Re:The U.S. Civil Rights Movement as an Insurgency
by hegemonicon on Tuesday December 15, 2009 @01:15PM
(#997014)
This comparison doesn't seem particularly valid.
Insurgencies operate by leveraging small-scale, decentralized groups against a large, slow-moving beaurocracy. They succeed by operating faster than the beaurocracy (inside their OODA loops), leveraging the environment to their advantage and attacking critical points of failure. They're difficult to fight against because of their speed and the fact that they don't readily present targets to be attacked.
Granted, the Civil rights movement was largely grass-roots, but it's not clear to me why a comparison to an insurgency is apt.
Insurgencies operate by leveraging small-scale, decentralized groups against a large, slow-moving beaurocracy. They succeed by operating faster than the beaurocracy (inside their OODA loops), leveraging the environment to their advantage and attacking critical points of failure. They're difficult to fight against because of their speed and the fact that they don't readily present targets to be attacked.
Granted, the Civil rights movement was largely grass-roots, but it's not clear to me why a comparison to an insurgency is apt.