitimacy of our political and legal system was perceived by only a narrow portion of the population, it was manageable in a societal sense. This is no longer true.

When a president and Congress robs one set of people to enrich their cronies, when they violate the settled rule of law regarding bankruptcy to stiff secured creditors in the case of General Motors while rewarding self-anointed unsecured creditors -- their political allies, the auto unions -- the rest of the population cannot fail but conclude that we are no longer under the rule of law, but the rule of men, which is to say, the law of the jungle. Or, put another way, they -- the “authorities” -- can do anything that the citizenry can’t or won’t stop them from doing. This is the societal Catch 22 we are now in (and have been for a while) that I call “Waco Rules.” . . .

Katrina showed us many things. It showed that in a disaster many cops will look to their families and not the public duty, leaving their fellow law enforcement officers with an even greater burden. It showed us that cops can be opportunistic criminals as well, partaking in looting with as much energy as professional criminals. It also showed us that the police no longer trust the law-abiding citizen with arms, depriving them of their only means of self-defense once the cops have moved on, thus leaving them to the tender mercies of robbers, rapists and murderers.

It is perhaps dangerous to make too large of a generalization, for there are many rural jurisdictions where this does not apply, but the fact of the matter is that by and large, the police no longer trust the people they are supposed to protect, and they especially do not trust an armed citizen, even if he represents no danger to the cop. This is standing the oath on its head. The people do not exist to serve the servant, but rather the other way around.

When a policeman pulls over a driver whose computer record shows not only the driver’s license of the vehicle’s owner, but the fact that they have a concealed carry permit, it is too often SOP for the cop to approach the vehicle, gun drawn, order the man or woman from the car, put them on their knees and cuff them before anything else transpires. These are not the acts of public servants but rather of an occupying army. And with each breach of trust, the glue holding society together is further weakened. For the more you distrust us, the more we are reminded to distrust you.

It is important to remember, Mr. and Ms. Law Enforcement Officer, that you need us, the law-abiding armed citizenry, one hell of a lot more than we need you. Just ask any criminal. Who is it that they fear most? The encounter with a policeman or a would-be victim who turns out to be armed? I tell you this uncomfortable truth and I hope you have the honesty to admit it -- the criminals of this country are far more scared of the armed citizenry than they are of the police.

It is not the fear of the patrol car that inhibits criminal behavior the most, but rather the prospect of screwing up and getting his brains blown out by a citizen in righteous self defense. And so, when you participate in citizen disarmament efforts, whether gun seizures like Katrina, or merely identifying otherwise friendly peaceable folks as “the enemy” just because they are armed, you are alienating your most valuable friends and empowering your most vicious enemies. Not to mention the fact that you are violating that sacred oath you took.

So ponder that deteriorating social trust that holds civilizations together, and then ponder this: the worst is yet to come.

What will happen when we are faced, God forbid, with some dislocating national disaster -- natural or man-made -- that makes Katrina look like a kindergarten playground? Now, even if you intend to run off like some New Orleans policemen did, to see to the safety of their families rather than keep order in the city, you are still going to need the cooperation of the armed citizenry in your home neighborhood to protect your family.

You -- ALL of you -- law enforcement officers, will then need us, the armed citizenry -- ALL of us willing and competent to muster -- to defend public order against the tide of chaos represented by five or ten million gang members and the tens of millions of panicked unprepared refugees or opportunistic criminals left unrestrained by a breakdown.


In their continued assault upon the Constitution and the Founders' Republic, these domestic enemies forfeit more of their legitimacy with every blow. In their ability to oppress the people by more taxes and greater constraints on their personal and economic liberties while at the same time being unable to provide true economic and personal security from the assaults of petty criminals or corrupt bureaucrats, the wannabe tyrants of the present regime -- both political parties -- alienate the people and force them back upon their own resources.

And who will be there, in the local world where they live, to help them fend off threats to their liberty, property and safety?

We will.

The armed citizenry will.

IF we have the sense to recognize the opportunity.

IF we have the determination to prepare for it.

And IF we have the guts to seize it.

The sense that that federal government has not only lost its legitimacy but its competence at doing the most basic of things grows daily.

Sometimes it is in big chunks like Katrina or the Gulf oil spill. Mostly it is in little pieces as when a SWAT raid kills a 7 year old girl or a corrupt politician goes to jail, or, more often, when they do not.

The federal Leviathan pretends to wield absolute power and absolute authority, yet this is far too large a country for them to do so. And as these elements of the regime gradually discredit themselves, more and more people are indeed paying attention to the little man, the humbug, behind the curtain. When enough of them do, the little man loses his hold over them all.

And all of this will be played out locally first: in our own neighborhoods, towns and counties. And it is there that we are strongest.

The people will be mobilized, as they always have been, by events in their own lives that radicalize them, that scare them, that get momma onto her high horse and daddy off the couch in response to her demand to DO SOMETHING!

When that happens, as it unfolds, we must be ready to provide that "something." We must be ready to insert ourselves, the armed citizenry, into the vacuum left by the collapse of order and the regime's inability to do anything but worsen things.

We must be ready, we Three Percent, to take the field as the legitimate and competent force of restoration, at first locally, and finally nationally.

We MUST be ready.

The regime, on so many levels, is an already rotted door.

When the time comes, when they provide us the excuse and the opportunity, we have but to kick it.

If we are ready.

If we have the courage.

If we are indeed the Three Percent we claim to be.

17 comments:

dwayne chandler said...

Hear, hear!!!

Anonymous said...

"Systemically, "duly constituted authority" derives its legitimacy from the founding documents of our country, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and from the Founders' concepts of the rule of law."

I reject the Divine Right of Constitutions for the same reason you reject the Divine Right of Kings. There is no such thing as legitimate authority, there is only legitimate self-defense. That said, all freedom is local, too. Have you set up a local doctor to do home delivery of medical care in a plumber's van yet?

Anonymous said...

very well stated Mike!

Pickdog
III

Anonymous said...

So, according to Kitcullen, the challenge is to out-govern the fedgov, and depending on their behavior, perhaps also the states. He hits this one out of the park. The battle as always is for hearts and minds.

The Opfor is explicitly pursuing demoralization and destabilization through an unending progression of manufactured crises.

Examples? Rule of law is openly mocked. What? You want the law enforced? What are you, some kind of racist? Homophobe! You're nothing but a constitutionalist patriot founder-lovin' wacko! Bitter clinger!

Chester the Molester is now the Federal Commissar of School Safety.

A Maoist political hack is the Federal Commissar of Manufacturing.

A tax cheat political hack is Treasurer, head of the IRS, and about to be named by Congress 'Unaccountable Dictator Over American Business'.

Unions are stirring up mob violence, and will ultimately start riots.

Remember Pelosi's Walk of Mockery, carrying her giant hammer through the tea party crowd?

And who can forget the Intolerable Acts?

The objective is to spark violence, and thereby incite public fear. Financial collapse and unemployment also stir fear. If no Fort Sumters ensue, false flag is always an option.

Some think the endgame involves a food crisis, ala the Holodomor, to neatly eliminate uncooperative peasants and rabble rousers, and to ensure grateful acquiescence by the meek and fearful.

The opfor strategy is to drive submission through fear. Kitcullen points out this kind of strategy is doomed to fail. But as Lord Keynes, Baron of Machiavelli and Earl of Fabian, succinctly noted, "In the long run we are all dead."

What does it matter if this miserable strategy is doomed to fail, as long as it gets me power now? Rule by fear is ultimately doomed, but only after enormous suffering, and years, decades or even centuries of Endarkenment.

I think threepers need to think about Kitcullen's message in terms of competition with a powerful and unprincipled fear machine. In particular, this may involve establishment of secure local delivery systems for food and supplies. Perhaps something like a Ho Chi Minh trail for the Predator era.

Not a simple or pleasant prospect. But this seems to be what we are up against.

Anonymous said...

John Robb has related perspective on this, using Jamaica as an example:

http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2010/05/journal-jamaica-and-global-guerrillas.html


"As long as the conflict is mainly fought via barricades, the government has a chance of winning. If it expands to include disruption of energy, water, and food to the wider population of Jamaica (inflicting costs on those outside the slums) via blockades of intersections by protesters and the intentional breaking of Kingston's infrastructure networks, the government is likely to lose."

Unknown said...

Damned fine piece Mike! We must remember that not all of us will have the guts to stand; to lean into the fight when the time comes.
And it will come.

Lamb said...

Most excellent post!
I have to add...(shameless elf plug here) I have posted a few of the stickers I printed out (We Are Everywhere) here and there in my travels and I have designed a few shirts and such at my zazzle store that express the same sentiment. (I am currently unemployed, so don't be too hard on a older lady trying to raise money for preps! My store is at : http://www.zazzle.com/fripperyfarm )

Anonymous said...

This sums it up very nicely. I don't know when it happened but at some point in this last week I have come to terms with he fact that the Republic has fallen and there is nothing we can do but be ready to catch it. We will know when it is time. I only pray that there are enough of us to be able to save what is left. The longer it takes for this machine to tip the less there is going to be to save....

s4f
III

Miles said...

Hey 1st Anonymous.
Here's the rub with your viewpoint (and Lysander Spooner's too).

Reduce the logic to it's final point and you'll find yourself standing beside those who Mike writes about as collectivist tyrants since they don't believe in a constitutional form of government either.

True, down to earth, anarchism is the law of the jungle.
For it to be benign requires a populace in total harmony of anti-agression.

Can you hear Bill Cosby saying "Right!" in the background?

And if personal 'self defense' is the only approved use of force, who is going to defend those who are physically incapable?
Their friends and family?
This is a digression into tribalism.
That has shown itself to be a singularly violent form of society.

Man is an imperfect being and those who are powerful will try to lord it over those who are not.

And it isn't a 'divine right' anyway. Ours is 'a more perfect' union. I may find fault with the form of TCOTUS because it did not more forcefully declare the enumerated powers were IT period (.). and set down actions to be taken against those in power who crossed that line.

But, our form of government (properly administered)is better than anything else I've seen history produce.

Jimmy the Saint said...

Good post, but you might want to pick a different metaphor than kicking in the rotting door. It was part of a speech given 1941, and let's just say what followed didn't end well for the audience.

Michigan Soldiers said...

As a former instructor at the JFK special warfare school this thread is on point.

Anonymous said...

Miles, perhaps I haven't explained myself clearly, or you've constructed a straw man. Libertarian anarchism has enough practical problems already; there is no need to invent imaginary ones.

"Reduce the logic to it's final point and you'll find yourself standing beside those who Mike writes about as collectivist tyrants since they don't believe in a constitutional form of government either."

I have trouble reading this as anything other than the fallacy of 'either you're with us, or you're with the terrorists'.

"And if personal 'self defense' is the only approved use of force, who is going to defend those who are physically incapable?
Their friends and family?
"

The term "self defense" describes a moral goal, not a literal demand that only the victim may pull a trigger. Self-defense is valid; imposing colonialism on other people who aren't living their lives the way you'd prefer is not valid. The infirm may ask or hire anyone they want to defend them.

"True, down to earth, anarchism is the law of the jungle."

Anarchism means "no rulers", not "no rules". Any form of politics is the law of the jungle, Might Makes Results, and I reject it.

"For it to be benign requires a populace in total harmony of anti-agression."

No, that's what a Republic, or any system using voting, requires to remain stable over time. Such is contrary to human nature.

"I may find fault with the form of TCOTUS because it did not more forcefully declare the enumerated powers were IT period (.). and set down actions to be taken against those in power who crossed that line."

If "shall not be infringed" and "congress shall make no law" aren't clear enough, then nothing can be.

"But, our form of government (properly administered)is better than anything else I've seen history produce."

No, you don't get to discard the actual historical record with the "(properly administered)" quibble. Whose constitution are we using? China's? Russia's? The UN's? No, we're using the American constitution, and it has either produced or allowed all the evils this blog documents.

Anonymous said...

There is no such thing as legitimate authority--Anon

Isn't your ipse dixit on display here as an authoritative statement? Tu toque.

"I reject the Divine Right of Constitutions for the same reason you reject the Divine Right of Kings."

Rights are grounded in man's nature and God's sovereignty. All authority is of God: parental, spousal, ecclesiastical, monarchical or parliamentary (cf w/ Romans 13).

To reject God's authority is to substitute some man's authority in its place (presumably yours) which is a far less satisfactory arrangement than what we now suffer.

Away with the atheist and anarchist!

"[A]ll freedom is local, too."

Freedom is personal. Use yours wisely.

MALTHUS

Anonymous said...

"Isn't your ipse dixit on display here as an authoritative statement?"

You are the one making the sweeping unsupported statements, not me. You claim to know the ultimate nature of reality, and of its creator, who is unique, yet he has genitals and a navel? The global warmers have assembled more supporting physical evidence in 20 years than the religionists have in 5,000. Nor do I make an authoritative statement -- I do not demand at gunpoint that you share my cosmology. All I propose is that we'll have more peace if we stop pushing legal codes on each other. That's it. I do not make claims about the ultimate nature of reality.

"Rights are grounded in man's nature and God's sovereignty. All authority is of God: parental, spousal, ecclesiastical, monarchical or parliamentary (cf w/ Romans 13).

To reject God's authority is to substitute some man's authority in its place (presumably yours) which is a far less satisfactory arrangement than what we now suffer.
"

I believe you have an emotional drive to submit to a pack leader -- and even the ultimate authoritarian tyrant who watches our every move to find an excuse to cast us into the ultimate torture chamber is an acceptable pack leader. Deriving pleasure and satisfaction from the fear of God is perverted. But God doesn't have enough of a presence and the thrill pales, so you create authoritarian scenes of fear and torture with man-made politics, and drag the rest of us into them. Even if there was a God exactly as you say, and I could not escape his power, why should I want to submit to him? I'm not submissive, I'm a libertarian. I want my freedom even when I can't get it.

Miles said...

Anon, (why not put a handle- any handle- on your work? It makes it easier than multiple 'anons' having to figure out who's being written to) all your statements point to the conclusion that you want nothing to control your actions but your own mores.

Why are your's better than mine or anyone else, and who decides?

What is your source?

That's not a trick question.

Rules 'laws' have to have a source, and if the source is arbitrary, what then?

The Book of Judges makes a statement...twice.

"and everyone did what was right in their own eyes".

This was not an affirmation. It was an indictment.

Anonymous said...

"why not put a handle- any handle- on your work? It makes it easier than multiple 'anons' having to figure out who's being written to"

I don't use a handle because I want to make it harder for anyone to profile me. I don't participate in social networking sites, either.

"all your statements point to the conclusion that you want nothing to control your actions but your own mores.

Why are your's better than mine or anyone else, and who decides?

What is your source?
"

I understand the objection you are making, but I think you get to that objection only after adding an additional constraint to the problem that does not exist. I think you believe that ultimately, what I am allowed to do is and cannot help but be circumscribed by enforcers who receive direction from a one world government political process. Having decided that, you work for a political process that offends you the least.

What I believe as a libertarian is closer to the wiccan 'as long as you don't hurt anybody, do whatever you want'. Now, the practical details of exactly what hurts another and where the property lines should be may have to be decided by politics, but there is no requirement that it be the same political system for each pair of disputants. There is no requirement that each geographical region have only one dispute resolver, with a self-granted monopoly on dispute resolving.

Jefferson claimed hurting him requires picking his pocket or breaking his leg: Consider the implications:

Abortion: even if it is murder, if you aren't related to the fetus by blood or marriage you have no legal standing to butt in. They can have an abortion naked on the lawn and still your leg isn't broken and your pockets aren't picked. Horrifyingly bad taste is not a crime.

Self-destructive habits, including drug addiction: you have no legal standing to impose your good taste on others and make them stop.

Illegal immigration: as long as they don't trespass in your backyard, you have no legal standing to control the behavior of others. The public roads are not your property. In practical terms you cannot buy ownership of enough stuff to exclude them.

Illegal immigrants voting entitlements for themselves: picking your pocket is a crime. They don't get to vote. Neither does anybody else.

Anonymous said...

I believe you have an emotional drive to submit to a pack leader...-Anon

As previously stated, your beliefs are of no particular interest to me, so neither are your value judgments. :^)

MALTHUS