"The Hivemind Singularity"

[Sidewinder]

With the author wanking this "New Model Army" in ignorance of a traditional (governmental) army's obvious advantages- better logistics and training, more resources and training, ISR, etc.- is anyone reminded of Voluntaryist and his equally delusional wanking of libertarianism/anarchy?

[Grumman]

So far, the novel seems to treat each army as the ultimate guerilla army, and the British Army is entirely unable to contain them.

Oddly enough, it seems to me that the easiest way to counteract such a guerilla army would be to instill some real oppression and registration of movement/ID.

Yeah. Also to have people infiltrate their network for screwing around online. Creating fake accounts and pretending to be willing to do something heroic so that you wind up getting a bunch of them killed when they think 200 people have signed on to do something and 100 of them are fake ringers comes to mind...

That was my first thought as well. Even just reading all your enemy's plans while they're still being discussed would be a powerful tool, but putting yourself in their chain of command? That's a recipe for victory if ever I've heard one.

[PeZook]

You know, there is another problem as well: the NMA would need people who just plain think and behave differently than most people. Otherwise, leaders will arise naturally - because D3s7ruct0 is popular and good with people, they will naturally vote for his plans above others, because people like him, etc.

Personal rivalries are bad enough on 4chan, and will only get worse when tactical plans are in question, which risk getting everybody killed.

Furthermore, terrorism isn't just about getting a few shooters together and hitting some random target ; You need certain skillsets that cannot be reasonably shared by everybody. For example, who makes the bombs? Do we elect Joe The Plumber to do it? Of course not. Likewise, target selection requires reconeissance ; Things as mundane as finding a hospital willing to take in supicious gunshot victims take contacts and money etc.

People who can do those things are rare, essential to such work, and not easily replacable with others. You can't delegate these tasks to random schmucks and hope they'll manage, somehow. A succesful NMA will naturally delegate them to competent folks who can pull them off reliably, which means they have a command structure now, which can be located and attacked, just like any other terrorist organization.

And here we run into the necessity of protecting such assets, which means you have to vet new members of the flash-cell just in case they are spies, and will show up to the operation with a batallion of infantry in tow, or stake out the hospital where you deliver your wounded to arrest everybody...that means doing background checks on new members...and thus the entire idea of a fluid, evasive, untracable ghost-army evaporates in an instant.

[K. A. Pital]

To be fair, the idea (if put in a less radical way) is quite sound. A successful rebel movement nowadays, especially one of the "urban guerilla" type, would be greatly augmented by having a division, subunit or something like that which is operating on the web a-la Anonymous. This is a far cry from an "Army", of course.

[PeZook]

Good, secure communications always help, obviously: resistance movements in WW2 had SERIOUS problems with finding secure training areas, for example, because they had to meet face to face for even simple lectures. As we can see with modern terrorist movements, they are eager to make use of modern means of communication. Although there's something to be said for using physical couriers in some circumstances.

And, of course, having a propaganda unit is key to a succesful insurrection, so there's that, too. It just isn't radical enough that you can seriously count on being able to outmaneuver and outfight a conventional army at every turn, and elliminate the need for logistical infrastructure and command chain.

[Simon_Jester]

That was my first thought as well. Even just reading all your enemy's plans while they're still being discussed would be a powerful tool, but putting yourself in their chain of command? That's a recipe for victory if ever I've heard one.

It would be the most significant troll in history (since you win a real battle, not just Internet cred).

And yet, by the standards of how sneaky and ruthless people are during wartime, it would be nothing. Even a pathetic child of a strategist would see how to exploit this.