John Robb, Global Guerrillas
STANDING ORDER 1: Break Networks
The first, and most general, standing order of any modern insurgency is simple:
...break networks...
The only caveat being: avoid breaking communications networks. These networks are small group enablers/catalysts, and enable the spread of social contagion virally. Public communications networks, as they are currently use, are asymmetric -- in that they aren't accessible (increasingly less as governments restrict access) by modern nation-states.
Within John Boyd's framework of grand strategic victory, this achieves the following:
* It disconnects the enemy from itself and its allies (attrition and physical collapse)
* It forms non-cooperative centers of gravity within the enemy camp (moral collapse)
* It creates FUD (fear uncertainty and doubt -- psychological collapse)
STANDING ORDER 2: Grow Black Economies
The second standing order of modern insurgencies is to generate economic connectivity in order to manufacture allies and increase the ability of the insurgency to fund itself. It's simple:
...grow black economies...
This requires cooperation with existing criminal organizations within "illegal" economies. This requires a variant on how the nation-state grew via becoming a protection racket -- protection at a rate worth that is worth the value provided and the willingness to expand the business potential of those being protected. Induced shortages, through network disruption, expand business opportunity. Further, broken "legal" economies, generate a plethora of free lancers that populate a self-reinforcing bazaar of violence.
STANDING ORDER 3: Virtualize Your Organization
Modern insurgent groups don't require cohesive groups of "soldiers." They can and often virtualize through the use of contractors/freelancers. The standing order for this is simply:
...virtualize your organization...
Optimally, the bulk of a insurgent group's attacks are virtual. This means that the organization that is assembled for an attack is hired specifically for that job. They do the job and go away. This works best with non-kinetic operations (which should be the vast bulk of any group's attacks). This is self-reinforcing with network disruption -- the more system disruptions that occurs, the greater the number of freelancers available. In a short period of time, specialization of skill sets emerge within the bazaar of violence, as participant freelancer work to enhance their marketability/rates (this in turn enables high levels of productivity).
STANDING ORDER 4: Repetition is more important than Scale
The ability to repeat disruptions targeted on specific groups generates changes in behavior (economic, social, and psychological) akin to an excessive tax. This is in contrast to large, one-off, attacks that cause massive disruption and then quickly dissipate as the targeted system returns to equilibrium. The standing order for this is:
...repetition is more important than scale....
Simple, low cost, easy, and repeatable (in that nobody is caught) attacks are both sustainable and generate the greatest potential returns. This doesn't mean that these attacks don't have a significant impact. Network effects from disruption almost always guarantee and outsized return -- the great is the enemy of the good enough.
STANDING ORDER 5: Coopetition not Competition
All insurgent groups, regardless of their motivation, are allies by default. Every group that joins the insurgency, makes it stronger, even if it is ideologically antagonistic. The approach should be:
...coopetition not competition...
Coopetition is a term that encompasses how rivals can compete for market share but cooperate to grow the market and speed up combined growth. In commercial coopetition, this is done by rivals sharing common platforms (a very important concept) that enable them to reduce costs (as in firms that share suppliers), widen variety, increase flexibility, etc. For example, coopetition is the basis for Internet standards and the Web. Vertical integration is an anathema to successful coopetition.
STANDING ORDER 6: Don't Fork the Insurgency
There is a tendency, among subgroups in an open source insurgency, to increase local cohesion at the expense of whole. Usually this is done by disrupting social networks to create antagonism between member groups. The order is:
...don't fork the insurgency...
Social network disruption is nearly as easy as disrupting physical networks, but it can be very dangerous. Social network disruption should only be used if it cleaves the nation-state into non-cooperative centers of gravity without sacrificing open source cohesiveness. In contrast, social network amplification is almost always good.
NOTE: This is grand strategic mistake of al Qaeda in Iraq (unlikely to be repeated). As I mentioned in my 2005 NYTimes OP-ED entitled The Open-Source War: "there are few visible fault lines in the insurgency that can be exploited." That was true until attacks on Shiite civilians and ultimately the Golden Mosque attack forked the insurgency.