Sunday, April 22, 2012

Waging War from Your Parents' Basement

One man became a one-man intelligence agency for the Libyan rebels. Instapundit quotes one part:

"­Benfayed got hold of the city’s only two-way satellite Internet connection and started accepting hundreds of requests to connect on Skype. He organized his contacts into six categories: English media, Arabic media, medical, ground information, politicians, and intelligence. His contacts included ambassadors and doctors, journalists and freedom fighters. A source of high-grade military intelligence soon turned his ad hoc operation into a control room. . . . After about a hundred hours of work, Martin had 250 or so direct contacts in Libya and elsewhere. He created, in effect, a private intelligence network. Initially, he expected only “ambient” or background information, but the intelligence he gathered soon proved useful for both strategy and tactics."

I addressed the growing ability of private individuals to wage war in my compilation of blog posts addressing private warfare. Eventually, people like Benfayed will be able to initiate kinetic actions on their own from their computer. And after that, even conduct them. Someone will supply the need.

When nations are too weary and too broke to defend national interests, sub-groups of citizens with the motivation and means to wage war will fill the gap.

NOTE: No, this was not posted when it was supposed to be.