The Urban Guerrilla in Latin America: A Select Bibliography (1974)

The primary emphasis in this article is on the military and political aspects of urban insurgency. Research efforts have sought to identify those materials which may provide a definitive view of the political goals and military strategy/tactics of the various Latin American urban guerrilla groups. Data relating solely to internal ideological disputes within these organizations were examined but not considered for bibliographic listing unless the dispute resulted in a change in the strategy, tactics, or political outlook of the guerrilla group itself. With these parameters in mind, then, it is hoped that this bibliographic effort may encourage a more careful exploration of the urban guerrilla phenomenon and the development of those in-depth studies and analyses of the various aspects of this subject which are now so conspicuous by their absence.

Cities on Fire: Social Mobilization, State Policy, and Urban Insurgency

This article makes two arguments about the roots of urban insurgency. First, it shows that robust urban social mobilization is possible and common. This can provide a social base for rebellion in areas that prevailing theories deem unlikely sites of civil war. Second, the article argues that, given social mobilization, urban insurgency emerges when security forces are politically constrained in their use of violence, opening space for sustained violence. A study of the rise of insurgency in Karachi from 1978 to 1996 and discussions of Iraq and Northern Ireland illustrate the plausibility of this argument. State policy and strategy, rather than state capacity, can play a central role in civil war onset.

The urbanization of insurgency: Shifts in the geography of conflict

This study has sought to determine the impact of urbanization on insurgency outcomes using a post-war dataset of insurgencies. It has predicted that urbanized insurgencies favor the insurgent by facilitating concealment and cover, nullifying the relatively power differential enjoyed by states, and providing them with an abundance of soft targets useful for undermining the counterinsurgent’s legitimacy. Although constrained by a number of data limitations, the results demonstrated that more urbanized insurgencies were a significant challenge to counter insurgents. By partitioning the dataset by insurgency type, the study was able to determine unique predictors of conflict outcome for each type. Urbanized insurgencies are particularly hard to defeat when the counterinsurgent is a foreign occupier, more democratic, and the insurgency has external support. Rural insurgencies become more difficult to defeat the more linguistically diverse the population. Furthermore, by increasing the number of conflict casualties, rural insurgents can particularly benefit from rough terrain.

Street Gangs: The New Urban Insurgency

Although there are differences between gangs and insurgents regarding motives and modes of operations, this linkage infers that gang phenomena are mutated forms of urban insurgency. In these terms, these “new” nonstate actors must eventually seize political power in order to guarantee the freedom of action and the commercial environment they want. The common denominator that clearly links the gang phenomenon to insurgency is that the third generation gangs’ and insurgents’ ultimate objective is to depose or control the governments of targeted countries.

The Urban Environment and its Influences on Insurgent Campaigns

The urban environment offers the insurgents alternative ways of financing and of operating while close state control impedes them in pursuing a classic strategy of insurgency. Although state control cannot prevent attacks as such, it particularly hampers insurgents in relating to the population and organizing opposition. However, without massive and active support, armed struggle will remain sectarian and, thus, fail to achieve major political changes. This article argues that urban insurgents face a paradoxical relationship with society. While urban insurgents become independent of social support on an operational level, they depend more than ever on spontaneous massive and active social support on a strategic level.

How the Government Hides Secret Surveillance Programs

In order to create the program, the government forged a lucrative partnership with AT&T, which owns three-quarters of the US’s landline switches and much of its wireless infrastructure. Even if you change your number, Hemisphere’s sophisticated algorithms can connect you with you new line by examining calling patterns. The program also allows law enforcement to have temporary access to the location where you placed or received a call.

The Justice Department billed Hemisphere as a counter-narcotics tool, but the program has been used for everything from Medicaid fraud to murder investigations, according to documentation obtained in 2016 by The Daily Beast.

“What Hemisphere’s capabilities allow it to do is to identify relationships and associations, and to build people’s social webs,” says Aaron Mackey, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).