Excellent post Bourbon, the article/letter you attached addresses a lot of topics we surfaced over the years in the SWJ council, and it probably is a prediction of what urbanization throughout the developing world will look like in the very near future.

The attack sounded very familiar to the Mumbai attack in some respects, but involved more of a swarming approach, than an infiltration of one team.

I'll have to read it in depth later, but a couple of quotes caught my eye,

We frequently approach the ideology of insurgent and insurgent like groups with a degree of western naiveity where we assume (population centric approach) that everyone simply wants democracy and our economic system. If we can give them that, they'll turn their guns into plows, etc. That is B.S., many of them are as loyal to their cause as we are to our country.

Prisoners were attracted to the group because it brought order to their lives and gave them purpose, protection, and power. There were obligations. P.C.C. followers lived by its laws under penalty of death. Those who formally joined became “Brothers” for life. They were initiated with a baptism involving water, and had to sign a 16-point manifesto that still serves as the P.C.C.’s constitution.
In this case it is somewhat difficult to attack their strategy.

“So the Command is a revolutionary movement?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, so jump ahead and tell me what you are fighting toward. Let’s say you win your revolution and take power. What kind of Brazil do you want to build then?”

A smile flickered across his lips. He said, “We do not think about winning. We rebel against the government more to give a response now than with a vision of the future in mind.”
A government official,

The lack of control is much larger than that. It extends to the favelas and, more important, to the office towers where global money flows. People see this, or they should. São Paulo is not alone. Consider all the other Third World cities, consider Moscow, consider L.A. The P.C.C. is just another inhabitant of the growing feral zones. I said, “But isn’t it possible that this is a level of chaos that São Paulo can continue to live with? With all its fortifications and armored cars? Doing business with the world?”