TOWR sends: Leaderless Resistance

Revisiting a Co-Opted Concept

In 1992, white supremacist and former KKK leader Louis Beam wrote an article for his fringe publication The Seditionist titled “Leaderless Resistance.” (We will not link to Beam’s work or to any of the sites that feature it.) Though the concept was not originally his, he popularized the idea and in doing so, he became inexorably linked with the phrase. A simple web search shows that Beam’s name is as synonymous with that concept as the brand Kleenex is to facial tissue. Interestingly enough, leaderless resistance was initially designed by an intelligence officer to fight Communism. Beam simply co-opted and adapted the idea.

Beam’s politics and belief system, however, are the antithesis of liberty and what we as three-percenters believe; no patriot who identifies with the III% or with the concept of liberty could ever view white supremacy doctrine as anything less than horrifying. In addition, Beam’s quest for government overthrow goes against the III% Creed.

In short, there is nothing about Louis Beam’s white supremacist, anti-government philosophy, doctrine, or belief system that we identify with in any form or fashion.

To make it even more clear:

• TOWR does not advocate or agree with the armed “preemptive” overthrow of government.
• TOWR does not advocate or agree with the “first strike” concept of offensive violence toward government officials or law enforcement. In fact, TOWR will stand to defend any law enforcement officers who suffer reprisals for honoring the rights of the citizens.
• TOWR does not advocate or agree with the targeting of innocents at any time or for any reason.
• TOWR does not advocate or agree with the use of violence except in a defensive capacity to prevent imminent physical harm to one’s person, family or property, or the defense of innocents.

You’ve seen us use the term “leaderless resistance.” We accept that there are connotations within that many find unpalatable. In fact, leaderless resistance is seen as a concept “which encourages small, independent cells to commit violent acts.” That was not, is not, and will never be our intent.

In fact, let us repeat that. That was not, is not, and will never be our intent. In hindsight, the phrase itself does not even accurately explain what we are about; since we are just beginning, what better time than now to explain and clarify before pushing forward?

A better way of describing what we are preparing for, training for, studying for would be “open source insurgency,” along the lines of what Mike Vanderboegh wrote about in 2012.

The reason I’m so particular about allies and principles is that what we must attempt, should we ever face more tyranny from the Feds, is an open source insurgency, which is to say, many small-scale, local fights with national, even international, principles. Some call it “leaderless resistance” but that is not true. We must be led, but by principle. And only 4th Generation Warfare which targets policymakers — and policymakers only, not their families or other innocents — will win.

Leaderless resistance as explained by Beam focuses on the problems with a traditional “pyramid” leadership model. Military units (and by extension, nearly every militia unit and patriot group currently out there in the open) operate with it. The inherent problems with this model should be evident. They are susceptible to infiltration, ego, power grabs, and internal conflicts that tear them into pieces…which is exactly what the Feds want. The bigger and more public the group, the easier it is to tear apart or infiltrate and destroy. By nature, however, many patriots want to make big groups, multi-state groups, groups with hierarchies and impressive member lists and roll calls and public deployments and loud, outspoken leaders that get a lot of media attention—and want more. In fact, we were ourselves members of one of those groups…and we watched it fail for all the reasons mentioned above.

O’Ryan, writing in a comment on an SSI article in 2010, pinpointed another reason why the organized militia units are by nature ineffective:

Militia culture focuses on the kinetic activities, not the quieter domains of intelligence, perception management and clandestine operations. Most militia (and I use the term broadly) think in terms of fighting a II or III GEN war, not in terms of modern insurgency. Militias have no real influence operations or the intelligence apparatus to drive them…[…] The militias need more intelligence training and application. Low-level HUMINT, analysis, Close Target Reconnaissance and HUMINT enabled SIGINT and less talk radio. Mark Koernke is not an intelligence source and military publications are written for an audience with a large supporting infrastructure. There is plenty of information available for militias to develop really a spectacular intelligence capability, but the militias, for a variety of reasons, have not matured to this.

Because militias lack basic HUMINT capability, they lack basic HUMINT knowledge and are unable to perform counter-intelligence. There are no fine grained background checks to vet prospective applicants—ensuring that the Opposition can always stay inside their OODA loop. There is no Intelligence Preparation of the Environment to develop the intelligence fabric for operations. Because of this, the militias are always several moves behind while the Opposition is always several moves ahead. The militias cannot “detect” the Opposition let alone “finish” them.

His next words are what drive the point home.

I’ve met a few individual actors that understand this. Some have interesting military backgrounds, others are entirely self-taught and to good effect. They don’t get involved in militias because militias are a giant boy’s club with OPSEC problems. Further, militias just don’t want to learn anything that would upset their self image of modern Minutemen fighting with honor on some contemporary Breed’s Hill.

The Opposition is allot more cutthroat. Plus they do intelligence very well—as we have seen with the Oppositions use of informants (or ‘sources’ in the HUMINT lexicon).

Until the militias develop a functional intelligence capability, they will never be a fighting force.

Enter the leaderless resistance redux, or the preparation for open source insurgency—and, by the way, the purpose of the Order of the White Rose.

We are not wholly leaderless, for we are led by principles. We are not violent; we seek peace and liberty. We are not offensive, but defensive. However, we are also not a II or III Generation militia unit. We are not a Constitutional task force. We are training for whatwill be, not what was and has been before.

And we are determined to win.

Long live Freedom!