NEXT STEPS
Next Steps
Underground Decisive Operations
Underground decisive operations focus on individuals working underground, mostly on small-scale acts of sabotage and subversion that make the most of their skill and opportunity. It is ideal for their actions to appear like an accident unless the nature of the action requires otherwise. Individual saboteurs are more effective with some informal coordination if, for example, a general day of action has been called. It also helps if individuals seize an opportunity by springing into action when those in power are already off balance or under attack. Underground networks can accomplish decisive operations that require greater coordination, numbers, and geographic scope, with synchronization between even a handful of groups. These underground networks can make an entire economy grind to a halt.
In simple terms, decisive operations are operations that actually accomplish the goal in question. These can be broken down into a handful of tactic groupings. ““Take it,” also known as expropriation, involves removing or seizing key tools, equipment, materials, or information essential to the operation you aim to disrupt, making it impossible for that activity to continue. “Break it” is largely sabotage or hacking, and very rarely arson, to destroy the means of accomplishing the activity you want stopped. Third is “shut it down” or “block it.” This is less permanent but can involve blockades, distraction, delay, or other actions that stop the targeted action from occurring for some amount of time.
Examples of each would be: if you are trying to stop an oil pipeline, “take it” would be to go to the site of construction and steal all the tools, safety equipment, or other required components needed to continue work on the pipeline. “Break it” would be going in the night and actively sabotaging the machinery: popping tires, pouring corrosives into oil tanks, cutting important components of the machinery, or driving a bulldozer into a lake. “Shutting it down” could look like causing a minor rockslide or pushing burned-out junk cars onto the road to the work site so that no workers can get their vehicles in or out. This could also look like hacking the emails of workers and telling them that construction work is paused and that they are given a two-week vacation. It could also look like posting fake stop-work orders, constantly jamming up the phone lines of the construction company—anything to slow down, delay, or pause action while remaining clandestine.
The underground decisive section also includes advanced tradecraft chapters that allow members of the underground to stay hidden, some advanced operation design tactics for complex operations, and a section on strategic violence against humans. We should note here that violence against humans is generally a bad idea, not just morally but practically. As a whole, it justifies much more severe repression against the resistance movement, with little to no actual stoppage of the behaviors the resistance is against. That being said, it is important for all resistance members to have a general understanding of hand-to-hand combat and firearms combat, as well as survival and evasion. In the very rare case where assassination of an individual can accomplish the actual goal of the resistance such that it is worth the massive risk of repression, resistance movements should understand how that works. Understanding assassination tactics is also important as a defensive measure, since the U.S. government has been known to commit assassinations against revolutionaries time and time again.
Underground Shaping Operations
The next section is underground shaping. For the most part, this is broken into three subcategories: spying or intelligence operations, propaganda operations, and shadow government operations.
This looks like running operations that gain intelligence for the resistance movement as a whole that can then be disseminated. This information and intelligence needs to be collected through either the internet, direct infiltration, surveillance, or other methods. All these tactics will be taught. Propaganda operations by the underground, on the whole, will look like various forms of graffiti or signage that bolster support for the resistance and show the scale of the movement, as well as mischief or morale operations that break down the morale of the opposition, embarrass them, confuse and distract them, and generally make them less effective while building public support for the resistance.
Lastly, shadow government operations involve laying the groundwork for replacement systems of self-governance. This can include assisting other members with methods and systems for decision-making, writing policy papers, editorials and anonymous editorials, as well as the non-public exercising of democratic councils and consensus decision-making.
Underground Sustaining Operations
Underground sustaining operations are those that keep the rest of the underground operating. These include how to recruit new people into underground operations, how to fundraise in order to supply other members of the underground with funds and resources to do shaping and decisive operations, the creation and operation of safe houses, the ability to travel covertly without being tracked, the ability to keep caches of important intelligence documents, money, weapons, or other useful tools hidden and safe, and the ability to run rescue operations and go off-grid when the opposition is searching for members.
Aboveground Decisive Operations
Aboveground decisive operations are those that accomplish goals directly but are not clandestine. This section looks a bit like the underground decisive operations section but is focused more on tactics viewed as civil disobedience or strategic breaking of laws, in which your identity will be discovered when you get arrested. This can look like obstruction or occupation of buildings, chaining yourself to machinery, lockups, blockades, tree sits, and similar actions that decisively stop the action in question but do not hide individual identities. This also includes political theater and obstruction, where actions can halt political proceedings or delay the enforcement of laws deemed unjust.
Aboveground Shaping Operations
Aboveground shaping operations look like more traditional civil disobedience actions and the main groupings of symbolic action, influence, and persuasion, which can include electoralism, as well as political education. These are incredibly important operations but do not directly accomplish the goal of the resistance in and of themselves. Instead, they create and shape the society and conditions necessary for victory. These actions are generally less risky in terms of the severity of repression or punishment; however, they are more likely to make you known to the opposition.
This can look like constructive direct action, also known as building dual power, alternatives, and prefiguration—creating the structures we want to see in the new world we are fighting for, such as mutual aid networks, clinics, and similar efforts. This section gets into the specifics of building these alternative organizations and structures.
Aboveground shaping operations can also include civil disobedience actions, symbolic actions, and disruptive actions that do not decisively halt the processes targeted, but instead disrupt the day-to-day lives of people, gain public support, reveal the opposition’s hypocrisy or actions, and call for accountability. This can look like protests, digital actions such as petitions, economic disruptions like boycotts or strikes, and labor movement actions.
Art and protest also fall here, where the creation of rebellious art works to change hearts and minds. This is also where aboveground propaganda and influence occur: media manipulation, public press releases, writing articles and books, and creating alternative media to gain mass support for the resistance and document the crimes and repressive actions of the opposition for the general public. Lastly, political education and rebel history are foundational to shaping the future. Understanding what you believe and being able to communicate it effectively is crucial to building the resistance and the new world it is fighting for. Rebel history shows past actions of rebels and demonstrates what works and what does not.
Aboveground Sustaining Operations
Finally, aboveground sustaining operations are non-clandestine operations that help keep the movement alive. This includes legal support and prisoner support, activist legal knowledge, organizing and recruiting, aboveground political organizations, movement lawyering, street medicine and advanced first aid, as well as Copwatch and law enforcement accountability actions to keep people safe.
Conclusion
Those are the sections of the manual. Once the core skills and affinity group sections are completed, these sections are meant to be action-oriented references for your benefit. You can jump around to different skills based on chapter titles and what seems useful to you. However, if your affinity group is gravitating toward one of these sections, it is recommended to read it fully, together or separately, and then end a specialization section with a higher-level action of that kind. Keep in mind this is a long road, and the goal is always to fight another day until we can’t. Welcome to the rebellion, and let’s get started.