By, John Mosby
John Mosby is a former U.S. Army Special Operations soldier. He lives somewhere in the mountains.
Laying Foundations: Building an Auxiliary Cell
From providing logistics, communications, and intelligence collection services, to providing transportation to the underground and the guerrilla force; from developing and running safe house and underground hospital facilities, to acting as a “plug-a-hole” reserve fighting forces for underground and guerrilla operations, there’s a wide variety of possible roles for members of the auxiliary to fulfill.
Within each of those roles, there is also a broad variety of sub-categories for auxiliary personnel to fulfill. Looking at the wide range of “duties” of the auxiliary, it readily becomes obvious that we need an idea of where to start. There’s an old cliché, of course, that says “the best place to begin is the beginning.”
Contrary to the popular misconception of too many in the tough-guy “prepper/survivalist/III%” culture, a guerrilla force or underground “living off the land” does not mean they’re out there gathering roots and berries, and catching rabbits with 550 cord snares. That MAY play a role in logistics, but the guerrilla force that ends up in those dire of straits is pretty well screwed. They’ll spend more time trying to keep from starving than they will in achieving their strategic end goals.
Similarly, “living off the land,” is not simply a matter of stealing chickens and cows from the local civilian populace, and damn the consequences. If you want an idea of how well that works out, I would heartily suggest studying the efforts of Napoleon’s army in the Peninsular War. They weren’t guerrillas, they were foreign invaders, but the principles still apply. All you’re going to do is piss off friend and foe alike.
The purpose of the auxiliary is to provide both logistical an intelligence support to the underground and guerrilla force. They achieve this by coordinating the support efforts, ensuring that the local civilian populace that is supportive of the force is protected, and helping provide support for the guerrilla and underground, while any “let’s steal some cows” efforts are targeted only at those hostile to the efforts, and who cannot be converted to supporting them.
“The auxiliary in traditional Maoist insurgency conducts clandestine support functions by organizing people on a regional, district, or sector basis, depending on the degree to which guerrilla forces are organized.” –US Army FM 3-05.201 Special Forces Unconventional Warfare Operations, APR 2003
Therein lies the crux of the “how do I develop an auxiliary?” question.
Who is the guerrilla force or the underground that you are supporting? It need not be formed and active yet—in fact, it generally should not be—but you need to know who they are, in order to support them. What is their strategic goal, and what tactics will they be using to achieve those goals? Without this knowledge, you’re not part of the auxiliary, you’re just a dude with a bunch of stuff hoarded in your basement, drooling over Internet pictures of fat guys in camouflage.
The problem of course, is that—unless you belong to an organized group, like your local militia—there’s no way to know, for sure, the critical answers.
If you don’t know what unit(s) you’ll be supporting, you don’t know what their strategic goals are going to be. The majority of militia/III% “movement” groups in this country are—sadly—a joke of disjointed, divergent polarities, most of them “led” by somebody on a power trip that wants to be the king, and refuses to even consider working together with nearby groups because they might “take over” or something.
One militia group might have decided that their only purpose is to protect their county, while another is gung-ho to go anywhere within their state that they feel requires their presence. A third group, meanwhile, is running across state borders, completely ignoring their claims of “constitutional authority.” They are, in fact, conducting an armed invasion of a neighboring, sovereign state…
Finally, a fourth group may be trying to position itself for a federal-level power struggle, trying to draw in “true believers” to support its efforts to back a coup of some sort.
I have, since long before I started writing the Mountain Guerrilla blog, posited that “we don’t need a revolution. We ARE a revolution.” So, what does that mean?
It means, you need to ask yourself, “why do I care about ‘survival?’ Why do I care about ‘liberty?’”
“Why do I care about ‘survival?’”
Are you interested in survival, no matter what? I’ll let you in on a secret. It’s not going to work. We’re all going to die. The only choices we have are how we live in the meantime, and—hopefully—how we die (well or poorly, not the mechanism of lethality, necessarily). So, what’s the real reason you stockpile guns, ammunition, and food?
I would argue that, from an evolutionary biology standpoint—and from a moral standpoint for most people—the reason we are interested in “survival,” is because we want to ensure that our children/grandchildren/loved ones survive. We tend to believe the best way to ensure that is by preparing for bad stuff, and surviving ourselves. Right?
That’s a pretty solid reason, actually. It also ties into the “tribal/community autarky” strategic goals I discussed in Volume Two of The Reluctant Partisan (and in even greater detail in the forthcoming third book). That is simply a strategy of not worrying about what the idiots in DC are doing, and focusing on your local community of friends and family. Of course, this also drastically impacts the fund-raising and recruiting efforts of any “national ‘militia’ organizations,” but really, forget them. Local, local, local; always. If every liberty-advocate in the USA would quit worrying about what the federal government is saying/doing/trying, and focus on teaching a dozen of their closest family and friends what living independently means, and convince those 12 people to live that life, and do the same? As the guys at Action Figure Therapy say: “Problem solved. Problem staying solved.”
“But…Liberty!”
Why do you care about ‘liberty?’ What does that word actually mean, to you? The Oxford English Dictionary (and for any thinking person, that is really the authoritative arbiter of word definition in the English language), liberty has two basic definitions that are applicable when most people discuss it.
1) the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior, or political views.
2) the power or scope to act as one pleases.
What if I told you—and brace yourself, this is one of those Matrix-shattering moments in life—that the only people that can have a negative impact on your Liberty, using those two definitions, are members of your local community?
Oh, sure, the federal beast can pass laws. They can tell you “you’re not allowed to do XXX!” They can say, “you MUST do YYY!” But really? They cannot enforce those edicts. Even if they had the physical capability for doing so, it’s someone local to you that would have to tell them you either were or were not doing what you were told. It’s going to take someone local to you to actually come investigate and find out that “Yes, in fact, Mr. Liberty Advocate IS actually daring to do XXX!”
So, if you can either a) keep your local friends, family, and neighbors from knowing that you’re actually daring to do XXX, or you can convince them that you doing XXX is really, not that big a deal, and the federal government overlords are full of crap, then you really have nothing to fear about infringements on your Liberty, do you?
Want a couple of examples?
1) Colorado
2) Washington
3) Alaska
4) Oregon
Every one of those states has legalized recreational marijuana within their states. What has the federal government done? How many arrests and trials of residents of those states, in federal court, have we seen?
Now, that’s one thing. That involved combined efforts from small, local groups, combining to exert their influence on a state government. What about at the local level? What about tribal?
Do you believe that, on the day marijuana was legalized, all those people that are smoking pot in Colorado suddenly decided, “Oh, hey, I’ve ALWAYS wanted to try getting high! I don’t have to worry about going to jail now, so I’m gonna go smoke out!”
There may very well have been a few. The vast majority, however, had been smoking pot, despite it being illegal, prior to that. Yet, they weren’t ALL in jail or prison, were they? They just focused on their local community, buying pot from people they trusted, or who were vetted to them by people they trusted…and for the vast majority of them, they got away with it, for a very lengthy period of time, even though we’ve been in a “War on Drugs!” for decades.
Of course, many readers have their hackles up right now, because I seem to be supportive of marijuana legalization, and that ol’ demon weed is BAD!
A far more useful task would be – instead of worrying about what other people put in their bodies – to look at how they’re getting away with it, in those states that don’t have legalization, and learn from them. Here’s the deal, regardless of what you think about marijuana: there had to be someone growing it. There had to be someone buying it from the people growing it. There had to be others buying it, in turn, from them, and then ingesting it. Despite the fact it was/is ILLEGAL, and has had a concerted effort from federal, state, and local law enforcement, to stop it from being grown, harvested, sold, and ingested. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what you’re trying to do!
Not with marijuana, necessarily—although, can you think of a better way to finance your local tribe’s efforts? Whether you’re focused on short-sighted concerns like guns and the Second Amendment, or invasively high taxation, or any number of other issues that we need to take into consideration, due to undue federal influence.
If you could develop the same types of LOCAL networks that pot-smokers have, you’d have Liberty, in your lifetime…right now. Today.
How?
Let’s look at guns. Everybody loves guns, right? Well, except liberals, and even they love guns, they just don’t love that you have guns. So, how do you start building your networks around guns? Well, how many of your close friends have guns and love to shoot? 4-5? 12-20? It doesn’t matter if they agree with you on religion. It doesn’t matter if they agree with you on taxes. It doesn’t matter if they agree with you on prostitution. We’re focused on ONE aspect now. We’re focused on guns.
So, let’s say you’re like me, and are kind of an a-hole, so you only have 4-5 people you consider “friends.” By that, I mean, they are close enough that you would—literally—step in front of a moving train and die, facing the danger, to save their lives…and vice-versa. Of those, only 3 are serious gun guys. Now, within those 5 people, you have the nucleus of a tribe. Even though the other two aren’t gun guys, they’re loyal to you, unto death. You have frith with them. They may have other close friends who are gun guys too, but let’s focus on the three of your kinsmen that ARE gun guys. You’ve decided that you really, REALLY, REALLY, need a .338 Lapua Mag, but the fed has outlawed them. What are you going to do? You’re going to go to your gun guy friends and ask if they know anyone they trust, who has one they’d part with. In turn, they’ll go to their other gun guy friends, and ask if they know anyone that they trust, who has one. Eventually, down the trail a little bit, someone actually has one, and has decided—for whatever reason—he doesn’t need it anymore. Granted, it’s “only” a Savage 110 BA, but it IS a .338 Lapua Mag. He’ll sell it, but he wants $3500 for it.
Then, the guy down the line of friends of friends, who actually found the .338, well, he wants $500 for a finder’s fee. So, you’re going to pay $4000 for a rifle that originally cost less than $1500. That’s messed up, isn’t it? Guess what….it’s not at all messed up. It’s not a breach of frith, and it’s not an insult to the “cause.” It’s called the real world.
So, you pony up $4000, and hand it to your friend that you trust. He hands it to his friend, etc, all the way down the line. Two weeks later, your friend hands you a beat up Savage 110BA. You inspect it, and realize, the barrel is damned near shot out. Did you get screwed? Nope. Your auxiliary found you what you said you needed. Now, you’re going to have to replace the barrel. You can either restrict that conversation to your gun guy friends, or you can ask any of your friends that you trust, if they know a machinist or old gunsmith that can build you a barrel. It ends up costing you another $2000 to get a barrel built. You’ve now dropped $6000 on a rifle, and you don’t even have ammunition for it yet….
Newsflash, THAT’S how the underground and auxiliary work.
What!?
So, what does THAT have to do with the original question? You want to help the fight for liberty! You’re not worried about how you’re going to buy guns on the black market!
Patience, young Padwan. It has EVERYTHING to do with the auxiliary you want to start building.
Logistics Auxiliary Cell
1) Cellular Construction
Your cell consists of the people you know, personally, and trust—even unto Death. How many people do you know that you would trust to die—or go to Federal Prison for a decade—before they would rat you out? One? Two? Three, if you’re really, really blessed? That’s your cell. In turn, of the two people you trust, who trust you to the same level, they each have another one or two friends. Those people DO NOT need to meet you, or even know about you. They can know their friend has another friend he trusts as implicitly as he trusts them, but nothing else. Now you’ve got—within the network of multiple tribal bonds—the beginning of a network.
2) Supporting the Warfighters
So, within your three-man cell, none of you are “spring chickens,” and you have recognized that you’re not going to be leading any raids or fighting off hordes of Cannibalistic San Franciscans. What you want to be able to do is provide a level of support to those that need it, who CAN fight off those hordes. How do you do that? You ask your tribesmen, “what do your friends that are young enough to fight, need to do so?” They ask their younger, fitter friends, “Hey, buddy, what gear/equipment/supplies are you short on? What do you have, but recognize is perishable/expendable, and WILL need to be replaced/resupplied in the future?”
The reply comes back, through the intermediaries, “Ammo. Gun parts. Body armor. Medical supplies. Food.”
“Great, you knuckle-draggers. What kind of ammo? Parts for what guns? What type of body armor? What medical supplies?”
“Oh. Sorry. Yeah, my guy says he and six of his friends are all running M4 carbines, and SIG Sauer P226 pistols. They’ve got Level III ceramic plates for their body armor, size large, and they’re worried about basic TC3 medical supplies. Can we help?”
“Sure. Now, I know what specifically to stockpile. I’ll get on it.”
Let’s assume for a moment, that you’re an older guy, you grew up with an M14, and .45ACP, and you think 5.56 and 9mm are jokes. You also know though, that you’re beyond an age where you’re interested in looking for trouble. Does it make sense to only stock 7.62×51 and .45 ACP, or would it make more sense, in order to support those guys, for you to stockpile some 5.56 and 9mm, besides?
Yeah…..
But, you’ve never taken a TC3 class, so you don’t know what medical supplies you need. You can either ask, or even better, you can take a TC3 class somewhere, and find out what medical supplies are needed, and why, in order to know what supplies will be in the greatest demand, in relation to the others.
You’ve got AR500 steel plate body armor. It’s cheap, and you’re not planning on running combat missions, so why bother blowing the extra money on ceramics? They can have steel!
Go take a patrolling or SUT class, and wear your steel plates for it, then come talk to me about how steel plates are “just as good.”
Do steel plates have advantages? Arguably. They’ll theoretically survive longer than ceramics. Ceramics are single-use items, right? How much does a steel plate weigh? According to the AR500armor.com website, their Level III plates (which are actually, probably NOT Level III, legally) – I can’t count the number of steel plates I’ve seen tested that M855 zipped straight through – weigh 7.5 pounds. So, 15 pounds for a set.
According to the Shellback Tactical website, my Banshee plate carrier weighs 2lbs, 5oz. So, now, I’m at 17 pounds, before I start adding ammunition.
My personal plate carrier, with my ceramic plates, weighs less than 12#. That’s FIVE loaded magazines I can carry, before the weight even equals the steel plate body armor alone. More importantly, I can run a lot further, faster, than I can with the additional five pounds of marginal protection.
Does it cost more? Of course it does. It’s a better product.
Can I afford six or seven or eight sets of ceramic plates? No. If I’ve got ten people in my “auxiliary” however, who are smart enough to set aside a set of ceramics though, I will be able to replace mine, should I need to, down the line.
Buying up supplies, to support the warfighters, without finding out what they need, and WHY they need it, is retarded. You might think you’re an “expert,” but the dude at the tip of the spear is whose opinion on the subject matters. Ask.
3) But, Money!
As we pointed out above, there’s no necessity that you’ll be “giving stuff away.” You MIGHT. It might turn out to be worthwhile to you, when the wolves are at your door, to say, “Hey, Joey, I know you’re gonna be out there on the line, and I can see you’re lacking body armor. I’ve got a rig set up in my basement. Let me go get it for you!” In return of course, Joey is “paying” you for the armor, by the very minor task of potentially getting shot in the face, to protect your home and life!
Alternatively, if it’s some dude you don’t know, in a cell three towns away, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with telling your trusted friend, who will pass it down the line of friends to the end-user. “Hey, yeah, I’ve got a spare set of ceramic plates stashed away. I need $500 for the set.” The end-user dude, who is not part of your tribe, after all, will either pony up the $500 or he won’t. That’s not your problem.
If it’s GOING to be your problem – if they get over-run and the bad guys are coming to your town next – then maybe you’ll decide to give them away after all, in the hope that he’ll stop them first. Or, maybe your friend will ask you to give them away, as a favor to his kinsman. That’s your decision to make, at the moment, based on circumstances.
In a Nutshell
So, what does it mean, to start a logistics cell? It means identifying who your guerrilla and underground force are—at least in a general sense—and finding out what they need. It means stockpiling the stuff THEY will need, not what you think they will need.
It means asking your friends—whom you trust, even unto Death—to ask THEIR friends, whom they trust, even unto Death, what exactly they feel like they’re going to need. Then, it’s a matter of stockpiling it.
Intelligence Cells
Developing an intelligence cell requires that you begin by defining your area. What area are you going to conduct an IPB (Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield) for? Your town? The County? The State? Once you’ve one that, you need to look at developing a complete intelligence picture, of that area. Hostile threat groups, potential allies, behavior and beliefs of non-aligned people in the area.
At the risk of sounding self-serving, I’m going to suggest two things, if you believe you want to begin developing an intel cell. 1) Take Sam Culper’s class. 2) Get Volume Two of The Reluctant Partisan, and study the two entire chapters I did on Intel Collection and Intel Analysis. Between those two activities, you’ll have a really, really solid idea on how to start developing an intel picture of your area.
When it comes to actually collecting information, most of your efforts will—necessarily—focus on open-source collection from sources like newspapers, the Internet, etc. There’s no reason however, that you can’t teach your two or three friends how to conduct tactical questioning (NOT the same thing as an interrogation), and have them teach two or three of their friends, and then ask them for specific intel product, to be gained through TQ from others that they might know.
The Role of Responsibility in a Tribe
We had friends over for supper the other night, and we sat around playing a strategy board game. As we were finishing up, the conversation turned to the efforts of the Liberty movement. Our friends are well versed in my views on neo-tribalism as the strategy of choice for survival and restoration of Liberty.
As we were talking, I brought up the fact that most of the “rights” we believe are “natural” or “God-given,” did not originate in antiquity in Greco-Roman culture, but in fact were derived from the cultures of the Celtic and Germanic language-group tribes of Northern Europe. One of those is the “right to bear arms.”
Unfortunately, in today’s world, too many have been brain-washed into the belief that this is a “God-given right,” and thus is subject to nothing. The fact is, in the culture from which the recognition of that right was derived, the “right” to bear arms was more accurately, the “responsibility” to bear arms. No free man could be righteously robbed of his right to bear arms within his tribe. Not even by a chief or a king.
In return however, in order to maintain his status as a free man, and member of the tribe, he knew he was expected, when called upon, to move towards the (extremely metaphorical in this case) sound of the guns, weapon in hand, to protect the tribe. Refusal to do so would result in “outlawry.” This didn’t mean you went to jail. This meant—basically—excommunication from the tribe.
In that time and place in history—well, prehistory, technically—not having a tribe was pretty much the same as a death sentence. You were no longer protected by the reputation and fame of your tribe’s ferocity and honor. You were fair game for any dude with a bow or spear, who decided to kill you and take your stuff. Sure, you might be lucky enough to fight off one attacker. If you were a particular badass, you might manage two or three (of course, if you were that much of a badass, you wouldn’t have been cast out for being a wimp in the first place, right?).
So, what does THIS have to do with being the auxiliary?
A lot of people have taken the discussion of being the auxiliary as having meant they don’t need to do PT, train with their weapons, and learn the basics of small-unit tactics. They’re the support guys, and support guys don’t fight, right?
I call BS. You are still responsible for your own safety, ultimately. You may still be called upon, in extremis, to grab your rifle, and go help protect hearth and home.
You STILL need to learn to fight. You STILL need to do PT. You may not ever be “elite infantry” or “special operations” fit again in your life, but you still need to be as dangerous as you can be, and being fit and well-trained is a critical part of that.
Conclusion
So, how then, do we go about building an auxiliary cell?
1) Do PT and train. It is part of the task, AND it will help you understand what the end-users need.
2) Talk to your closest friends and determine if they will be fighters or not. If so, find out what they and their group of fighters feel they will need. If not, find out if they know anyone, that they trust, who will be a fighter. Somewhere down the line, you will find someone. If they’re out there training, find out what they feel like they will need, or even DO need. There’s nothing saying that, just because your local network isn’t fighting RIGHT NOW, that you can’t be the auxiliary, right now, and equip some young guy with the gear he needs. Even if it’s only loaned out—through friends—when he’s training, it’s supporting their efforts.
Send one of the young studs to a class with someone. So what if you need to finance it? That’s what the auxiliary does. They provide logistical support to the warfighters. Even if the “kid” you send to a class turns out to be a flake, or he ends up moving six states away, so what? You’ll still—through your connections, and with anonymity—built connections of trust and loyalty with the group he was with when you financed it.
3) Start developing an intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB) of your local area.
4) Of the friends that you hold closest, maintain those relationships, and do what you can to strengthen them. Not just with the individual friends, but between spouses and children as well. Do things together, as families, even separate from “prepper” activities.
5) If you have some acquaintances or “friends” of a lesser bond, who you think are like-minded, spend the effort and time to make those bonds tighter.
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