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The Baldwin Files – A Poor Man’s Guide to Guerrilla Warfare

February 15th, 2020

I was born and raised poor. Financially, my family was somewhere between The Waltons during the Depression and the Beverly Hillbillies – before they struck oil. Not that I noticed at the time. When I was young, all the people around me were generally in the same economic and social circumstances so there was no obvious disparity. It was not until my last two years of High School that I even became aware of it. I do not recall anyone giving me grief for my relative poverty; however, I became more conscious of my fiscal disadvantages relative to my more affluent peers. I started working after school and on weekends at 15. My immediate goal was to accumulate enough money to buy a car as soon as I was licensed to drive. I thought that one purchase would make all the difference. It did not. A cheap car – that my parents had to cosign for – did not change my social status. I still had little spending money and could not afford the latest fashions or other teenage status symbols. I was still a poor kid. It was a simple but very important life lesson.

I am not saying that growing up poor made me any more insightful, virtuous, or smarter, than someone born into a family of greater means. However, I did experience a lot in those first 18 lean years that gave me a useful perspective that ultimately proved to be professionally valuable. Later, I had the opportunity to apply and validate what I had learned. First, as a “school trained” guerrilla and eventually as someone who instructed newer Special Forces (SF) candidates on how to be successful guerrillas. Consequently, I have a practitioner’s understanding of what it takes for a guerrilla to “win” and – because they are two sides of the same coin – I also know what it takes for a counterguerrilla to prevail. I started collating and sharing my “poor man’s” insights on the subject with SF students about to be inserted into the Robin Sage exercise. While in “Pineland,” they have to work by, with, through, and alongside, a distrustful population while enhancing and effectively employing the ragtag guerrilla forces found there. It is harder than it might seem.

People in general, and Americans in particular, are prone to make one of two equally wrong assumptions when engaging people from foreign cultures, i.e. they are exactly like us…or nothing like us. Because we come from a rich society – even if we are not personally wealthy – it is often hard for American soldiers to discern and subsequently leverage the commonalities and the differences between themselves and their inevitably less fortunate foreign partners and adversaries. Moreover, the term “guerrilla warfare” itself has become old fashioned and out of style. We now prefer insurgencies and counterinsurgencies, or maybe irregular or asymmetric warfare instead. Asymmetric is perhaps the most overused and least helpful term. ALL warfare involves the combatants constantly seeking at least a temporary asymmetric advantage over their opponents. That is why I still prefer the classic term of guerrilla warfare, a.k.a. “small wars” or “poor man’s war,” because I believe it captures the normally smaller scale, limited resources, and intimate human dynamics of this kind of warfare better than the more modern terms.

I also avoid the phrase “hearts and minds.” It is vague and provides no useful guidance.  Instead, I emphasize three terms: influence, manipulate and exploit. As in: How can I influence (or gain influence over) the people who have the power to help me do what I need to do?  How can I manipulate the current situation into something more advantageous to my goals and objectives?  And, what factors, conditions, attitudes or perceptions can I exploit to accomplish my mission? By definition, in military and financial terms, the guerrilla is always weaker and poorer than the counterguerrilla; however, influence is much, much more important than relative finances and force numbers. A better measure of relative strength is to ascertain what power (influence) the guerrilla wields with the population.  Likewise, what power (influence) does the counterguerrilla have with the population? It is not the man that must be defeated, but rather his influence. Both sides have to remember that.

For a poor person, limited assets are a given and nothing in life is free. Therefore, poor people are understandably frugal – even miserly – with their resources. To get the most out of what little is available, it is important to know how and why things work in the target society rather than just observing what is going on. In the rural area where I grew up, everyone was a poor farmer. That is, most had other day jobs but almost all families tilled a vegetable garden and – if space allowed – kept chickens, a milk cow, and hogs to supplement their diet. It was a necessity, not a “lifestyle” choice. All those that could, also raised at least some tobacco and had a shed or even an entire barn devoted to drying the tobacco leaves. Once a year, tobacco brokers would come around and buy up those small batches of dried leaves. It was a vital cash crop that families counted on to plus up their incomes every fall. It was a significant and integral part of the local economy. The practice ended only because tobacco companies found it cheaper to get their product from larger-scale farm operations contractually affiliated with their brand. Consequently, the poor farmers stopped growing tobacco and life got a little harder for them.

Fast forward to Afghanistan, and a similar economic arrangement is in effect between the poor poppy farmers and the opium smugglers and profiteers. No matter how it is done, stopping the latter would have a devastating impact on the livelihood of the former. That, in turn, would naturally help guerrillas recruit more fighters and garner support from the disaffected population. In general, poor people do what they have to do to survive – often operating on the edge of the local laws. My father was a mechanic by trade. However, when I was young, he had a side hustle as a bootlegger and moonshiner. Bootlegging involves illicitly transporting booze from a place where it is legal and selling it for profit someplace it is illegal. Moonshiners simply make their alcoholic merchandise instead. In short, my father was a criminal. However, he was operating in a place where he had been born and raised. He had grown up with both his customers and local law enforcement. They were all his life-long friends and – in some cases – even relatives. Because of that familiarity, the law knew he had a wife and six kids and had little interest in taking him to jail where he would miss work and lose money. Accordingly, they rarely kept him in custody more than overnight and local judges let him off many times with warnings rather than fines. It was the socially accepted sliding scale of poor man’s justice for that time and place.

That vignette illustrates why any efforts to convert the population or the guerrilla to the American viewpoint are invariably a waste of time and energy; instead, strive to comprehend the locals’ point of view. A successful guerrilla or counterguerrilla understands that, minus the occasional foreign fighter, everyone killed on both sides (no matter how “righteous” the kill) is the son, brother, nephew or cousin of a local family, clan and tribe. They are NOT considered “bad guys” by the locals. Therefore, the population is not likely to help you, thank you or embrace your cause if it involves killing or jailing family. That does not mean you do not kill as many as you need too, but it does mean that you must fully understand the consequences. Recognize that you are also an outsider and will probably never be a “hero” to the locals no matter how long or hard you work with them. 

Still, do not overthink the problem! Certainly, warfare – of any flavor – is a thinking person’s game. It always involves intuitively appreciating and leveraging fundamental human nature, but warfare is not rocket science. No one needs to have graduated from the Army War College to get it right. Indeed, guerrilla warfare specifically is routinely prosecuted almost exclusively by amateurs on all sides – not professional soldiers. Effort spent on fully understanding the local cultural dynamics is never wasted even down at the small unit level. Studying local history is useful for establishing a framework of understanding. However, appreciating something I call “cultural mythology” is far more important than history. Local mythology provides a much more accurate insight into how the population sees itself. History is not written or read by the masses. Mythology is the peoples’ narrative. Local mythology is constantly embellished and dutifully passed from generation to generation.  Ask any Texan (or any American) about the Alamo. He or she will know the myth by heart but will likely be unaware of the real (unembellished) historical facts. Other peoples are no different.

In a poor society, a man’s pride or family honor is his most important possession. If that honor is threatened or perceived to be threatened, he will fight. As a case in point, De-Baathification was the single worst mistake we made in Iraq. It did not just take away a former low-level Baathist’s job. Rather it emasculated the Sunni men in front of their tribes, clans, and families. We stripped “poor men” from their position in society and denied them even a chance to earn a new place of respect in Iraq. It should come as no surprise that they eventually fought back in a poor man’s fashion. That is exactly what I would do in similar circumstances. The truth is that deliberate US policies created the Sunni guerrillas.  It did not have to be that way.

I have not seen the latest version of FM3-24, Counterinsurgency.  I thought that the first version was significantly flawed and I admit I have little confidence that the new version will be much better.  I have heard – but cannot confirm – that it now includes “Shape” and “Transition” to bookend the “Clear, Hold, Build” mantra of the first version. As a cinematic warrior once said, “I do not think that word[s] means what you think it means.” First, I have always counseled that it is unwise to embrace the simplistic axiom that demands counterguerrillas expend enormous energy trying to physically “separate the guerrilla from the population.”  Thereby – presumably – marginalizing his power and enhancing the counterguerrilla’s power until the guerrilla becomes irrelevant. Hence, the term “clear” for example, should not be (but usually in practice is) misinterpreted as essentially a tactical task, as in clearing a building. It implies that after forces have “swept” through a village or sector that the problem has been moved to the outside of our newly establish perimeter.  So now, we “hold” what we have and our security can safely “face out” because that is where new threats will come from.  It also implies that an uncertain, noncontiguous, and non-linear, environment can be rearranged into something very linear – and more comfortable – with a relatively simple maneuver of forces. Nonsense!

Then there is the culminating “build” phase that supposedly secures the peace – equally nonsensical. The predictable result of too many leaders visualizing guerrilla warfare through the lens of rich American builders rather than poor local farmers. In other words, too much money and not enough “common sense” – not that common sense is very common. In a guerrilla war, “clear” is more akin to a poor farmer clearing land for cultivation; in other words, a longer duration, hands-on, and “operational” rather than tactical process.  Long story short, I would argue that successful guerrilla warfare requires combatants to think more like poor farmers rather than rich builders.  Functioning societies are not akin to machines or building, they are instead analogous to living entities. They have to be healed not rebuilt. I would suggest that “build” could and should be replaced by “raise” or “grow” – as in raising a crop or a child. Anyone can readily build a government infrastructure. Every country on earth has one. However, one has to grow or raise (develop) a representative government or even a workable concept of governance. Just as we cannot kill our way to success, one cannot simply build our way out either.  However, over time, we can help potentially grow/raise something that will be reasonably self-actualized and enduring. 

Nevertheless, building is the American default because it is easier and faster than raising or growing. Besides, building gives the illusion of quick progress. In fact, during GWOT we established entire organizations tailored to do construction projects called Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs). PRTs were supposed to be optimized to “win hearts and minds” – but managed only to make Americans feel good temporarily. The PRTs chose which projects to finance and then measured their “success” by pointing to the number of projects completed and the fact that they had spent all their money. American PRTs in Afghanistan and Iraq were worthless and even counterproductive to our objectives; in fact, the expenditure of allocated monies was so badly managed as to be criminal.  Indeed, if PRTs were such a great idea, why not built Iraqi or Afghan led versions instead?  Simple, the HNs governments (even Iraq that might conceivably have had the money) had no intention to continue supporting those kinds of projects after we left.  So what was the logic of us doing it?

Still, as rich Americans, we almost instinctively move to “solve” issues by spending money. Throwing resources at a problem may create a short-term effect but will likely have no long-term impact. Again, we would be better served if we learned to think more like poor people. Watch a person raised in a poor culture build a warming fire.  He will always use only the minimum fuel to survive. A man from a rich culture invariably builds a fire big enough to achieve comfort. He has little concern for conserving resources for an uncertain future. Even the poorest American has been raised in a culture when resources are abundant, available, and readily renewable. A man from a poor culture knows down to his bones that resources are a zero-sum game and always finite. To extend the poor farmer analogy, a farmer knows he cannot control the weather or other factors that may threaten his crop. But with the minimum of resources, he will still plant every year because doing so represents a better alternative for his future than doing nothing. Indeed, he hopes to increase the yield incrementally every year of his crop or his herd.  He does not need peace, perfect security, or some guarantee of success in order to try. 

Additionally, I advise anyone who will listen that any meeting with locals should have a concrete purpose…even if it is just to establish a working relationship.  Do NOT fall into the “feel good” trap and have long, pointless discussions about how we can “help” the locals.  I taught my people that it was best to deal with these engagements as business propositions. We only offer our “goods and services” pragmatically for something of equal or greater value from the other side. That cuts through the culture and language barriers no matter who we are dealing with. All cultures understand trade. It is no coincidence that trade is usually the first nonviolent and mutually beneficial interaction between two foreign cultures. I do not have to be an expert in the local history, culture, or language – or him in mine – to effectively haggle and find a workable balance between my wants and needs and his. I do not have to like the person nor do I need him to like me. It is just business and both sides can perceive themselves as winners. It works much better than the “I am here to help and give you free stuff out of the goodness of my heart” song and dance.  Nobody in the world buys that BS.

Now, I am going to share one of the keys to successful guerrilla warfare campaigns. To win that kind of fight, leaders do not necessarily have to be smarter, braver, more perceptive, or better resourced than their opponent; but they do need to have a little more imagination. Guerrilla wars are not won simply by maneuvering military forces to “close with and destroy the enemy.” Rather, a guerrilla or counterguerrilla leader must concentrate on influencing, manipulating and exploiting, everything that can be brought to bear to beat the other side’s ideology and power. It means routinely thinking outside of the doctrinal box because there is no cookie-cutter “book answer” to whatever situation a guerrilla combatant will face on the ground. Finally, no matter which side we are supporting, guerrilla warfare still means killing and destroying as required.  Yet, we make the effort to gain and maintain influence and conserve our resources by only killing those that need to be killed – like zealots who cannot be co-opted for example. This does not somehow make guerrilla war into “touchy-feely” warfare, as some seem to erroneously think. It is the toughest of business and it requires multi-functional and imaginative guerrilla warfighters who can bring their A-game day after day.

De Oppresso Liber! 

LTC Terry Baldwin, US Army (Ret) served on active duty from 1975-2011 in various Infantry and Special Forces assignments. SSD is blessed to have him as both reader and contributor.

FN America Awarded US Army Contract for M4A1 Carbines

February 15th, 2020

The Department of Defense has announced:

FN America LLC, Columbia, South Carolina, was awarded a $119,216,309 firm-fixed-price contract for M4/M4A1 carbine. Bids were solicited via the internet with six received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Jan. 30, 2025. U.S. Army Contracting Command, New Jersey, is the contracting activity (W15QKN-20-D-0006).

Mack Defense Builds Final Truck for Canadian Medium Support Vehicle System (MSVS) Program

February 15th, 2020

ALLENTOWN, PA (Feb. 13, 2020) – Mack Defense has assembled the 1,587th and final truck for the Medium Support Vehicle System (MSVS) Standard Military Pattern (SMP) program. The truck rolled off the assembly line on Feb. 13 in Saint Nicolas, Quebec in front of a select group of dignitaries, military officials and Mack Defense employees.

Mack Defense has assembled the 1,587th and final truck for the Medium Support Vehicle System (MSVS) Standard Military Pattern (SMP) program. The truck rolled off the assembly line on Feb. 13 in Saint Nicolas, Quebec in front of a select group of dignitaries, military officials and Mack Defense employees. Pictured from left to right are MSVS trucks in Cargo, Load Handling System (LHS), Material Handling Crane (MHC), and Material Repair Truck (MRT) variants.

“Mack Defense is proud to have completed the build out of these trucks, and we look forward to continuing the program and supporting the more than 1,500 MSVS trucks that will be in service with the Canadian Armed Forces,” said David Hartzell, president, Mack Defense. “This program demonstrates the global reach and collaboration Mack Defense is capable of.”

Mack Defense is part of the Volvo Group and leveraged the Group’s large industrial footprint and global capabilities to engineer and produce the MSVS SMP trucks. Before final production took place at a Prevost facility in Saint Nicolas, additional work was completed at facilities located in Bourg-en-Bresse, Marolles, Blainville and Limoges, France. The MSVS SMP program was coordinated through Mack Defense headquarters in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

In addition, Mack Defense called upon several key Canadian partners including Dumur Industries Ltd., EODC, Inc., Marshall, Craig Manufacturing and Link Suspensions of Canada (Raydan Division) to contribute to the project.

Mack Defense was awarded two contracts in 2015 valued at $725 million CAD by the Department of Public Works and Government Services Canada on behalf of the Department of National Defense. The contracts called for Mack Defense to deliver more than 1,500 8×8 MSVS SMP trucks, including variants such as cargo, material handling cranes, load handling systems (LHS) and mobile repair trucks (MRT).

www.mackdefense.com

New Team Savage Shooter Wins Production Division PRS Match with the Elite Precision

February 14th, 2020

WESTFIELD, Massachusetts – February 13, 2020 – Scott Satterlee, the newest addition to the Savage Arms shooting team, has taken the top spot in the Best of Texas Production Class Precision Rifle Series match held February 8 and 9 in Navasota, Texas. Satterlee won the top spot with his Model 110 Elite Precision.

“Savage and MDT have developed a winning platform with the 110 Elite Precision,” Satterlee said. “I’m thrilled with my results with the rifle, and proud to be a part of Team Savage.”

Satterlee shot the match with a stock 110 Elite Precision in 6.5 Creedmoor. He used Prime Ammo, a Nightforce NX8 2.5-20 with an XT reticle, Nightforce Rings, and an LRA Send-it Level. He added an MDT internal weight kit, four external weights, an MDT muzzle brake, an OBi grip, and a Ckye-pod. He shot from Wiebad support bags.

“Master Sergeant Satterlee’s win is a testament to his skills and the potential of the 110 Elite Precision,” said Beth Shimanski, Director of Marketing for Savage Arms. “At Savage, we’re committed to combining the latest innovations with the best materials to provide shooters with exceptional tools that make the most of their abilities.”

 

Snigel Design is Rebranding

February 14th, 2020

After 30 years, Sweden’s Snigel Design is rebranding. How do you think it compares to the old logo?

Army Researchers Pursue Soldier Protection Technologies

February 14th, 2020

ADELPHI, Md. — When faced with battlefield threats, American Soldiers depend more than ever on body armor to protect them. To adapt to the evolving dangers of getting shot, the Army created a flagship program dedicated to protection technologies.

At the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command’s Army Research Laboratory, leaders designated 10 research programs as essential. Soldier protection made the list.

“The United States fields the best body armor in the world, but near-peer adversaries have threats designed to defeat body armor,” said Dr. Christopher Hoppel, Physics of Soldier Protection to Defeat Evolving Threats program manager.

This essential research program, or ERP, directly supports an important modernization priority for the Army, Soldier Lethality. Soldier lethality spans all fundamentals: shooting, moving and communicating, protecting, sustaining and training, according to Army officials.

“We are working on the technologies to provide Soldiers with protection from those future threats while not placing any additional burdens on the Soldier.”

Army scientists and engineers aim to discover, innovate and transition effective yet lightweight body armor to defend Soldiers from next-generation ballistic threats — without restricting movements or increasing load.

The program has three research thrusts: terminal ballistics, armor materials and computational mechanics. In each of these areas, Army scientists partner with experts in the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy, as well as industry and academia, to bring in additional knowledge and identify the most promising technologies in the field.

Working together, the researchers plan to improve Soldier protection technology using multiple approaches.

“In the short term, we are working to develop and demonstrate ballistic mechanisms to defeat small arms threats in a compact armor package,” Hoppel said. “At the same time, we are developing new ceramic composite materials technologies to minimize the weight and bulk of the armor.”

Testing is already underway with advanced ceramic blends such as synthetic diamond, along with novel manufacturing methods to provide higher toughness and lower density. Researchers are also investigating ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene composite materials that may absorb the kinetic energy of the oncoming bullets.

So far, the team has seen considerable success with its comprehensive systems-engineering approach. Last year, Army scientists examined the design methodology and the requirements for behind armor blunt trauma, which address the energy transmitted to the body during a non-penetrating impact.

Working together with the CCDC Data & Analysis Center, researchers made a significant adjustment to the behind-armor-criteria that reduced the weight of the armor by up to 20 percent. Then-Vice Chief of Staff of the Army General James McConville, approved the change last June as part of the Vital Torso Protection program.

For the long term, Army scientists plan to create computational tools to help them design armor for any ballistic threat.

“We are developing improved models to capture the full system response, including the fracture and failure of these materials under high pressures and loading rates and behavior of the material interfaces,” Hoppel said. “In these efforts, we are using the Army’s high performance computing centers to model how the projectiles and armors respond under high rates of loading.”

Scientists and engineers in the program partner with industry and academia through the Army’s collaborative research alliance known as MEDE, Materials in Extreme, Dynamic Environments. The alliance is led by Johns Hopkins University and includes a consortium of universities and industry partners seeking to understand the effects of material microstructure on the response to ballistic loading conditions.

Army scientists are also working together with the Dynamic Compression Sector at Argonne National Laboratory to conduct controlled experiments designed to calibrate and validate computational models for large-scale impact and penetration problems.

By partnering with leaders in the field, the researchers believe their collective efforts will strengthen their push for better protection technologies.

“We have gained a good understanding of the operative mechanisms in these emerging threats, and that knowledge illuminates paths forward to defeat the threats efficiently and robustly,” Hoppel said. “This will enable us to push the boundaries of armor design, creating much more effective protection for the Soldier.”

This story is the first in a multipart podcast series, What We Learned Today, highlighting the mission behind each of lab’s essential research programs. This series will provide coverage on the goals guiding the structure of these programs and the managers who lead them.

Story by U.S. Army CCDC Army Research Laboratory Public Affairs

Photos by Patrick Albright & Neil Adams

ZEISS Precision Rings Portfolio Continues to Grow

February 14th, 2020

Six New Ring Set Options Added to the Already Impressive Lineup


White Plains, NY – February 13, 2020

ZEISS announces the addition of six new sets of rings to the trusted and field-proven series of ZEISS Precision Rings that were introduced early in 2019. ZEISS raises the bar by offering features like an integral anti-cant bubble level, integral recoil lug, and unique designs that incorporate specialized machining and finishing processes to prevent scope marring as well as more functional aspects other mounting options just don’t offer. The new options include two additional 30 mm ring heights as well as four 34 mm variants.  There are 11 different ZEISS Precision Ring options to select from, in 30 mm, 34 mm, and 36 mm diameters, and are now available at authorized ZEISS retailers.

 

ZEISS follows their mantra of “Confidence in the Toughest Conditions” more than ever with ZEISS Precision Rings.  They are manufactured to the highest of standards from premium materials and tight tolerances for long-term security and heavy-duty field applications. A refined design boasts low-profile, non-snagging hardware and micro-radiused machining on all leading edges, where scope contact is made, to ensure that these rings don’t mar the scope’s finish.  The manufacturing and construction from ultra-durable 7075-T6 aluminum results in a Mil-Spec grade and STANAG compliant mounting solution for precise, accurate and repeatable shots on target.

 

“The ZEISS scope ring lineup is designed to the same high standard as the rest of our products for 2020,” said Kyle Brown, Director of Marketing/Product – ZEISS Consumer Products for Carl Zeiss SBE, LLC. “These precision rings are constructed to secure the highest quality scopes on the market and deliver the high-performance results expected by ZEISS customers. Immediately upon inspection, it’s obvious that they’re different. We made exceptional mechanical and design enhancements to the typical 1913 Mil-Spec scope rings available today. Having confidence in your equipment is what ultimately leads to a great first-shot-on-target down-range and these rings do just that.”

 

 ZEISS Precision Rings follow a smarter, sleeker, and ultra-lightweight ring design for all heavy-duty hunting and shooting applications.   

 

To learn more about the features and benefits of ZEISS Precision Rings, please visit: www.zeiss.com/sports-optics/en_us/hunting/riflescopes/precision-rings

SAFRAN Optics1 Launches New Website

February 14th, 2020

SAFRAN Optics1 has launched an updated website with loads of new features.

*New career page with featured roles and information about their missions, culture, benefits and geographical locations

*Streamlined product categorization so users can find a solution by means of capability or application as well as an easy way to determine if they know exactly what they are looking for.

*Customer satisfaction survey (in service & support)

*News & Event promotion

Check it out at www.optics1.com