Comment: The take-away from this piece of Notes of a Counterinsurgent is that the most important tool in assessing and fighting against a seemingly formless, seditious/subversive threat is ones ability to develop an intuitive feel for the environment they are dealing with- in other words, your mind and instincts are your most important tool. Intuitive feel refers to a combination of knowledge, instinct, the willingness to adapt to an ever-changing environment, and the willingness to act decisively when making a timely decision is more important than making the perfect decision. Hence, this is exactly why I use the linebacker metaphor below.
Also note that while I used the term insurgency and counterinsurgency frequently, just understand what I’m really talking about is subversion and counter-subversion. The latter of the two perspectives is less militarily and politically motivated; subversion/counter-subversion applies across the spectrum of threats from state actors, non-state actors, to criminals, etc.
One needs to understand that realization is based upon understanding the nature of the threat, its modus operandi, etc. For example, pardon the crudeness, if a gent wants to take a lady to bed he’s not likely going to be successful in getting her to bed if he does not first seem to take an interest in her and is willing to wine her and dine her. Doing this allows him to soften the playing field in order to set the conditions for him to achieve his objective. He does this indirectly.
The Mexican drug trafficking organizations will be no different when they are not in a strong position to readily take over, or control, a town to meet their objectives. They may try to first woo the people to their favor so as not to risk alienating what may develop into a friendly/cooperative support base. This perspective can be applied to other scenarios as well. Over time however, once the relationship is consummated, then the relationship may change when one is no longer wooed, but dominated and/or controlled.
This may be one reason why the cartel problem that began in Mexico in the 80s was not disrupted then. Police and government officials were bought and paid for long enough until the cartels then decided to change the conditions of the relationship and their freedom of influence and movement expanded. Now the cartels dictate how the government runs in some parts of Mexico. Folks, this is subversion…learn to recognize it…learn how to mitigate it.
Approach
This intent of this piece is to provide the reader immediate patterns to cue on in order to begin taking action…to achieve effects.
Counterinsurgency (COIN), hybrid threat, environments require the mind of a linebacker. It is paramount that linebackers maintain situational awareness, an intuitive feel for their areas of operation. Linebackers cue on anomalies and attempt to engage the threat while it remains subtle. Failure to engage threats while they remain subtle often results in a situation escaping bounds of control/influence, one becomes reactive vice proactive- one becomes susceptible to ambush.
There is no time to review history during the conduct of COIN, you have to act based upon the moment with what’s available. Your enemy will ALWAYS fight you from the shadows; the enemy will never allow a true picture of himself to be revealed [deception]; the enemy will create situations to force you to overreact and exploit your own pattern of mistakes to undermine your efforts. This allows insurgents to leverage your energy against yourself by allowing you to isolate yourself from the population. The counterinsurgent is fighting a system, not individual parts. Counterinsurgents must find the seams that weave these parts together and rip them wide open, by proxy when possible, in order to undermine the social fabric that supports the insurgent/terrorist by force or subtle approaches. From there the
counterinsurgent can go on the offensive. The intent of this small, direct, guide is to get the reader thinking and operating in this direction.
Also read: Notes of a Counterinsurgent
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