Oceans of ink and terabytes of electronic musings have been expended on the subject of hybrid warfare. The classic formulation is a non-state actor with appurtenances of state power and, in many cases, support from traditional nation states. Of particular concern to defense planners and intelligence experts was the ability of these non-state actors to…
Category: Guerilla Warfare
Guerilla Warfare History: The World of Coup’s Since 1950
An attempted coup in Turkey last week shocked and surprised many across the world. But coups and attempted coups have long been an all-too-familiar occurrence around the world. How many exactly? Well, at the time of writing, there have been around 475 coup attempts since 1950. That’s according to a dataset compiled by Jonathan Powell and Clayton Thyne, two assistant…
History of Guerilla Warfare: IRA Guerilla Gunmsiths and the “Shipyard Special”
At the height of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, both the Republicans and Loyalists were desperate for any weapons they could lay their hands on. These weapons ranged from smuggled AR-18s — infamously nicknamed Widowmakers — to crude but ingenious improvised weapons such as the submachine gun pictured above. These improvised weapons took the STEN as their basis. They…
OPSEC Tradecraft: Modern Clandestine Groups Face New Challenges
There were no mobile phones or recording devices allowed at this bizarre encounter. The digital era is perceived as posing new threats to the security of terror groups in Ireland in terms of their being tracked and covertly recorded. Source: The Guardian Bottom Line Up Front Compartmentation via unlinking Strict anti forensic practices to mitigate…
Crusader Corner: Opportunist Jihadist & BLM Joining Forces
The jihadist mantra is “death to America, death to the Jews.” While the Arab social media gloated over the slaughter of policemen in Dallas, where the prestigious job of police chief is held by a black man, jihadists have been courting blacks for some time. Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan called for murder of police…
Guerilla Warfare History: The IRA and ‘Fantasy Troubles’
A lot of articles, books, documentaries and news pieces have been produced over the last two decades exploring the origins of the Peace Process in the North of Ireland, and none more so than in the murky world of Britain’s Dirty War. It has become de rigueur in certain British nationalist circles (and amongst their sympathisers) to…
History of Guerilla Warfare Book Suggestion
I came across this book, Secret Commandos, Behind Enemy Lines With the Elite Warriors of SOG a while back after I read Plaster’s Ultimate Sniper book. A friend had told me Plaster had another book about his days in MAC-V-SOG and it was really good. Intrigued, I ordered it from Amazon. I think I burned…
Europe’s Forgotten War
Fighting in the Donbas Has Never Stopped Despite the existence of a ceasefire agreement, fighting in eastern Ukraine continues and is increasing. On July 5, three Ukrainian servicemen were killed and thirteen were wounded. The uptick in fighting began this past January, when Ukrainian officials reported up to seventy-one attacks a day and the OSCE’s…
Guerilla Warfare History: The Ties That Bind… Chairman Mao, Che Guevera and Al-Qaeda
Mao Tse-tung borrowed the revolutionary vanguard from Vladimir Lenin, Ernesto “Che” Guevara liked Mao’s ideas about sanctuaries, and Al Qaeda valued Guevara’s focoist approach to global insurgency. At first glance, the revolutionary strategies of Mao, Guevara, and the intellectuals who devised Al Qaeda’s doctrine for jihad have much in common. They integrated violence into the…
Examining Terrorist Tactics: Know Your Enemy
Instead of wasting time reading the multitude of articles about the Orlando Shooting, as bad as it was, as Responsible Armed Civilians, the best thing we can do IMO is PREPARE TO FIGHT THESE BASTARDS so something like this does not happen again. One of the best ways we can begin to do that is to…