by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Nov 21, 2012 | Strategy & Analysis
Why are we losing?
Why, after 40 years of struggle, education, petitions, letters to the editor, reusable coffee mugs, marches, protests, direct action and even sabotage, are we still losing? Why do mountains, old growth and glaciers keep disappearing? Why are children born with 200 toxic compounds in their bodies? Why do the levels of carbon in the atmosphere continue to rise as the species count plummets? And why is the trend accelerating?
Is it because civilization functions by destroying landbases, vacuuming them up and turning living communities into dead objects? Is it because people are scared to fight back, or don’t want to lose the privileges and material prosperity afforded to them by this arrangement of power? Is it because those doing the destroying have nearly inexhaustible resources at their disposal?
There are many factors over which we have no control, to be sure. But that’s no reason for us to focus on what we can’t change, instead of what we can.
And above all else, what we do have control over is our own strategy; our plan to achieve that most necessary goal of stopping industrial civilization from destroying the planet. We do not have control over what the majority of people think or do, we do not have control over what those in power think or do, we do not have control over the amount of time we have, we do not have control over the devastating rate of biotic collapse, but we do have control over how we choose to fight back.
Yet the strategies we’ve chosen to pursue as a movement haven’t worked at all. This is true whether we talk about idealist strategies of converting “the masses”, isolated individuals and communities withdrawing from mainstream culture, reformist attempts to “green” capitalism, or spontaneously inspired popular uprising. None of these have been effective. In fact, one could argue that by diverting energy back into supporting industrialism and capitalism (both of which are functionally at odds with a living world), many of the popular strategies have actually helped those in power to solidify their domination and hegemony.
If we hope to ever make a real material difference, to seriously disrupt and dismantle the operation of the industrial machine, we need to start thinking, planning, and acting strategically. If we don’t, we will continue to stumble around blindly in circles, re-hashing the same failed plans and ideas over and over again—and the world burns.
Fortunately, there is a wealth of strategic advice and doctrine available to learn from. There is much of value that we can discover from those who have been the best at using strategy—predominantly militaries—and although we have decidedly different objections and convictions than them, the underlining principles are essentially the same.
There are virtual libraries of this sort of information, but the ‘Nine Principles of War & Strategy’ is a great basic primer on good strategy. The list outlines nine simple strategic principles, tools for strategic analysis that can serve as a foundation for establishing strategy and devising operations.
Objective: Direct all operations toward a clearly defined, decisive and attainable objective. A clear goal is a pre-requisite to devising a strategy. A decisive objective is one that will have a clear impact on the larger strategy and struggle; there is no point pursuing a goal of questionable or little value. And obviously, the objective itself must be attainable; otherwise efforts toward it are a waste of time, energy and risk.
Offensive: Seize, retain and exploit the initiative. To seize the initiative is to determine the course, place and nature of the battle or conflict. Seizing the initiative positions the fight on our terms, forcing them to react to us.
Mass: Concentrate the effects of combat power or force at the decisive place and time. Resistance groups engaging in asymmetric conflict have limited numbers and a limited force, especially compared to those in power; we must engage where we are strong and they are weak, and strike when and where we have overwhelming or decisive force, and maneuver instead of engaging when we are outmatched.
Economy of Force: Allocate minimum force to secondary efforts. Economy of force requires that all personnel are performing important tasks that tangibly help achieve mass and accomplish the objective, regardless of whether they are engaged in decisive operations or not.
Maneuver: Place the enemy in a disadvantageous position through the flexible application of combat power. This may mean concentrating forces; it may mean dispersing them, moving them, or hiding them. In all cases, it hinges on mobility and flexibility, which are essential for asymmetric conflict. This flexibility is necessary to keep the enemy off balance, allowing resisters to retain the initiative. It is used to exploit successes, to preserve freedom of action, and to reduce vulnerability. It continually poses new problems for the enemy by rendering their actions ineffective.
Unity of Command: For every objective, ensure unity of effort under one responsible commander. This is where some streams of anarchist thought come up against millennia of strategic advice and experience. No strategy can be implemented nor decisions made by consensus under dangerous or emergency circumstances. That’s why the anarchist columns in the Spanish Civil War had officers even though they despised rulers. A group may make strategic or operational decisions by any method it desires, but when it comes to on-the-ground implementation and emergency situations, some form of hierarchy is required to take more serious action.
Security: Never permit the enemy to acquire an unexpected advantage. Knowledge and understanding of enemy strategy, tactics, doctrine, and staff planning improve the detailed planning of adequate security measures. When fighting in a panopticon, this principle becomes even more important. Security is a cornerstone of strategy as well as of organization.
Surprise: Strike the enemy at a time or place or in a manner for which they are unprepared. By seeking surprise, forces can achieve success well out of proportion to the effort expended. Surprise can be in tempo, size of force, direction or location of main effort, and timing. This is key to asymmetric conflict—and again, not especially compatible with open or participatory decision making. Resistance movements are almost always outnumbered, which means they have to use surprise and agility to strike and accomplish their objectives before those in power can marshal an overpowering response.
Simplicity: Prepare clear, uncomplicated plans and clear, concise directives to ensure thorough understanding. The plan or strategy must be clear and direct for easy understanding and the simpler it is, the more reliably it can be implemented by multiple coordinating groups.
Of course, these principles don’t apply the same way in every situation, and aren’t meant to constitute a checklist.
Yet when we compare these principles to the popular strategies put forward by the environmental movement, their absence is striking. There is no critical analysis or serious planning.
We are in the middle of a war, a war against life. But we don’t seem to remember that fact. Or if we remember it, we don’t act accordingly. That needs to stop. The stakes could not be higher; everything worth loving is being killed. Living in this dire reality, it is our duty to fight back, by any means necessary.
Those in power have no qualms about the use of explosives to blow up mountains; we shouldn’t have any about the use of explosives to blow up dams and transmission lines. Those in power also have no qualms about devising and implementing effective strategy, we shouldn’t have any qualms about doing so ourselves.
Again, lest we forget; we are in the middle of a war; if we don’t act like it, then we’re doomed to failure. If we want to stop losing, if we want to stop the last vestiges of old growth and wetlands from disappearing, the ancient glaciers from melting, we need to develop strong and serious strategies to win. And we need to put them into action.
Time is Short: Reports, Reflections & Analysis on Underground Resistance is a biweekly bulletin dedicated to promoting and normalizing underground resistance, as well as dissecting and studying its forms and implementation, including essays and articles about underground resistance, surveys of current and historical resistance movements, militant theory and praxis, strategic analysis, and more. We welcome you to contact us with comments, questions, or other ideas at undergroundpromotion@deepgreenresistance.org
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Nov 19, 2012 | Protests & Symbolic Acts
By Deep Green Resistance Great Basin
The Great Basin Chapter of Deep Green Resistance participated in a demonstration in solidarity with the ongoing Tar Sands Blockade today in Salt Lake City.
The Tar Sands blockade has been obstructing the construction of the southern portion of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would eventually carry oil from the Tar Sands in Alberta to the refineries of the Gulf Coast. Working primarily in rural areas of Texas in collaboration with locals, activists from Tar Sands Blockade have been suspended high in trees for 57 days, blocking the route of the pipeline construction.
Activists from DGR today took part in a rally in Salt Lake City at the Bureau of Land Management office where Tim DeChristopher executed his direct action to halt illegal oil and gas leases in December 2008.
Utah is currently under threat from many capital-intensive industrial projects. It is the proposed site of the second Tar Sands project in North America, which would destroy large portions of wilderness in remote eastern portions of the state. The Salt Lake City region is home to several oil refineries and deepest open-pit mine in the world, and the valley (home to 2 million people) has some of the worst air quality in the country.
Utah Governor Gary Herbert has brought forward a plan to increase the construction of roads and other industrial projects in wilderness areas of southern Utah that many are calling a land grab. In other part of the bioregion, ongoing coal mining, water theft, and the aftermath of uranium milling is devastating communities, particularly indigenous communities and the poor.
The Great Basin chapter of Deep Green Resistance is a new group organizing in the region that is committed to fighting against these injustices. We advocate for the dismantling of capitalism, patriarchy, colonialism, white supremacy, and industrial civilization – and we have a plan to confront power, without compromise.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Nov 7, 2012 | Property & Material Destruction, Strategy & Analysis
Civilization is not a static force. It has metastasized across the world by accelerating its own development, by transforming the blood and corpses of its victims into new weapons with which to wage its relentless war against all life
Grasslands become grain monocultures feeding armies, conquering forests and mountains that become ships and swords that kill other cultures, conquering more forests and mountains, whose trees and minerals are turned into timber mills and trains, going forth to dam rivers, turning the relentless fluidity of their being to electricity to smelt iron and steel and aluminum, which in turn become guns and ocean tankers, which expand this superstructure ever further, tirelessly taking in what little wild remains, absorbing everything and everyone into this accelerating death march.
And yet, as the world is tied and bound tighter into this brutal arrangement, civilization (and especially industrialism) becomes more and more vulnerable, more open and fragile to disruption and destruction.
This brittleness is exemplified by the near-total dependence of the industrial economy on “advanced” technology, and the internet. This dependency upon a decentralized and accessible system that is poorly regulated and controlled—at least compared to other physical structures, like the offices of the same corporations— presents a potential point of powerful leverage against the operation of civilization.
Activists and resisters around the world are beginning to realize this, and seize the opportunity it presents to groups engaged in asymmetric forces against destruction.
Such as in Saudi Arabia; from a recent article in the New York Times;
“On Aug. 15, more than 55,000 Saudi Aramco [described as the world’s most valuable company] employees stayed home from work to prepare for one of Islam’s holiest nights of the year — Lailat al Qadr, or the Night of Power — celebrating the revelation of the Koran to Muhammad.
That morning, at 11:08, a person with privileged access to the Saudi state-owned oil company’s computers, unleashed a computer virus to initiate what is regarded as among the most destructive acts of computer sabotage on a company to date. The virus erased data on three-quarters of Aramco’s corporate PCs — documents, spreadsheets, e-mails, files — replacing all of it with an image of a burning American flag.”
This attack presents a good example of targeting a systemic weak point within the infrastructure of Saudi Aramco and maximizing impact through effective use of systems disruption: destroying three-fourths of corporate data will have impacts that last for weeks, and inhibit the company’s operation for some time. In fact, the attack leveraged the company’s response against itself:
“Immediately after the attack, Aramco was forced to shut down the company’s internal corporate network, disabling employees’ e-mail and Internet access, to stop the virus from spreading.”
The cyber-sabotage also highlights the importance of careful planning and timing.
“The hackers picked the one day of the year they knew they could inflict the most damage…”
This smart and strategic approach to action planning is something that is too often overlooked, ignored, or dismissed entirely. Yet for resistance to be effective, it must follow the same principles. Rather than striking at weak points to cripple the operation or function of industrial activity, attacks are typically made against symbolic or superficial targets, leaving the operation of the brutal industrial machine unscathed. We cannot continue to stumble with strategic blindness, lashing out all but randomly, and no more than hoping to hit the mark.
Again, civilization is not a static force: every hour, more forests, prairies, mountains and species are destroyed and extirpated. Every hour, civilization is pulled further into biotic collapse. We are out of time. With everything at stake, we are not only justified in using any means necessary to bring down civilization; it is our moral mandate as living beings to do so. But for that resistance to truly be meaningful and effective, it must also be smart. It cannot be reactive and sporadic, but strategic and coordinated; designed not just to inflict damage or dent profit margins, but to disable the fundamental support-systems that sustain industrial civilization and bring it all to a screeching halt.
This is one reason why cyber-sabotage has such potential as a tactic to be used in dismantling industrial civilization. Most, if not all, of the critical systems that sustain it are by now reliant upon computer networks, which as the Saudi Aramco attack demonstrates, are very vulnerable to disruption.
Online attacks also lend themselves as a tactic to asymmetric forces, and allow a very small group of people to carry out decisive, coordinated strikes from a distance, rather than requiring people on the ground to coordinate across the country to achieve a similar effect.
Civilization’s relentless growth and accelerating technology-spiral has rendered murder and death across the planet on a scale that would be unimaginable if it weren’t the horrific reality we now find ourselves in. But this process of unceasing centralization and control has also become its weakness, and for all its imposing gigantism, the tower of civilization is incredibly unstable, and now begins to sway precariously. It’s time to push with all our might, and topple it once and for all.
Learning to leverage key systems against themselves is crucial to the success of a militant resistance movement, and ultimately is at the core of any effective strategy to disable the function of industrial civilization and ultimately to dismantle it. Cyber-sabotage presents a vital opportunity to use the dynamics of industrial operations—such as the complete dependency of the electric grid or oil refineries upon complex computer systems—to accomplish that most fundamental and necessary goal.
Time is Short: Reports, Reflections & Analysis on Underground Resistance is a biweekly bulletin dedicated to promoting and normalizing underground resistance, as well as dissecting and studying its forms and implementation, including essays and articles about underground resistance, surveys of current and historical resistance movements, militant theory and praxis, strategic analysis, and more. We welcome you to contact us with comments, questions, or other ideas at undergroundpromotion@deepgreenresistance.org
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Oct 24, 2012 | Property & Material Destruction, Strategy & Analysis
The industrial machine dismantling the planet is incredibly vast, made as it is of the activity of hundreds of millions—billions—of people. Chainsaws and feller-bunchers topple forests, dams and canals drain wetlands and kill rivers, excavators tear apart mountains, dragnets scrape the ocean(s) sterile, the prairies plowed and paved over, and everything everywhere poisoned as we erase the genetic code of nature.
As civilization pushes the planet towards complete biotic collapse—speeding at the murderous pace of two hundred species a day—resistance becomes a mandate. Having seen the depressing failure of traditional & legal courses of action at slowing, never mind stopping, this death march, we are left with militant underground resistance as our only real hope for success.
While such resistance has been gaining speed worldwide in recent decades, much of the underground action taken thus far in defense of earth (at least in industrialized countries) has not been aimed or designed to cripple or stop industrial civilization. Actions have largely been defensive and reactive, with strikes against targets that—while primary causes of ecocide—aren’t critical to the larger function of industrialism or civilization.
While the courage of anyone who puts themselves on the line, risking their life and freedom in defense life, is undeniable and praiseworthy, we need more than piecemeal resistance: we need to prevent the function of industrial civilization. We don’t need to strike at the most obvious targets; we need to disable the critical support systems, to crumble the foundation of industrial civilization.
Because for all its awful horror, and despite its gargantuan sprawl, it is incredibly fragile. It is dependent on several very brittle systems (specifically electricity and oil) to sustain itself on even a daily level. These systems underlie all other industrial activity, at one level or another, and without their undisrupted operation, nothing else could function.
By disrupting these systems, that machine of industrial civilization can be brought to a screeching (and with preservation, irreversible) halt. By striking at critical nodes within the systems that sustain and enable industrial civilization, a serious militant resistance movement could seriously disrupt these systems. With some coordination, it could collapse them entirely, leveling the foundation of the oppressive & murderous social structure itself.
This process of strategically selecting and attacking targets and coordinating strikes to sabotage entire global systems is known as ‘systems disruption’. The idea is to leverage the structure and dynamics of the system against itself; identifying and attacking structural weak points, nodes that are critical to functionality, specific bottlenecks in the industrial process without which the larger system cannot function. Striking at these points yields the maximum impact of any attack on a system, and by coordinating attacks to strike at multiple, interconnected and interdependent nodes, a small force can disrupt or disable entire industrial superstructures, such as a national electric grid or international oil extraction/transportation/refining/distribution system.
Done correctly, this process is similar to that of explosive demolition, wherein massive, multi-story buildings are brought tumbling down in several seconds by carefully placed explosives. The idea is not to blow the building to dust, which would not only require countless explosives, but would also endanger everything around it. Instead, by analyzing the construction and structure of the building, workers identify specific locations at which to place explosives, and carefully time the blasts to collapse the structure in on itself.
Continuing the metaphor, by strategically selecting appropriate nodes in the system, success can be achieved with the minimal resources necessary. Consider the amount of explosives necessary to blast apart a building entirely versus the amount needed to destroy key foundational supports. The same is true of dismantling the superstructure of civilization as compared to disabling the key support systems that prop it up: refined liquid fossil fuels for transportation and electricity to power industrial activity. By allowing a small force with limited resources to topple disproportionately large and complex systems through precise attacks, systems disruption is a perfect offensive doctrine for asymmetric forces, and must be part of any smart anti-civilization underground resistance.
Also, in the same way that a proper building demolition collapses the structure in on itself without damaging anything around it, by attacking properly selected nodes, an underground resistance could collapse civilization in on itself, minimizing damage done to the planet (and oppressed humans). Rather than a protracted bloody struggle of attrition (whose success would be dubious), coordinated and decisive systems disruption would effectively pull the plug.
The doctrine of systems disruption has been used around the world in countless conflicts for the very simple (and very compelling) reason that it is incredibly effective.
In the Niger Delta, militants from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta used effective systems disruption to cripple the oil industry. By coordinating strikes against specific pipelines, pumping stations, and oil platforms, the resisters in the Delta shut down 40 percent of oil output, and in one series of attacks, this margin was increased to 80 percent of production.
Using the same doctrine, resistance forces in Iraq limited oil production by 70 percent. By carefully selecting vulnerable and vitally important nodes within the oil infrastructure system, a small force has been able to disable a national oil production system.
It’s time earth defense movements adopted similar convictions of strategic rigor. The electrical and oil systems are not only crucial to the hourly function of civilization; they are incredibly vulnerable to systems disruption. Both of these systems are designed for efficiency, a design constraint that yields configurations that are ripe for coordinated disruption.
For example, one report estimated that a loss of only 10-20 electrical substations could shut down 60 percent of power distribution, potentially for weeks.
These systems are very inflexible, and if struck with the right force in the right place, they would cease to function entirely. Often, these systemic fulcrums aren’t the places or nodes we might expect. In general, these bottlenecks—whose disruption or disabling yields the maximum impact on the rest of the system—fall into one or more of several categories: they are highly connected or cluster-connection nodes; they are high-load nodes, meaning they experience a lot of traffic, relative to other nodes in the system; or are sources of systemic flow, such as a power plant.
In systems as complex as those that sustain industrial civilization, there won’t be a single keystone piece of infrastructure the disabling of which would collapse the whole system. Rather, there will be a number of such bottlenecks. Striking any of them would be beneficial, but coordinating decisive attacks against multiple such nodes will have an exponential effect, and can cause cascading failures within the system.
These sort of strategic attacks—those that coordinate strikes against weak points and manipulate system dynamics to turn small attacks into large events, disrupting and disabling key industrial systems—are what give those standing against planetary murder the best chance of success. All smart strategic planning starts from the basis of what people, resources, and time is available, and then formulates a strategy within those constraints.
As a movement, radical earth-defense doesn’t have the resources or the numbers of people necessary to engage in open battles with those in power, nor the time to wait for civilization to collapse on its own. By operating along principles of asymmetric struggle, and using coordinated attacks against bottlenecks, an underground resistance could destroy civilization’s ability to function. In no uncertain terms, a relatively small number of people, placing the charges in just the right spots, could bring down civilization, just like a ten-story office building.
Time is Short: Reports, Reflections & Analysis on Underground Resistance is a biweekly bulletin dedicated to promoting and normalizing underground resistance, as well as dissecting and studying its forms and implementation, including essays and articles about underground resistance, surveys of current and historical resistance movements, militant theory and praxis, strategic analysis, and more. We welcome you to contact us with comments, questions, or other ideas at undergroundpromotion@deepgreenresistance.org
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Oct 17, 2012 | Strategy & Analysis
The modern environmental movement began some 40 years ago, and by virtually every metric, the state of the planet has spiraled horrifically into catastrophe since then.
Air, the world over, is more polluted and congested with poisons than ever before. Water available to ecosystems and people is reduced every year as more and more is stolen for industry and corporate agriculture, and what is left over is increasing toxified; 80% of rivers in the U.S. no longer support life. On this continent, 98% of native forests have been felled forever, the insanity of their murder driven more by an over-abundance of timber mills and public subsidies than actual consumer demand. Climate change proceeds ever faster apace, and this summer, 97% of Greenland’s surface ice melted in seven days, and the entirety of North America was ravaged by extreme weather. Industrial fishing has devastated our oceans, and now 90% of large fish are extinct. Every day 200 species are extirpated forever.
The death machine of industrial civilization speeds ever apace, accelerating daily as it dismantles the living systems of earth. If it is to be stopped, we cannot afford any qualms about using any and all means available to halt it in its bloody tracks. Time is short, and militant, underground resistance is required if we are to decisively stop the powerful from exploiting the marginalized and destroying the planet. Attacks on the physical infrastructure of this corrupt arrangement of power—the oil, electric, and industrial infrastructure that prop it up and keep it functioning—are the surest route to a livable, desirable future.
But such serious and determined resistance doesn’t appear in a vacuum; it grows from an uncompromising culture of resistance, a culture that not only embraces the need to fight back, but that makes resistance its mandate.
Deep Green Resistance is working to build that culture of resistance, and as one small part of that, we’re introducing Time is Short: Reports, Reflections & Analysis on Underground Resistance, a weekly column dedicated to promoting and normalizing underground resistance, as well as dissecting and studying its forms and implementation. Be on the lookout for essays and articles about underground resistance, surveys of current and historical resistance movements, militant theory and praxis, strategic analysis, and more.
Underground and militant organizations and tactics have been a major part of nearly all social movements for the undeniably compelling reason that they are effective. And with everything worth loving at stake, that must be our metric. As an aboveground organization, we must dare to speak out in support of such resistance, dare to call for radical underground resistance, and dare to defend and openly celebrate it whenever it does take place.
Talking openly about such radical action, dissecting and studying the organization, tactics and strategies of past movements, we hope to help create an encouraging dialogue of learning, growth, and—of course—resistance.
In these times, in light of the ongoing omnicide inflicted by the dominant culture against life, it becomes a duty to unflinchingly embrace, advocate, defend and celebrate underground resistance. Another 200 species disappeared from the world forever today, and they were our kin. They will continue vanishing until we muster the collective courage to move beyond our fears and hesitations (however legitimate they may be), to decisively stop their murders; to dismantle the industrial system that is killing everything by any means necessary.
Time is Short: Reports, Reflections & Analysis on Underground Resistance is a biweekly bulletin dedicated to promoting and normalizing underground resistance, as well as dissecting and studying its forms and implementation, including essays and articles about underground resistance, surveys of current and historical resistance movements, militant theory and praxis, strategic analysis, and more. We welcome you to contact us with comments, questions, or other ideas at undergroundpromotion@deepgreenresistance.org
