JOURNAL: The ETA's Miscue

The Basque seperatist group, the ETA, blew up five gas stations in Madrid on Friday the 3rd of December, 2004.  In line with previous attacks, the group warned the government to evacuate the sites prior to the explosions (which is smart).  The attacks snarled traffic in Madrid for hours as people attempted to depart the city for the weekend. 

Earlier this year, the ETA blew up several critical transmission lines that carried power exports from France to Spain.  This type of attack is clearly in line with global guerrilla strategy (system disruption) and portended a dire future for that conflict if it followed Iraq's cue.  With this most recent attack, the ETA demonstrated that they don't fully understand (a good thing) how to disrupt systems.  Their attacks were too far down the retail chain to cause either market or infrastructure disruption.  Additionally, the leverage (economic damage vs. assault costs) gained was likely only 50 to 100 x  (much less than 10,000 x to 100,000 x leverage we see in Iraq).   

Comments

[Cardenio]

I don't understand this. After " Operation Death Trains " wouldn't any terrorist activity elicit a massive over-response ? I'd think if the ETA even set off some firecrakers people would be calling for bombing the whole Basque region off the map.

Could this have to do with the Spanish never having really formed a national identitiy ? They see themselves regionally ( we're Aduluisan, we're Baceloians, etc ) from what I understand. They don't see themselves as " SPAIN "

[b]

The ETA has problems keeping its base with the Basq population. If they would do a system interruption on a bigger scale (they could), they would further endanger their support base.

Spain clearly has a national identity. Subidentities can be found in any nation. (red and blue states?, Bavaria in Germany?) Usually the economics, laws and electoral processes of a Nation adopt to a balance of the subidentities over time. This is what is happening in Spain, where the basq region did get significant self control and economic support. This is eating away at ETAs base and will continue to do so. I do not see much of a future for ETA.

[John Robb]

There is a problem at looking at global guerrillas through the prism of a conventional political analysis. Given the power of system disruption (if done correctly), a small group can inflict massive economic damage with very little risk. So, even a narrow base (1-2%) of support is more than sufficient to power the movement. It won't fail the state, but it will hurt the state's ability to function in a competitive global economy.

[jamie]

I don't think ETA are aiming at the same kind of systemic disruption. They dont want to overthrow Spain and replace it's political system so much as force it's borders back outside the basque country, a strategy that at some stage involves negotiation with the Spanish state.

They've also signaled recently that they may stop terrorist activities, so this attack demonstrates that, if true, they are doing so from a position of strength, or at least current capability.

[b]

@John

A small group can cause massive system disruption with support of only a tiny fraction of the population. But to what means? ETA et al have a certain aim that requires more than 1% of the population to fall in their line. If only 1% of the Basque population do support them long term, what are they to gain?

The third RAF generation in Germany faltered exactly because the loss of support in the underlying student movement. This movement was won over to the societies side by giving in to some reform and removing some underlying causes.

Guerilla movements are not born out of "hate" but out of some underlying cause of economic, social, national proud reason. Some of these movements generate on themselfs for a while after they have been created. But taking away the underlying cause by compromising, negotiationg etc takes away the reason and the guerilla movement will eventually loose steam and die.

(In my hometown Hamburg, the support for RAF stopped after long term renting contracts for some occupied speculator houses were given to the occupiers.)

[Valdis]

Several have mentioned 1-2% and most react that it is an inconsequential number. But in the world of networks this CAN be a tipping point -- depending on the structure of the network. 1-2% is not a number that will convince a nation, but it is a number that will frighten a nation. Depending on the network topology the damaging/removal of 1-2% of critical nodes can stop a network, or slow it down significantly... luckily these terrorists can't pick the critical nodes yet.