Disconnection: Fifth Generation Warfare Tactics

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As I’ve mentioned before in SurvivalBlog, modern warfare has evolved into what is now termed Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW).c

Even the leftist wonks at Wikipedia have summarized the evolution of warfare fairly well, in re-stating the generations of warfare concepts developed by military analysts and historians including William S. Lind, Terry Terriff, and Robert Steele:

To my way of thinking, Fifth Generation warfare centers around Information and denial of information. That could include: intelligence, counterintelligence, propaganda, civil affairs, psychological warfare, C4CI, lawfare, targeted harassment, and war as an extension of politics, i.e. political dirty tricks or outright political warfare.

Here in the United States, political warfare was field-tested in places like Arkansas in the 1980s. And it first reached a nationwide scale soon after January 20th, 1993.

What we are witnessing in Washington D.C., circa 2023, is nothing less than an ongoing coup d’état on our Constitutional government, by the Bidenistas. They have weaponized Federal law enforcement and the ruling cabals of the national intelligence apparatus, to do their bidding. And, as we witnessed with the absurd “Russian Collusion” charade for 40+ months, they have also brought the liberal mass media and Big Tech on board as willing partners in their concerted plot.

The Federal courts are a mixed bag of political appointees with varying allegiances. I have doubts that we can count on the appeals courts to do the right thing, if judges at the circuit court and Supreme Court levels feel intimidated or feel like they are operating under duress.

The Final Arbiter

Ultimately, the final arbiter in the grand game of checks and balances is the very well-armed American populace.  We hold final veto power in our hands. 120 million+ armed Americans vastly outnumber  the ranks of federal law enforcement, if it ever came down to that. There are close to 400 million privately-owned guns in the U.S., and the majority of those have no paper trails or at least fractured paper trails.

In the event of any truly blatant ballot tampering, there will then be an impromptu runoff election, and those votes will be coming from the rooftops and the treelines, at around 3,000 feet per second.

As I’ve explained before, attempting to institute martial law or to “round up” guns in America is a fool’s errand. To wit,

Disconnection

With all of that said, I’d like to focus on just one group of tactics in 21st Century 5GW, and that is disconnection. For millennia, governments have imprisoned, exiled, or “disappeared” their opponents. Nearly every large castle of old had a dungeon.  But dungeons and their modern-day analogs (jails and prisons) are crude and overt methods of disconnecting dissenters. Far more subtle, refined, and covert methods of disconnection are now available. These days, the best method for governments and technocrats to silence their opposition is a digital gulag.

Presently, here are some of the key disconnection tactics and techniques used by The PowersThat Be (TPTB) and by liberal pressure groups:

Belittling and Marginalizing.  Leftists label anyone that is more conservative or freedom-loving than they are as “extremist”, “radical”, “reactionary”, “far right”, “nazi”, “racist”, or “ultra-conservative.”  The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has perfected this technique. I’ve personally been the victim of their smear attacks.

Gaslighting. This is the devious practice of making opponents doubt their own mental health.

Social media “strikes” and banning. Platforms like Google, Facebook, and Twitter have long-established policies to ban anyone who is outspoken in a way that runs contrary to the official narrative.  Recently, anyone who spoke out against vaccination would be banned almost immediately. Strikes often get automatically handed out by artificial Intelligence (AI) tools searching for keywords, with little or no human intervention. Defending oneself from strikes and banning can be time-consuming and frustrating. A ban from a platform can be temporary or permanent, with very little remedy or recourse available to those who are targeted.

Search engine de-ranking. A more subtle way of disconnecting folks with an Internet presence is using algorithms to push them down in the rankings of search results.  By fine-tuning search engine results, they can “steer” millions of users toward the dominant liberal, mainstream media outlets and government websites and away from alternative media sites. I’ve personally been the victim of de-ranking. Back in the “good old days” before around 2012, if someone typed “Survivalist site how to stock a retreat” into Google’s search box, SurvivalBlog would have been found on the first page of results. But now, it is buried several pages down. Do some test searches and you’ll soon see how de-ranking works. For example, try searching “Survivalists”, “Preppers”,  “Disaster readiness”, “Preparedness blog”, “Preparedness expert”, and “Prepper Blog”. You won’t find a direct link SurvivalBlog on the first page of any of those results. Unless you literally type: “SurvivalBlog” or “Survival Blog”, my blog no longer ranks well, at all.

Shadow-banning. Another subtle form of attack is shadow-banning. This can be hard to detect. A social media account holder can still see their own content, but they notice that their “likes”, “shares”, or page hits start to decline. At first, the account holder might not have any idea that fewer and fewer people are seeing their posts. All they know is that their “share” numbers are plummeting. They might somehow blame themselves for not being popular, when it is actually an algorithm that has been set at war with them.

Deplatforming.  Presently, de-platforming has been limited to just social media accounts.  But it could easily be expanded to include terrestrial and satellite Internet Service Providers, phone services, teleconferencing services like Zoom and Skype, VPNs, and more.

Lowering financial credit scores with erroneous reports. Take note that you can check your credit score annually, with each of the major credit reporting agencies, at no charge.

Lowering social credit system scores. Today, a social credit system is only used in mainland China. They call it shèhuì xìnyòng tǐxì. It is a national credit rating system and blacklist. It is used in a variety of ways to limit job opportunities, purchases, social contacts, and travel. The Infogalatic Wiki reports:

“As of June 2019, according to the National Development and Reform Commission of China, 26.82 million air tickets as well as 5.96 million high-speed rail tickets had been denied to people who were deemed “untrustworthy” (on a blacklist) and 4.37 million “dishonest” people had chosen to fulfill their duties required by the law. In July 2019, additional 2.56 million flight tickets as well as 90 thousand high-speed train tickets were denied to those on the blacklist.”

SWATting. This is a method of harassment where hoaxers trick police into sending a SWAT team to a victim’s home or business.  The typical tactic is to falsely report “a family dispute, with shots fired.” This has potentially lethal consequences.  Recent SWATees include Tim Pool, Erick Erickson (founder of the blog RedState.com), former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Kandiss Taylor, David Hogg, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, and a long list of celebrities including Russell Brand, Miley Cyrus, Ashton Kutcher, Magic Johnson, Justin Bieber, Simon Cowell, Charlie Sheen, Tom Cruise, Clint Eastwood, and Paris Hilton.

Targeted harassment. Traditional Hayduke-style harassment is still alive and well. Be ready to endure it. In cyberspace, DDoS “ping floods” have become the preferred method of harassment, to temporarily make websites unavailable.

De-banking. You receive a notice in the mail that your bank is closing your account. This has happened to me:  No reason was given other than a vague reference to “changes in the economy.” I had to scramble to open another account and get numerous automatic payments redirected.

Orchestrated protests before or during public speeches.  This is a now common tactic. Recently-protested speakers have included Jordan Peterson, Michael Knowles, Milo Yiannopoulos, Ben Shapiro, Gavin McInnes, Charlie Kirk, Matt Walsh, and federal district court judge Kyle Duncan.

Targeted tax audits. Anyone who believes that this practice ended when Lois Lerner left the IRS must be naive.

Paperwork checking intimidation. The recent gun shop paperwork raid in Great Falls, Montana is a prime example. No less than 20 Federal agents from offices in three states were called in to carry out that armed raid. This incident helped to illustrate three important things:

1.) Paying for a Federal Firearms License (FFL) is an invitation to scrutiny, and adds paperwork burdens that could easily trip you up and get you prosecuted.

2.) Federal agencies often work in concert. In the Great Falls raid, the IRS, ATF, and the FBI were clearly all working together. Reportedly, no FBI agents entered the gun shop, but they set up an “observation post” to “monitor the situation.”

3.) Just how thin on the ground Federal agents really are. They project the illusion of great strength and omnipresence, but they aren’t a real army. They are more like a troupe of paid actors, producing drama. The IRS has always depended on intimidation and fear tactics.

Stepping it up a notch

If TPTB fail to silence their opponents with any of the aforementioned tactics, then they can escalate to more overt 5GW disconnection methods. These can include:

  • The FBI Interview. Sending FBI agents to your doorstep to attempt to interview you, on some pretext. This is mostly a technique of harassment, but it could have huge consequences. This is because it is a felony to knowingly make a false statement to a federal agent. The best way to avoid this is to refuse to make any statement. Politely ask them to leave your property. We have Fifth Amendment rights, so use them!
  • Red-flagging.  Extreme Risk Protective Order (ERPO) laws are now on the books in several states, including: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia. Not surprisingly, most of those are considered “Blue” states.  As I recently wrote:  “I consider Red Flag laws the worst sort of modern tyranny. Red flag laws essentially create legalized, state-sanctioned SWATing. Often called “Extreme Risk Protective Orders” (ERPOs), Red Flag court orders can be initiated for just vague suspicions or because someone might be offended or irrationally fearful of you exercising your constitutional right to own guns. With a Red Flag order, there is no presumption of innocence, no due process, no opportunity to face one’s accuser, and the burden of proof is on the target of the Red Flag Order rather than on the state. Red Flag hearings are much like the Star Chamber proceedings in England from the 15th to 17th centuries — with much done in absentia. The Boys In Blue obediently come and collect your guns, and then you have to fight in court, to get them back, post facto. Please do your best to stop any Red Flag legislation, in your state.”
  • Smart-house lockouts. Just last week, we read: Amazon shuts down customer’s smart home devices after delivery driver’s false racism claim. And several Cases Have Already Been Documented of Smart Meter Hacking and Disconnection. If this were done by government authorities could conceivably mean disconnection from phone service, power, Internet, natural gas, and water.
  • Maliciously targeted prosecutions and civil suits. If you doubt that could happen, then look at the cases of Roger Stone, LTG Michael Flynn, Donald Trump, and Alex Jones, just to name a few.
  • Travel visa denials and deportations. In 2018, Martin Sellner and his fiancée Brittany Pettibone were barred from entering the UK, and deported. In 2019, Sellner was also barred from entering the US, where had his wedding scheduled.
Some Emerging Threats

In the near future, we could also be targeted for banning from Airbnb, Uber, Lyft, airlines (“no-fly” lists), train travel, bus travel, et cetera. This is not just conjecture. It has already happened.  In 2017, Laura Loomer was banned from both Uber and Lyft. In 2018, some black Trump supporters were banned from using Uber. In 2022, conservative commentator Michelle Malkin and members of her family were banned from booking rooms on Airbnb.

Another emerging threat is posed by computer-generated deep fakes.  These fakes could be used to discredit nearly anyone. Well-known public figures will be the most likely targets of deep fake character assassination. Just imagine that a fake press report of a “nervous breakdown” was made, just before the release of a deep fake of someone spouting crazy talk.  The results would be devastating and difficult to overcome.

Perhaps the ultimate 5GW threat to silence dissent is total disconnection, via a combination of three or more of the techniques that I’ve listed above. I predict that these tactics could become commonplace in the remainder of the 2020s and in the 2030s.

Be Ready

Finally, to reiterate a few key points that I’ve made in SurvivalBlog over the years, I recommend that you:

  • Come to faith in Christ and keep your faith. Pray frequently.
  • Don’t ever agree to any searches without a warrant or clearly-articulated Probable Cause. We have Fourth Amendment rights, so use them!
  • Don’t ever talk with the police, other than to report a crime against your person or your property. If they come looking to just “investigate”, politely send them on their way. Again, we have Fifth Amendment rights, so use them!
  • Don’t get discouraged and drop out of politics. If you do so, then TPTB will have won.
  • Never voluntarily register or give up your guns. Be armed and vigilant. If allowable by your state law, travel armed whenever you attend public rallies, vigils, or marches. We have Second Amendment rights, and those don’t disappear when we exercise our First Amendment rights!
  • Use strong passwords, and change them frequently.
  • Avoid unnecessary paper trails. When you make major food storage purchases or buy anything related to firearms, encryption, or ham radio, pay in cash or with cash-bought USPS money orders.  Try to do business with private parties or small businesses that keep few permanent records.
  • Check your credit scores, at least once per year.
  • Keep your personal networks small and limited to trusted friends that you’ve known for decades. Never trust “the new guy in town.” If you are an outspoken conservative, then any new arrival that attempts to befriend you is likely an infiltrator of some sort — either an undercover agent or more like a paid Confidential informant (CI).
  • Back up all of your data, regularly. We should anticipate getting hacked, so prepare, accordingly.
  • Maintain at least two bank accounts, to be ready for any possible de-banking.
  • Warn your local police chief and/or sheriff if you suspect that you might soon become the target of SWATting or other harassment.

May God watch over you, and protect you, in these Dark Days! – JWR

Note: Permission to re-post this article in full is granted — but only if all of the included links are left intact, and credit is given to JWR and SurvivalBlog.com, with a link.