Underground ‘terrorists’ with a mission to save city’s neglected heritage - Times Online

Is this group not an example of John Robb’s Global Guerrillas in action?

OK, breaking into museums and decaying sites of historical interest to fix and preserve valuable things is arguably an act of philanthropy. (I only say arguably because it depends on whether their efforts to fix and preserve are crap or not. If they’re crap it’s an act of vandalism. Either way calling them ‘terrorists’ is over the top.) I am interested in this article because until I got a proper job and had children I was a fairly active urban explorer; exploring tunnels, bridges, abandoned buildings, industrial facilities, and derelict stuff of any kind is just inherently interesting to me. So, hat’s off to this Parisian crew. But getting back to the subject of this blog it’s the example that matters. Could this not be an example for terrorists?

Mr Kunstmann said that les UX had 150 or so members divided into about ten branches.One group, which is all-female, specialises in “infiltration” – getting into museums after hours, finding a way through underground electric or gas networks and shutting down alarms. Another runs an internal message system and a coded, digital radio network accessible only to members.

A third group provides a database, a fourth organises subterranean shows and a fifth takes photographs of them. Mr Kunstmann refused to talk about the other groups.

Answer: Yes, it is. Actually, I’d say it’s textbook if they also had a cellular structure and practiced operational security. Do the members all know each other? I wonder if les UX consciously modeled their organization on best practice of terror groups. I’d not be surprised.

I highly recommend Robb’s Global Guerrillas blog and his book Brave New War. And if you like fiction and are interested in an illustration of what the world might look like if Robb is correct then I highly recommend you read Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady’s Illustrated Prime and Bruce Sterling’s Distraction. The latter starts with one of the best accounts of a terrorist swarming attack I’ve read. And, call me crazy, whereas ten to fifteen years ago Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game and Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers appeared on military reading lists (as an illustration of manoeuvre warfare principles and the fruits of the RMA respectively) I’d say that The Diamond Age should be there now because it’s a vision of the near future which seems to more and more prescient as time goes on.