Prodding gently at sacred cows – Pineland & Leaderless Resistance

Max Velocity Tactical

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’.