Leaderless resistance, or
phantom cell structure, is a
political resistanceRebellion, uprising or insurrection, is a refusal of obedience or order. It may, therefore, be seen as encompassing a range of behaviors aimed at destroying or replacing an established authority such as a government or a head of state...
strategyStrategy, a word of military origin, refers to a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. In military usage strategy is distinct from tactics, which are concerned with the conduct of an engagement, while strategy is concerned with how different engagements are linked...
in which small, independent groups (
covert cellsA clandestine cell structure is a method for organizing a group of people in such a way that it can more effectively resist penetration by an opposing organization. Depending on the group's philosophy, its operational area, the communications technologies available, and the nature of the mission,...
), including individuals (solo cells), challenge an established adversary such as a government. Leaderless resistance can encompass anything from non-violent disruption and
civil disobedienceCivil disobedience is the active, professed refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power. Civil disobedience is commonly, though not always, defined as being nonviolent resistance. It is one form of civil resistance...
to
bombA bomb is any of a range of explosive weapons that only rely on the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy...
ings,
assassinationTo carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
s and other violent
agitationAn agitator is a person who actively supports some ideology or movement with speeches and especially actions. The Agitators were a political movement as well as elected representatives of soldiers, including the New Model Army of Oliver Cromwell, during the English Civil War. They were also known...
. Leaderless cells lack bidirectional, vertical command links and operate without hierarchal command. While it lacks a central command, the concept does not necessarily imply lack of cooperation.
Given the simplicity of the strategy, as well as the fact that it is difficult to stamp out, leaderless resistance has been employed by a wide-range of movements, from
terroristTerrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
and
hate groupA hate group is an organized group or movement that advocates and practices hatred, hostility, or violence towards members of a race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation or other designated sector of society...
s, to the animal-liberation movement,
radical environmental movementRadical environmentalism, is a grassroots branch of the larger environmental movement that emerged out of an ecocentrism-based frustration with the co-option of mainstream environmentalism...
, as well as
anti-corporateThe anti-globalization movement, or counter-globalisation movement, is critical of the globalization of corporate capitalism. The movement is also commonly referred to as the global justice movement, alter-globalization movement, anti-globalist movement, anti-corporate globalization movement, or...
and anti-abortion activists.
General characteristics
A typical covert cell operates as anything from a lone individual to a small group. The basic characteristic of the structure is that there is no explicit communication between cells which are otherwise acting toward the same goals. Members of one cell usually have little or no specific information on who else is agitating on behalf of their cause.
Leaderless movements may have symbolic figureheads. It can be a public figure or an inspirational author, who picks generic targets and objectives, but does not actually manage or execute plans.
MediaMass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
, in this case, often create a positive feedback loop: the publishing of declarations of a movement’s role model instills motivation, ideas and assumed sympathy in the minds of potential agitators who lend further authority to the figurehead. While this may be loosely viewed as a vertical command structure, it is notably unidirectional: a titular leader makes pronouncements, and activists may respond, but there is no established contact between the two levels of organization.
As a result, leaderless resistance cells are largely insusceptible to
informantAn informant is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law enforcement world, where they are officially known as confidential or criminal informants , and can often refer pejoratively to the supply of information...
s and traitors. As there is neither a center that may be destroyed, nor links between the cells that may be infiltrated, it is more difficult for established authorities to arrest the development of a leaderless resistance movement than more conventional hierarchies.
Given its asymmetrical character and the fact that it is often strategically adopted in the face of an obvious institutional power imbalance, leaderless resistance has much in common with
guerrilla warfareGuerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
. The latter strategy, however, usually retains some form of organized, bidirectional leadership and is often more broad-based than the individualized actions of leaderless cells. In some cases, a largely leaderless movement may evolve into a coherent
insurgencyAn insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority when those taking part in the rebellion are not recognized as belligerents...
or guerrilla movement, as successfully occurred with the
Yugoslav partisansThe Yugoslav Partisans, or simply the Partisans were a Communist-led World War II anti-fascist resistance movement in Yugoslavia...
of
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. In the same conflict, the
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
leadership had extensive plans for the use of such resistance in the event of a successful
German invasionOperation Sea Lion was Germany's plan to invade the United Kingdom during the Second World War, beginning in 1940. To have had any chance of success, however, the operation would have required air and naval supremacy over the English Channel...
.
While the concept of leaderless resistance is often based on resistance by violent means, it is not limited to them. The same structure can be used by
non-violentNonviolence has two meanings. It can refer, first, to a general philosophy of abstention from violence because of moral or religious principle It can refer to the behaviour of people using nonviolent action Nonviolence has two (closely related) meanings. (1) It can refer, first, to a general...
groups authoring, printing, and distributing
samizdatSamizdat was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader...
literature, using the internet to create self-propagating boycotts against political opponents, maintaining an alternative electronic currency outside of the reach of the taxing governments and transaction-logging banks, etc.
History
The concept of leaderless resistance was reportedly developed by Col. Ulius Louis Amoss, a former U.S. intelligence officer, in the early 1960s. An anti-communist, Amoss saw leaderless resistance as a backup for the possibility of a communist seizure of power in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
The concept was revived and popularized in an essay published by the anti-government
Ku Klux KlanKu Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
member
Louis BeamLouis Beam is a Texan white nationalist. After high-school he served as a helicopter door-gunner in Vietnam. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. Back in the U.S. he became a Klansman, leading a maritime Louisiana KKK element against government help to Vietnamese immigrant fishermen. He...
in 1983 and again in 1992. Beam advocated leaderless resistance as a technique for
white nationalistsWhite nationalism is a political ideology which advocates a racial definition of national identity for white people. White separatism and white supremacism are subgroups within white nationalism. The former seek a separate white nation state, while the latter add ideas from social Darwinism and...
to continue the struggle against the
U.S. governmentThe federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...
, despite an overwhelming imbalance in power and resources. In the same year, the
Earth Liberation FrontThe Earth Liberation Front , also known as "Elves" or "The Elves", is the collective name for autonomous individuals or covert cells who, according to the ELF Press Office, use "economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment".The ELF was founded...
(ELF) was formed as an eco-resistance movement.
Beam argued that conventional
hierarchicalA hierarchy is an arrangement of items in which the items are represented as being "above," "below," or "at the same level as" one another...
pyramidal organizations are extremely dangerous for their participants, when employed in a resistance movement against government, because of the ease of disclosing the
chain of commandChain of Command may refer to:* Chain of command, in a military context, the line of authority and responsibility along which orders are passed* "Chain of Command" , the fifth episode of the first season of Beast Wars...
. A more workable approach would be to convince the like-minded individuals to form independent cells, without close communication between each other, but generally operating in the same direction.
Animal liberation
- Further information: Animal liberation movement
The animal-liberation movement, sometimes called the animal-rights movement, animal personhood, or animal-advocacy movement, is a social movement which seeks an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human animals, an end to the status of animals as property, and...
, Animal liberationAnimal liberation may refer to:*Animal rights, animals being considered as legal persons**Animal-liberation movement**Abolitionism , an abolitionist approach to animal rights**Veganarchism, a combined theory of animal liberation and anarchism...
, VeganarchismVeganarchism or vegan anarchism, is the political philosophy of veganism and anarchism, creating a combined praxis that is designed to be a means for social revolution. This encompasses viewing the state as unnecessary and harmful to animals, both human and non-human, whilst practising a vegan...
, and Anarchism and animal rightsThe anarchist philosophical and political movement has some connections to elements of the animal liberation movement. Many anarchists are vegetarian or vegan and have played a role in combating perceived injustices against animals...
The first recorded
direct actionDirect action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...
for
animal liberationThe animal-liberation movement, sometimes called the animal-rights movement, animal personhood, or animal-advocacy movement, is a social movement which seeks an end to the rigid moral and legal distinction drawn between human and non-human animals, an end to the status of animals as property, and...
which progressed into a movement of leaderless resistance was by the original Band of Mercy in 1824 to thwart fox hunters. Inspired by this group and after seeing a pregnant deer driven into the village by fox hunters to be killed, John Prestige decided to actively oppose this sport and formed the
Hunt Saboteurs AssociationThe Hunt Saboteurs Association is a worldwide organization using direct action to stop the hunting of animals. HSA activists use a model of leaderless resistance and have been using the same basic tactics since their inception in 1963; the underlying principle being to directly intervene in a...
(HSA) in 1964. Within a year, a leaderless model of hunt-sabotage groups was formed across the country.
The Band of Mercy was then formed in 1972 using direct action to liberate animals and cause economic sabotage against those thought to be abusing animals.
Ronnie LeeRonnie Lee is a British animal rights activist. He is known primarily for having founded the Animal Liberation Front in 1976. He also founded the magazine Arkangel in 1989.-Founding the ALF:...
and others then changed the name to the
Animal Liberation FrontThe Animal Liberation Front is an international, underground leaderless resistance that engages in illegal direct action in pursuit of animal liberation...
(ALF) in 1976 and the leaderless resistance model focusing broadly on animal liberation was born.
Earth First!Earth First! is a radical environmental advocacy group that emerged in the Southwestern United States in 1979. It was co-founded on April 4th, 1980 by Dave Foreman, Mike Roselle, Howie Wolke, and less directly, Bart Koehler and Ron Kezar....
and the
environmental movementThe environmental movement, a term that includes the conservation and green politics, is a diverse scientific, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues....
in the 1980s adopted the leaderless resistance model, whilst those in the animal liberation movement advocating violence emerged with activists using the name
Animal Rights MilitiaThe Animal Rights Militia is a banner used by animal rights activists who engage in direct action that ignores the Animal Liberation Front's policy of taking all necessary precautions to avoid harm to human and non-human life.-History:...
(ARM) in 1982. Letter bombs were sent to the then British Prime Minister,
Margaret ThatcherMargaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
, with two years later the name
Hunt Retribution SquadThe Hunt Retribution Squad is a name used by militant animal rights activists that are willing to inflict harm on those involved in blood sport...
(HRS) also being used.
The
Earth Liberation FrontThe Earth Liberation Front , also known as "Elves" or "The Elves", is the collective name for autonomous individuals or covert cells who, according to the ELF Press Office, use "economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment".The ELF was founded...
(ELF) was then formed in 1992, which broke from Earth First! when the organization decided to focus on advocating public direct action, instead of
ecotageEcotage is a portmanteau of the "eco-" prefix and "sabotage". Ecotage is often used as a descriptive term for the direct actions of environmental groups such as Earth First! and similar groups throughout the Western world. The term is only applied for actions of sabotage committed within the...
that the ELF participated in, whilst a violent group was established called the Justice Department in 1993, who in 1994, sent razor blades to hunters such as Prince Charles and animal researchers.
In 1999 the strategy was then actively employed by animal liberation organisations
Stop Huntingdon Animal CrueltyStop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty is an international animal rights campaign to close down Huntingdon Life Sciences , Europe's largest contract animal-testing laboratory. HLS tests medical and non-medical substances on around 75,000 animals every year, from rats to primates...
(SHAC), formed from the
Consort beaglesThe Consort beagles campaign was founded in 1996 by British animal rights activists Greg Avery and Heather James, with a view to closing Consort Kennels in Hereford, a commercial breeder of beagles for animal testing laboratories.-Background:...
campaign and
Save the Hill Grove CatsSave the Hill Grove Cats was a British animal rights campaign set up in 1997 with the aim of closing Hill Grove Farm near Witney in Oxfordshire. The farm, owned by Christopher Brown, was the last commercial breeder of cats for laboratories in the United Kingdom...
to close down
Huntingdon Life SciencesHuntingdon Life Sciences is a contract animal-testing company founded in 1952 in England, with facilities in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire; Eye, Suffolk; New Jersey in the U.S., and Japan...
(HLS). Despite claiming successes leaderless animal liberation and environmental movements generally lack the broad popular support that often occurs in strictly political or military conflicts. The Revolutionary Cells--Animal Liberation Brigade (RCALB) then appeared in 2003 and sent pipe bombs to
Chiron CorporationChiron Corporation was a multinational biotechnology firm based in Emeryville, California that was acquired by Novartis International AG on April 20, 2006. It had offices and facilities in eighteen countries on five continents. Chiron's business and research was in three main areas:...
as well as using
incendiary deviceIncendiary weapons, incendiary devices or incendiary bombs are bombs designed to start fires or destroy sensitive equipment using materials such as napalm, thermite, chlorine trifluoride, or white phosphorus....
s against similar campaign targets, whilst a year later on the south coast of
DorsetDorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
in 2004, the
Lobster Liberation FrontThe Lobster Liberation Front is an animal rights campaign which first appeared on the coasts of Dorset in 2004, later spreading to Wales, Scotland, and some European countries...
(LLF) was founded.
Within a few years of the victories claimed by the SHAC, other campaigns against animal testing laboratories emerged. At the same time,
SPEAK CampaignsSPEAK, the Voice for the Animals is a British animal rights campaign founded in 2003 that aims to end animal experimentation in the UK. It has to date fought against two projects. The first was a proposed non-human primate research facility at the University of Cambridge, which was abandoned in...
and the more radical ALF militants,
Oxford Arson SquadOxford Arson Squad is a militant organization, which emerged in the United Kingdom in 2005 after claiming the firebombing of the Corpus Christi College Sports Pavilion at Oxford University...
began their campaigns for the same goal; to end Oxford University's animal research.
In April 2009, the Militant Forces Against Huntingdon Life Sciences (MFAH) became active, when along with the ALF, they began targeting HLS customer and financial Directors, as well as company property. Since then, groups have reported over a dozen actions in Europe, including painting homes, burning cars and grave desecration. Militants, however oppose ALF ideology, instead believing in
any necessary actionBy any means necessary is a translation of a phrase coined by the French intellectual Jean Paul Sartre in his play Dirty Hands. It entered the popular culture through a speech given by Malcolm X in the last year of his life...
to prevent suffering at HLS' laboratories.
Broadly-focused movements, campaigns and organizations
- Animal Liberation Front
The Animal Liberation Front is an international, underground leaderless resistance that engages in illegal direct action in pursuit of animal liberation...
(ALF)
- Animal Rights Militia
The Animal Rights Militia is a banner used by animal rights activists who engage in direct action that ignores the Animal Liberation Front's policy of taking all necessary precautions to avoid harm to human and non-human life.-History:...
(ARM)
- Anon Anarchist Action (A(A)A)
Movements/campaigns focused on animal testing
Ongoing movements/campaigns
- Close Highgate Farm
- Militant Forces Against Huntingdon Life Sciences (MFAH)
- Oxford Arson Squad
Oxford Arson Squad is a militant organization, which emerged in the United Kingdom in 2005 after claiming the firebombing of the Corpus Christi College Sports Pavilion at Oxford University...
- Primate Freedom Project
]The Primate Freedom Project is a 501 not-for-profit grassroots abolitionist animal rights organization based in Atlanta, Georgia. It is dedicated to ending the use of nonhuman primates in biomedical and harmful behavioral experimentation...
- Revolutionary Cells - Animal Liberation Brigade (RCALB)
- SPEAK
SPEAK, the Voice for the Animals is a British animal rights campaign founded in 2003 that aims to end animal experimentation in the UK. It has to date fought against two projects. The first was a proposed non-human primate research facility at the University of Cambridge, which was abandoned in...
- Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty
Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty is an international animal rights campaign to close down Huntingdon Life Sciences , Europe's largest contract animal-testing laboratory. HLS tests medical and non-medical substances on around 75,000 animals every year, from rats to primates...
(SHAC)
- Stop Sequani Animal Testing (SSAT)
- Stop Wickham Animal Testing (SWAT)
Historical campaigns
- Consort Beagles Campaign
- Save the Goats
- Save the Hill Grove Cats
Save the Hill Grove Cats was a British animal rights campaign set up in 1997 with the aim of closing Hill Grove Farm near Witney in Oxfordshire. The farm, owned by Christopher Brown, was the last commercial breeder of cats for laboratories in the United Kingdom...
- Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs
Save the Newchurch Guinea Pigs was a six-year campaign by British animal rights activists to close a farm in Newchurch, Staffordshire that bred guinea pigs for animal research...
- Save the Shamrock Monkeys
Movements/campaigns focused on hunting
- Hunt Retribution Squad
The Hunt Retribution Squad is a name used by militant animal rights activists that are willing to inflict harm on those involved in blood sport...
(HRS)
- Hunt Saboteurs Association
The Hunt Saboteurs Association is a worldwide organization using direct action to stop the hunting of animals. HSA activists use a model of leaderless resistance and have been using the same basic tactics since their inception in 1963; the underlying principle being to directly intervene in a...
(HSA)
Movements/campaigns that advocate violence
- Animal Rights Militia
The Animal Rights Militia is a banner used by animal rights activists who engage in direct action that ignores the Animal Liberation Front's policy of taking all necessary precautions to avoid harm to human and non-human life.-History:...
(ARM)
- Justice Department
- Hunt Retribution Squad
The Hunt Retribution Squad is a name used by militant animal rights activists that are willing to inflict harm on those involved in blood sport...
(HRS)
- Militant Forces Against Huntingdon Life Sciences (MFAH)
- Revolutionary Cells - Animal Liberation Brigade (RCALB)
Islamists
Leaderless resistance is also often well-suited to terrorist objectives. The Islamist organization
Al-QaedaAl-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
provides a prototypical figurehead/leaderless cell structure. The organization itself may be pyramidal, but sympathizers who act on its pronouncements often do so spontaneously and independently.
Given the small, clandestine character of terrorist cells, it is easy to assume they necessarily constitute leaderless resistance models. Where a bidirectional affiliation occurs, however, the label is inappropriate. The men who executed the bombings of the
London UndergroundThe London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...
on July 7, 2005 constituted a leaderless resistance cell in that they purportedly acted out of sympathy for
Islamic fundamentalismIslamic fundamentalism is a term used to describe religious ideologies seen as advocating a return to the "fundamentals" of Islam: the Quran and the Sunnah. Definitions of the term vary. According to Christine L...
but under their own auspices. The hijackers involved in the September 11 attacks, by contrast, allegedly received training, direction, and funding from Al-Qaeda, and are not properly designated a leaderless cell.
Internet activism
The Internet, being an easy and instant way to communicate, makes it an excellent tool for leaderless resistance.
AnonymousAnonymous is an international hacking group, spread through the Internet, initiating active civil disobedience, while attempting to maintain anonymity. Originating in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan, the term refers to the concept of many online community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic,...
's
Project ChanologyProject Chanology is a protest movement against the practices of the Church of Scientology by members of Anonymous, a leaderless Internet-based group that defines itself as ubiquitous...
used the Internet to plan protests against the
Church of ScientologyThe Church of Scientology is an organization devoted to the practice and the promotion of the Scientology belief system. The Church of Scientology International is the Church of Scientology's parent organization, and is responsible for the overall ecclesiastical management, dissemination and...
.
Neo-Nazis
The concept of leaderless resistance remains important to much far right thinking in the United States, both in response to Amoss' initial fear (foreign forces on U.S. soil) but increasingly also — in line with Beam — as a response to perceived federal government over-reach at the expense of individual rights. The actions of
Timothy McVeighTimothy James McVeigh was a United States Army veteran and security guard who detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995...
are perhaps the most extreme example in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. McVeigh acted largely alone, but based on motivations widespread amongst the far-right anti-government and militia movement.
Leaderless resistance is not only used toward anti-government ends on the far right. Xenophobic organizations such as
White Aryan ResistanceWhite Aryan Resistance is a neo-Nazi white separatist organization founded and led by former Ku Klux Klan leader Tom Metzger. Part of the American far right, it is based in Warsaw, Indiana and is incorporated as a business....
and the British neo-Nazi
Combat 18Combat 18 is a violent neo-Nazi organisation associated with Blood and Honour. It originated in the United Kingdom, but has since spread to other countries. Members of Combat 18 have been suspected in numerous deaths of immigrants, non-whites, and other C18 members...
have adopted and advocate the tactic. The modern
Ku Klux KlanKu Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
is also credited with having developed a leaderless resistance model.
Troy SouthgateTroy Southgate is an author, musician and leading National-Anarchist activist based in the United Kingdom.-Politics:Originally from Crystal Palace, in South London, Southgate is of English-Scots descent and moved to the small village of Jarvis Brook, East Sussex, in his teenage years...
also advocated forms of leaderless resistance during his time as a leading activist in the National Revolutionary Faction and a pioneer of
National-AnarchismNational-Anarchism is a radical, anti-capitalist, anti-statist, right-wing political and cultural ideology which emphasizes ethnic tribalism. As a prelude to an anticipated racial civil war and a collapse of the capitalist system, National-Anarchists seek to establish autonomous villages for...
.
StormfrontStormfront is a white nationalist and supremacist neo-Nazi Internet forum that has been described as the Internet's first major hate site.Stormfront began as an online bulletin board system in the early 1990s before being established as a website in 1995 by former Ku Klux Klan leader and white...
,
Aryan NationsAryan Nations is a white supremacist religious organization originally based in Hayden Lake, Idaho. Richard Girnt Butler founded the group in the 1970s, as an arm of the Christian Identity organization Church of Jesus Christ–Christian...
, and Hammerskin Nation link to Beam's Leaderless Resistance. These extremist groups promote a lone wolf mentality. While nominally decrying violence, the sites praise the man who "practices what he preaches, and who backs up his words with his deeds." Stormfront, while regretting the loss of life, explains how
Benjamin Nathaniel SmithBenjamin Nathaniel Smith was a spree killer who targeted members of racial and ethnic minorities in random drive-by shootings in Illinois and Indiana, USA during the weekend of July 4, 1999.- Early life :...
's 1998 killing spree was compelled by circumstances. The World Church of the Creator presents a mixed message, calling Smith "a selfless man who gave his life in the resistance to Jewish/mud tyranny," but noting "the Church does not condone his acts."
Radical environmentalism
- Further information: Ecotage
Ecotage is a portmanteau of the "eco-" prefix and "sabotage". Ecotage is often used as a descriptive term for the direct actions of environmental groups such as Earth First! and similar groups throughout the Western world. The term is only applied for actions of sabotage committed within the...
, Eco-terrorismEco-terrorism usually refers to acts of violence or sabotage committed in support of ecological, environmental, or animal rights causes against persons or their property....
, Monkeywrenching, and Earth liberationEarth liberation has no universal understanding as a concept, as it is much considered to be a part of radical environmentalism, or as a militant off-shoot, favouring instead radical and revolutionary environmentalism.-History:...
The first identified leaderless resistance in the environmental movement was when explosive and
incendiary deviceIncendiary weapons, incendiary devices or incendiary bombs are bombs designed to start fires or destroy sensitive equipment using materials such as napalm, thermite, chlorine trifluoride, or white phosphorus....
s were used in 1976, by John Hanna and others as the
Environmental Life ForceEnvironmental Life Force , also known as the Original ELF, was the first radical environmental group in 1977 to use explosive and incendiary devices in defense of the environment.-History:...
(ELF), also now known as the original ELF. The group conducted a campaign of armed actions in northern
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
and
OregonOregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
, later disbanding in 1978 following Hanna's arrest for placing incendiary devices on seven crop-dusters at the
Salinas, CaliforniaSalinas is the county seat and the largest municipality of Monterey County, California. Salinas is located east-southeast of the mouth of the Salinas River, at an elevation of about 52 feet above sea level. The population was 150,441 at the 2010 census...
airport on
May DayMay Day on May 1 is an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival and usually a public holiday; it is also a traditional spring holiday in many cultures....
, 1977. It wasn't until over a decade and a half later that this form of
guerrilla warfareGuerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
resurfaced using the same acronym.
In 1980
Earth First!Earth First! is a radical environmental advocacy group that emerged in the Southwestern United States in 1979. It was co-founded on April 4th, 1980 by Dave Foreman, Mike Roselle, Howie Wolke, and less directly, Bart Koehler and Ron Kezar....
was then founded by Dave Foreman and others to confront environmental destruction, primarily of the American West. Inspired by the
Edward AbbeyEdward Paul Abbey was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views. His best-known works include the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, which has been cited as an inspiration by radical environmental...
novel "The Monkey Wrench Gang", Earth First! made use of such techniques as treesitting and treespiking to stop
loggingLogging is the cutting, skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks.In forestry, the term logging is sometimes used in a narrow sense concerning the logistics of moving wood from the stump to somewhere outside the forest, usually a sawmill or a lumber yard...
companies, as well as other activities targeted towards
miningMining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
,
roadA road is a thoroughfare, route, or way on land between two places, which typically has been paved or otherwise improved to allow travel by some conveyance, including a horse, cart, or motor vehicle. Roads consist of one, or sometimes two, roadways each with one or more lanes and also any...
construction,
suburbThe word suburb mostly refers to a residential area, either existing as part of a city or as a separate residential community within commuting distance of a city . Some suburbs have a degree of administrative autonomy, and most have lower population density than inner city neighborhoods...
an development and
energy companiesEnergy development is the effort to provide sufficient primary energy sources and secondary energy forms for supply, cost, impact on air pollution and water pollution, mitigation of climate change with renewable energy....
.
The organization were committed to nonviolent
ecotageEcotage is a portmanteau of the "eco-" prefix and "sabotage". Ecotage is often used as a descriptive term for the direct actions of environmental groups such as Earth First! and similar groups throughout the Western world. The term is only applied for actions of sabotage committed within the...
techniques from the group's inception, with those that split from the movement in the 1990s including the
Earth Liberation FrontThe Earth Liberation Front , also known as "Elves" or "The Elves", is the collective name for autonomous individuals or covert cells who, according to the ELF Press Office, use "economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment".The ELF was founded...
(ELF) in 1992, naming themselves after the
Animal Liberation FrontThe Animal Liberation Front is an international, underground leaderless resistance that engages in illegal direct action in pursuit of animal liberation...
(ALF) who formed in the 1970s. Three years later in
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, inspired by the ELF in
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
the first Earth Liberation
direct actionDirect action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...
occurred, but this time as the
Earth Liberation ArmyThe Earth Liberation Army , similar to the Earth Liberation Front , is the collective name for anonymous and autonomous individuals or groups that use "economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the natural environment", commonly known as ecotage or...
(ELA), a similar movement who use ecotage and monkeywrenching as a tool, although no guidelines had been published.
The ELF gained national attention for a series of actions which earned them the label of
eco-terroristsEco-terrorism usually refers to acts of violence or sabotage committed in support of ecological, environmental, or animal rights causes against persons or their property....
, including the burning of a
skiA ski is a long, flat device worn on the foot, usually attached through a boot, designed to help the wearer slide smoothly over snow. Originally intended as an aid to travel in snowy regions, they are now mainly used for recreational and sporting purposes...
resort in
Vail, ColoradoThe Town of Vail is a Home Rule Municipality in Eagle County, Colorado, United States. The population of the town was 4,589 in 2005. The town was established and built as the base village to Vail Ski Resort, with which it was originally conceived...
in 1998, and the burning of an SUV dealership in
OregonOregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
in 1999. In the same year the ELA had made headlines by setting fire to the
Vail ResortsVail Resorts, Inc. runs four ski resorts in Colorado, as well as two in Lake Tahoe and a summer resort in Wyoming. They also own luxury resort hotels throughout the United States. The company trades on the New York Stock Exchange, symbol MTN...
in
Washington, D.C.Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
, causing $12 million in damages. The defendants in the case were later charged in the FBI's "
Operation BackfireOperation Backfire is a multi-agency criminal investigation, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation , into destructive acts in the name of animal rights and environmental causes in the United States described as eco-terrorism by the FBI....
", along with other arsons and cases, which were later named by environmentalists as the
Green ScareThe Green Scare, alluding to the Red Scares periods of fear over communist infiltration of US society, is a term popularized by environmental activists to refer to legal action by the US government against the radical environmental movement....
; alluding to the
Red ScareDurrell Blackwell Durrell Blackwell The term Red Scare denotes two distinct periods of strong Anti-Communism in the United States: the First Red Scare, from 1919 to 1920, and the Second Red Scare, from 1947 to 1957. The First Red Scare was about worker revolution and...
, periods of fear over communist infiltration of U.S.
Following the
September 11, 2001 attacksThe September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
several laws were passed increasing the penalty for ecoterrorism, and hearings were held in Congress discussing the activity of groups such as the ELF. To date no one has been killed as a result of an ELF or ALF action since both groups forbid harming human or non-human life. It was then announced in 2003 that "eco-terrorist"
attacks, known as "
ecotageEcotage is a portmanteau of the "eco-" prefix and "sabotage". Ecotage is often used as a descriptive term for the direct actions of environmental groups such as Earth First! and similar groups throughout the Western world. The term is only applied for actions of sabotage committed within the...
"
, had increased from the ELF, ELA and the "Environmental Rangers", another name used be activists when engaging in similar activity.
In 2005 the FBI announced that the ELF, is America's greatest domestic terrorist threat, responsible for over 1,200 "criminal incidents" amounting to tens of millions of dollars in damage to property, with the United States Department of Homeland Security confirming this regarding the ALF and ELF.
Plane StupidPlane Stupid is a UK-focused group of environmental protesters who state their aim as wanting to see an end to airport expansion for what it sees as "unnecessary and unsustainable" flights. The organisation has no formal hierarchy, leader, or media figurehead. It is a loose association of...
then was launched in 2005, in an attempt to combat the growing airport expansions in the UK using
direct actionDirect action is activity undertaken by individuals, groups, or governments to achieve political, economic, or social goals outside of normal social/political channels. This can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action...
with a year later the first
Camp for Climate ActionThe Camps for Climate Action are campaign gatherings that take place to draw attention to, and act as a base for direct action against, major carbon emitters, as well as to develop ways to create a zero-carbon society...
being held with 600 people attending a protest called Reclaim Power
converging on Drax Power Station in North YorkshireNorth Yorkshire is a non-metropolitan or shire county located in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England, and a ceremonial county primarily in that region but partly in North East England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972 it covers an area of , making it the largest...
and attempted to shut it down. There were thirty-eight arrests, with four breaching the fence and the railway line being blocked.
Movements/organizations
- Earth First!
Earth First! is a radical environmental advocacy group that emerged in the Southwestern United States in 1979. It was co-founded on April 4th, 1980 by Dave Foreman, Mike Roselle, Howie Wolke, and less directly, Bart Koehler and Ron Kezar....
- Earth Liberation Army
The Earth Liberation Army , similar to the Earth Liberation Front , is the collective name for anonymous and autonomous individuals or groups that use "economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the natural environment", commonly known as ecotage or...
(ELA)
- Earth Liberation Front
The Earth Liberation Front , also known as "Elves" or "The Elves", is the collective name for autonomous individuals or covert cells who, according to the ELF Press Office, use "economic sabotage and guerrilla warfare to stop the exploitation and destruction of the environment".The ELF was founded...
(ELF)
- Environmental Life Force
Environmental Life Force , also known as the Original ELF, was the first radical environmental group in 1977 to use explosive and incendiary devices in defense of the environment.-History:...
- Camp for Climate Action
The Camps for Climate Action are campaign gatherings that take place to draw attention to, and act as a base for direct action against, major carbon emitters, as well as to develop ways to create a zero-carbon society...
Plane StupidPlane Stupid is a UK-focused group of environmental protesters who state their aim as wanting to see an end to airport expansion for what it sees as "unnecessary and unsustainable" flights. The organisation has no formal hierarchy, leader, or media figurehead. It is a loose association of...
Anti-abortion militancy
Anti-abortion
militantThe word militant, which is both an adjective and a noun, usually is used to mean vigorously active, combative and aggressive, especially in support of a cause, as in 'militant reformers'. It comes from the 15th century Latin "militare" meaning "to serve as a soldier"...
s The Army of God uses leaderless resistance as its organizing principle. As of 2009, The Army of God's webpage hosts a reprint of an article entitled "Leaderless Resistance" from a publication called
The Seditionist.
Network analysis in classical setting
The
social networkA social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...
s based on leaderless resistance are potentially vulnerable to social network analysis and its derivative
link analysisIn network theory, link analysis is a data-analysis technique used to evaluate relationships between nodes. Relationships may be identified among various types of nodes , including organizations, people and transactions...
. Link analysis of social networks is the fundamental reason for the ongoing legislative push in the U.S. and the
European UnionThe European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
for mandatory
retention of telecommunication traffic dataIn the field of telecommunications, data retention generally refers to the storage of call detail records of telephony and internet traffic and transaction data by governments and commercial organisations...
and limiting access to
anonymousAnonymity is derived from the Greek word ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, anonymity typically refers to the state of an individual's personal identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown.There are many reasons why a...
prepaid
cellphonesA mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
, as the stored data contain important network analysis clues.
Network analysis was successfully used by French Colonel
Yves GodardYves Godard was a French Army officer who fought in World War II, First Indochina War and Algerian War. A graduate of Saint-Cyr and Chasseur Alpin, he served as a ski instructor in Poland during 1939, but after World War II begun he returned to France...
to break the
Algerian resistance-Algerian nationalism:A new generation of Muslim leadership emerged in Algeria at the time of World War I and grew to maturity during the 1920s and 1930s. It consisted of a small but influential class of évolués, other Algerians whose perception of themselves and their country had been shaped by...
between 1955 and 1957 and force them to cease the bombing campaigns. The Algerian conflict maybe better described as guerrilla in nature rather than leaderless resistance (see
Modern Warfare by Col. Roger Trinquier). The mapping data was obtained by the use of
informantAn informant is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law enforcement world, where they are officially known as confidential or criminal informants , and can often refer pejoratively to the supply of information...
s and
tortureTorture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
and were used to obtain the identities of important individuals in the resistance; these were then
assassinatedTo carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
, disrupting the Algerian resistance networks. The more distinctive the individual is in the adversary's network, the more difficult it is to replace them and the greater the damage. France declared Algeria independent on July 3, 1962.
Advantages for leaderless resistance
Traditional organizations leave behind much evidence of their activities, such as money trails, and training and recruitment material. Leaderless resistances, as they are as much
ideologiesAn ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
as organizations, generally lack such traces. The effects of their operations, globally reported by the
mass mediaMass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
, act as a sort of messaging and recruitment advertising.
The internet provides investigators with further challenges. The individual cells (and even a single person can be a cell) can communicate over the internet, anonymously or semi-anonymously publishing and sharing information online, to be found by others through well-known websites. Even where legally and technically possible to ascertain who accessed what, it is often practically impossible to discern in reasonable timeframe who is a real threat and who is just curious, a journalist, or a
web crawlerA Web crawler is a computer program that browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner or in an orderly fashion. Other terms for Web crawlers are ants, automatic indexers, bots, Web spiders, Web robots, or—especially in the FOAF community—Web scutters.This process is called Web...
.
Despite these advantages, leaderless resistance is often unstable. If the actions are not frequent enough or not successful, the stream of public messages, serving as the recruiting, motivation and coordination drives for other cells, diminishes. If the actions are too successful, the result will be formation of
support groupIn a support group, members provide each other with various types of help, usually nonprofessional and nonmaterial, for a particular shared, usually burdensome, characteristic...
s and other
social structureSocial structure is a term used in the social sciences to refer to patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of the individuals. The usage of the term "social structure" has changed over time and may reflect the various levels of analysis...
s—structures vulnerable to network analysis.
In fiction
- The 1970 novel A Piece of Resistance, re-published in the US in 2004 under the title Never Surrender by Clive Egleton
Clive Egleton was a British author of spy novels.He enlisted in the Royal Armoured Corps in 1945 to train as a tank driver while still underage. He was subsequently commissioned into the South Staffordshire Regiment for whom he served in India, Hong Kong, Germany, Egypt, Cyprus, The Persian Gulf...
depicts resistance to a Soviet occupation of England.
- The 1996 novel Unintended Consequences by John Ross
John Franklin Ross is the author of the underground bestselling novel Unintended Consequences, author of a regular column on the Internet, and was the Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress in 1998 in Missouri's 2nd congressional district...
portrays a successful rebellion by the American heartland after decades of bullying by faraway Washington.
See also
- Insurrectionary anarchism
Insurrectionary anarchism is a revolutionary theory, practice and tendency within the anarchist movement which emphasizes the theme of insurrection within anarchist practice. It is critical of formal organizations such as labor unions and federations that are based on a political programme and...
- Lone wolf (terrorism)
- Clandestine cell system
A clandestine cell structure is a method for organizing a group of people in such a way that it can more effectively resist penetration by an opposing organization. Depending on the group's philosophy, its operational area, the communications technologies available, and the nature of the mission,...
- Social peer-to-peer processes
External links