JSOU, Jan 09: Guerrilla Counterintelligence: Insurgent Approaches to Neutralizing Adversary Intelligence Operations
....A key issue underpinning this current volume is the complex relationship between state and nonstate actors. The nonstate actors are organizations with structures and personnel; albeit that these structures vary considerably in complexity from group to group. Insurgent groups have goals that require a strategy and operational planning to achieve. Consequently, the groups need to secure their operations to ensure effectiveness; they also need to provide security because the operations entail securing the organization and its personnel from government counterinsurgency operations. Ultimately, this leads groups to develop some form of counterintelligence rules and structure to provide security. In small groups this may be limited to security-focused rules of conduct and operational security, but as groups grow in size and complexity, the need for a more formal type of organizational structure increases and a more robust security organization will be needed.

Dr. Turbiville does an excellent job of highlighting the critical element of security and how insurgent groups ignore it at their peril. Another effective analysis is his discussion of trends and similarities that can be observed across geographical, historical, and cultural boundaries. In other words, all insurgent groups must provide for some form of security and understanding; this provides a useful prism with which to analyze various groups. Piercing a group’s intelligence capabilities can be critical in undermining its operations. As a word of caution, insurgents can do the same thing to governments. Dr. Turbiville persuasively argues Michael Collins’ targeting of British intelligence organizations seriously undermined British security force’s resolve in Irish counterinsurgency operations in the early 20th century.

This ###-for-tat threat and counterthreat also applies to the concept of infiltration, the greatest threat to an insurgent group. Shielding itself from government infiltration or penetration is a critical element in ensuring an insurgent group’s freedom of operation. Ultimately, this requires the population to either actively support or passively tolerate the insurgents. Consequently, the population’s loyalty, a fundamental tenet of irregular warfare, is the objective of both sides fighting in an insurgency....
Complete 92-page study available at the link.