Cellular Construction: A Basic Introductory Primer

 

(The previous article, from an anonymous member of the Special Forces community, led me to decide to put together a short article on cell construction for undergrounds, and how it can be done within your community, for community defense purposes. This has been discussed in depth in several classes, as time allowed within the program-of-instruction, or when specifically requested by a participant..–JM)

 

 

One of the pre-supposed greatest weaknesses of irregular force organizations is the obvious risk of compromise by aggressor forces. The ability to grab-and-bag a single member of an organization, thus leading to all other members of the organization being rolled up easily, through the exploitation of interrogation, rightfully tends to scare the ever-loving-fuck out of many people. This historically led to the fatally-flawed concept of “Leaderless Resistance,” purportedly developed by US Army Colonel Ulius Louis Amoss, a former intelligence-branched officer and rabid anti-communist in the 1960s, as a back-up to organized resistance operations in the event of an invasion by the USSR. While I certainly don’t know the (presumably-late) colonel, I would guess that, as a professional, his hypothesis was, in a resistance against an outside invader, the missing leadership and core mission would be provided by the shared goal of ejecting the invader.

 

The concept was re-vitalized and popularized amongst the denizens of the WN movement by that paragon of virtue (PLEASE, PLEASE note the sarcasm) and rational though, Louis Beam. The problem with this approach was still “solved” by the presumably shared commitment to resist against the government.

 

For community defense considerations in the current world however, there are numerous issues with the concept of leaderless resistance is the lack of shared information, and all the other issues pointed out in the previous article. We’ll stay away from that in this instance, and focus on how cells can be developed in a rational, intelligent manner that provides maximum security and operational functionality.

 

For the purposes of this article, I’m going to steal a page from American Mercenary and semi-fictionalize this, or at least turn it into a semi-narrative….fuck, I don’t know the right terms to use.

 

The Leadership Cell

 

Somewhere in Montana, in a small community (not that there are a whole lot of large communities in Big Sky Country) of 5000-10,000 people, a group of buddies have been talking and training together for several years, preparing for the troubles that all of us can see coming. As the world becomes more dangerous, they begin to realize that their six families aren’t going to be able to do much besides struggle for a subsistence level existence. No opportunity to restore Constitutional Rule-of-Law in their community, or provide help and hope for their neighbors, when all they will have time to do is struggle to grow, gather, and store food and provide inadequate security for their little retreat position.

 

We’ll call them Bob, Bill, Ben, Bert, Brian, and Brad (ain’t alliteration fun!?). The B-Boys decide that they need to start expanding their organization, providing training for other people, and providing the ability for themselves to have an expanding belt of security around their families, in order to enhance their preparedness. After all, being intelligent guys, they recognize that security is more effective, the further out you can project force away from your HQ facility. They’re also, like most people, concerned about security of the organization and not ending up renditioned to some shit-hole prison in Syria, under the control of US-sponsored Al-Qaeda operatives posing as anti-regime freedom fighters.

 

As they discuss it amongst themselves and their wives, one of the wives comes to the intelligent conclusion (I don’t know about your family, but in mine, HH6 has ALL the brains. I’m just the brawn) that they should base it on a cellular construction as they expand the network.

 

The problem of course, is they all have friends and associates, outside of The Group, but they don’t necessarily know the preparedness-oriented leanings of those friends and associates, and they are concerned about blindly bringing outsiders into contact with The Group.

 

They decide, based on the advice of Bert’s brother Bud, a retired Special Forces Sergeant-Major, that they need to develop independent cells, based on their local networks of friends and neighbors.

 

In other words, Bob has friends and associates that the rest of the B-Boys aren’t familiar with, or aren’t familiar enough with to call “friends” or have a predisposition to trust enough to discuss such topics with. In reflection, each of the other B-Boys similarly has friends and associates that aren’t known to, or aren’t familiar with the others of the group, or Bob. Likewise with their respective spouses.

ar

So, each of the B-Boys assigns themselves a role, or is assigned a role, within the group. Bob, being a local cop, knows not only all the cops and security guys in the area, but also many of the local gun guys. He decides, or has it decided for him, that he will work on developing direct-action security cells. So, Bob heads out, and over the course of the next several months, independent of the rest of the group, starts three or four groups, or joins three or four groups, of paramilitary-centric preparedness cells.

 

Bill meanwhile, being a local wheat farmer, starts talking to his friends and associates in the local farming community about preparedness, and ensuring they have enough crops in the ground to feed all the local folks. In doing so, he begins to realize that most of those guys not only have wheat and other feed crops, but large trucks and trailers. So, Bill doesn’t only start food-based logistics cells, but a transportation cell that help with escape-and-evasion operations by moving evaders out of the immediate operational area.

 

The list, obviously goes on, based not just on vocation, but also on avocation and social networks. The members of Bill’s subordinate cell don’t need to know what other cells Bill has developed, and shouldn’t. Likewise, Bob’s cells don’t need to know what Bill’s cells are, or even that Bill exists, and vice versa.

 

If the self-appointed leadership cell decides that an operation needs to be conducted, they determine that Bob’s Direct-Action (DA) cells will conduct a raid. In the conduct of their raid, one member of the cell is severely wounded.

 

Fortunately, because they took a cellular approach to their organization, they have a transportation network in place, so after stabilizing the casualty, they leave him in a pre-determiend rally point location, and leave. A member of the transportation cell stops by and loads up the casualty, then drives him to another pre-determiend location, close to, but not proximate to, a safe house. The driver drops off the casualty and leaves. A member of the medical cell then stops by the location, picks up the casualty, and moves him to the safe house, where the medical cell is able to provide advanced medical care to heal the casualty.

 

The cut-outs between cells provided by temporarily dropping the patient in rally points, provides security from compromise from cell to cell.

 

Within the cells, there is the obvious risk of compromise if one member is captured or turned. Only to his own cell and cell leader however. The obvious extension of this is that if one of Bill’s cells is compromised, Bill may be compromised, leading to compromise of the entire leadership cell, and then top-down, the entire organization.

 

There are four basic solutions to this potential problem.

 

• ensure that, once operational, the leadership cell is secured. This is where the concept of a secure guerrilla base area becomes paramount. It’s one thing to have an operational cell compromised and give up the name or identity of a leadership cadre. It’s something else entirely to leave that leadership cadre in a place or position where he/she is susceptible to capture that puts the entire organization at risk (it is important to recognize that this is not saying that the leadership should remain isolated and not contribute deliberate action and efforts).
• Use aliases and disguises when working with subordinate cells. Unfortunately, in a local, community-centric effort, this is completely unworkable, since it reduces the efforts to build rapport and a community-centric organization.
• If someone is captured, there needs to be a way to allow his/her cell to know within hours that he has been compromised, allowing them to disperse and disappear into the underground, as well as stopping/destroying operations that the detainee may be privy to information about. This is an effective method, but may be unrealistic.
• Sit home, shut up, and do whatever you’re told by your betters in the bureaucracy, already.

 

Ultimately, you need to understand that, as scary as compromise and capture by hostile elements is, if you’re basing all of your decisions and planning solely on that fear, you’ve already died. Do what is necessary to be effective, be as safe and secure as you can be, while still being effective, and drive the fuck on already, accepting the fact that, we’re all dead, and we don’t get to choose the time. All we get to do is choose how we’ll be remembered.

 

DOL,

John