Insurgent groups need to secure their operations to ensure effectiveness. This leads them to develop counterintelligence rules and an organizational structure that ensures security. In small groups this may be limited to security-focused rules of conduct, but as groups grow in size and complexity, the need for a more robust security organization is needed. Dr. Turbiville highlights the critical element of security and how insurgent groups ignore it at their peril. Piercing a group’s intelligence capabilities can be critical in undermining its operations. One of the greatest threats to insurgent groups’ internal security is infiltration. Shielding itself from government and military infiltration is a critical element in ensuring an insurgent group’s freedom of operation. Ultimately, this requires the local population to either actively support or passively tolerate the insurgents. The population’s loyalty, a fundamental tenet of irregular warfare, is the objective of both sides fighting in an insurgency.
Bureau of Sabotage