The Key Strategy of the resistance

Historical Snapshot

The Vietnam Village Defense Program was the cornerstone of the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG). The concept was born in 1961 and lasted 9 years. The program involved thousands of SF soldiers, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese civilians, millions of dollars, and encompassed approximately 100 camps spread from the DMZ to the Gulf of Siam. Although it was an Army Special Forces operation from start to finish, the CIA wrangled the credit for conceiving and starting the program.

At the time that the CIDG was formed, the Vietcong (VC) were concentrating their efforts on subverting the rural populations living in the South Vietnam highlands. To the CIA, it was obvious that the peasant populations were not ideologically committed to either side (VC or South Vietnam); they just wanted to be left alone to scrape out a living in the jungles. The VC were using propaganda, revolutionary organization, and terror tactics to bring millions of peasants under their control.

The aim of the CIDG and the village defense program (VDP) was simple: population denial--the cornerstone of counterinsurgency. The initial efforts focused on teaching the rural populations how to protect themselves from VC exploitation. This involved SF teams going into the area, recruiting and training a strike force, training villagers to become village defenders, and pushing the program outward into an ever expanding ring of self-defending villages. By August of 1962, the VDP had an 1,800 man strike force, 280 trained medics drawn from the local population, and 129 villages protected by 10,000 village defenders.

The VC were pissed. They countered by attacking villages that were outside the rings of self-defended villages. The VC retaliation just encouraged the outlying villages to join the expanding rings of defense. It was a brilliant strategy that could have won the Vietnam War if allowed to unfold to its logical conclusion.

The CIDG evolved over time into a more offensive program; the village defender aspect was phased out and replaced by an A-team moving into an area, building a frontier-style fort, recruiting and training 3 to 5 strike force companies who defended the camp, and patrolled and secured the surrounding area.

Applying this idea to America

The two key principles which make this strategy formidable are: population denial and the successive rings of resistance. In Vietnam, the indigenous populations living in the highlands were unarmed. They were sitting ducks for an aggressor like the Vietcong. So part of the strategy there had to be arming and training the villagers in small arms operation, maintenance, and site defense. Here, in America, especially rural America, everyone is already armed to the teeth. Most of these rural dwellers are already trained in firearms operation. So the focus will be on building the rings of resistance.

How to build the rings of resistance

Let's use a typical rural-type location as an example. I once lived outside one of the larger towns in the rural south on a 12 acre plot. The road dead ended on a neighbor's property -- so there was only one way to get into the property. (This is a key defense point--that one way in by vehicle is easily watched and defended.) There is a second road that branches off the road I lived on and it too dead ended. In all, there are about six or seven homesteads that are all located off these two roads to nowhere.

As a hypothetical resistance organizer, I would approach the folks in all these households and propose the idea of mutual defense to protect our area from aggressors. This proposal of mutual defense is easily sold when overt tyranny is so clearly operating all over the country and with the increasing likelihood of global financial Armageddon. All of us neighbors pledge to reinforce each other in the event of a State attack or in the event of marauding looters and entitlement xombies on the rampage. We, in effect, create a miniature confederation with each homestead becoming a micro-nation banded together in a mutual alliance of trade and defense.

As part of our preparations to defend our little confederation, we would construct rudimentary defenses, the placement of which would be dictated by METT-TC (Mission, Enemy threat, Terrain considerations, Troops and equipment available, Time available and Civilian considerations).

• Construction of wire fences and barriers.

• Punji stake pits.

• Traps of all kinds (both vehicular and personnel).

• Development and placement of mechanical ambushes on all high speed avenues of approach.

• Individual interlocking fighting positions.

• Protective shelters and the reinforcement of homes to provide cover from small arms fire.

• Development of the internal intelligence and early warning system.

• Development of a simple radio net that does not rely on local infrastructure to relay the signal.

We would develop a strike force out of the personnel available inside our little confederation. This force would be drawn from the most able-bodied individuals of the group. That doesn't mean we're only talking about men here. Women are perfectly capable of shooting straight and holding their ground in a firefight. So if the person in question isn't physically disabled in some way that would be a liability on the battlefield, put a weapon in their hands and train them to use it tactically as part of a fire team or squad. The second division of labor in the event of an attack would be the actual homestead defenders. Their job is to defend each piece of property that interlocks and makes up the local confederation.

I’ve created a graphic to describe this first level consolidation, our first village.

Each little star represents an individual homestead that has been properly defended and fortified. Banded together, it is the first self-defending community.

Once we have all our ducks in a row, defenses in place, battle drills locked on and practiced, and we know that come hell or MX missiles we're fully capable of dishing out a serious can of whoop ass to any aggressor arrogant enough to try and take us down -- then we're ready to push the ring of defense outwards in all directions. Our strike force cell would approach other homesteads to the front and rear, left and right, and get them to join into our expanding confederation of defense. We would lend assistance in developing their defensive positions, fortifying their avenues of approach and property against attack. Training their people into strike forces and homestead defenders.

Consider the next graphic: level two of the rings of defense are beginning to form.

Once these new parcels are self-defending, we push it out further to the left, right, front and rear.

We push into the built up areas, the surrounding towns and cities. On this level, the idea will be to build interlocking neighborhoods of defenders until the entire community is an interwoven web of defenders and guerrilla strike forces.

This is level three of the self-defending community concept.

Now, picture that the situation has deteriorated so drastically that the State has suspended all avenues available to the people for the peaceful redress of grievances.

The Resistance has crossed the line from phase one to phase two. It’s now open war. If the hypothetical operating environment looks like what I’ve been describing, the land mass is now webbed from coast to coast with these pockets of self-defending communities hell bent upon protecting themselves from State aggression.

If this is the reality that the State now faces, they’re doomed. I don’t care how big their army is, they’re not going to pacify a situation which looks like this. It is logistically impossible. They cannot field enough men to put down a resistance organized like this. I don’t care if they bring in the entire Chinese military to help. This kind of approach to civil defense is why the Swiss have never been invaded or occupied.

The best national defense is an armed population which knows how to tactically conduct irregular warfare in the event of an occupation, an invasion, or a duly constituted authority gone bad.

Imagine that. A real national defense with no standing armies or Pentagons required.