“Security against defeat implies defensive tactics; ability to defeat the enemy means taking the offensive.”–Sun Tzu

I’ve previously talked about the effectiveness of an atmospheric nuclear attack (strike the electronics, not the people), now it is time to talk about guerrilla warfare.

It is the basic cell-based scheme that has caused Americans problems for so long. It is the way terrorists and spies operate – small groups of people working towards the same goal, never connecting unless it is absolutely necessary. The obvious downside is that the plans of two groups could conflict with one another, which is why generally there are very few groups within small distances. Large-scale attacks are hard to carry out as those usually require large numbers of people. But some attacks, such as 9/11, need only a few people. A couple of people per plane will do the trick.

However, as 9/11 so obviously demonstrated, the cell-based strategy means that each cell goes unsupervised. As they go unsupervised, they have free range in what they do. If they decide to opt for a shocking attack in a densely populated area, they are just asking for trouble – the retaliation probably cost the terrorist agenda more harm than good. Even when considering that the violence of the first response spawned countless support groups all over the world that now endanger almost every single city in the ‘Western world’, the ideal that used to be fought for is gone. Religious freedom is less of a priority than survival.

The upshot of cell-based warfare is the lack of connections. If one cell becomes compromised by infiltration or a simple old-fashioned mess-up, the other cells cannot be taken down using the information gained from the first group. Since cells operate as divisions, they do not use the same suppliers, which means that when a supply chain becomes compromised, the organization as a whole suffers minimally. It is the same concept as hiding money in more than one place in the same room – the likeliness of all of it being found decreases with every hiding spot. Some groups can specialize is espionage – seeking out potential targets, publishing secrets that damage the hostile side’s reputation. Some groups could use all that newly published information for campaigning against the hostile group’s higher echelons of power, thus causing morale-induced unrest, increasing the number of traitors and deserters, forcing the hostile leading organization to be more careful with what they do and say – everything could be used against them very actively. Then there are cell that could target the positions of power directly, replacing those with their own people. Once all those spots are covered, a simple coup will end hostilities. The last class of cell would be the ones using the direct approach. When the espionage cells share information about possible targets, these are the people that take action against these targets. Eliminate energy supplies, take down cell towers, disrupt sanitary services (such as water pipelines, waste disposal), eliminate enemy command structures, etc. They make the ‘fire sale’ happen.

This is what makes guerrilla fighting so effective – the lack of connections. When one domino falls, the rest do not follow, they retaliate. And when many groups retaliate for the fall of a single group, it is sometimes better to leave those groups be at peace. Which is the case of Afghanistan – one small attack was retaliated by pretty much the whole of NATO forces (by UN command), which cause an even more widespread problem. In this form, not even the wise can make plans against it. Sometimes even modern military leaders and presidents could learn a thing or two from Sun Tzu.