Speaker
Description
The Resistance Operating Concept (ROC) brings Second World War and Cold War stay-behind resistance operations back into consideration for strategic and operational planners. The ROC describes national stay-behind civilian resistance organization during partial or total occupation by a belligerent actor. Current events in Eastern Europe have triggered military interest in preparing for such stay-behind armed resistance. However, the conceptual underpinning for this renewed embracement of resistance operations lacks in both depth and width. First, the ROC assumes a linear progression from planning and preparation through the execution of resistance activities over the course of a belligerent military invasion. Such a singular linear course of action falsely implies a one-sided pathway to success. This does not take the geographical space nor the severity of suppression of the population in the occupied territories, i.e. the occupation environment, into account. Moreover, such an approach conveys an impression that stay-behind resistance activities could achieve success in isolation of other elements of national resistance (through means other than guerrilla-like stay-behind units). Hence, this paper delves into distinct phases defined as: preparation for resistance, resistance to invasion, resistance to occupation, and support to liberation, each with a specific (potential) contribution to successful resistance. It does so by employing the concept of causal theory of threat to possible occupation environments and then by applying the concept of causal theory of success to stay-behind resistance’s phases. Military planners could achieve a more precise understanding of stay-behind operations vis-à-vis conventional military operations through such an approach. Such an understanding of resistance’s causal pathway to success could also aid in garnering the necessary popular, and military, support that stay-behind resistance organizations require in order to present a credible deterrent force during its preparation phase and a reliable force able to resist the potential belligerent when push comes to shove.
| What discipline or branch of humanities or social sciences do you identify yourself with? | War Studies |
|---|---|
| If you are submitting an Open Panel proposal, have you included all four abstracts in attachment? | No, I am submitting a Closed Panel abstract |
| Are you a PhD student or early-career researcher? | No |
