Missiles for the Masses is a multi-part series exploring counterinsurgency and its various uses against liberation and protest movements across the globe.
Part 1: What is Counterinsurgency?
Mercedes and Abi give an overview of counterinsurgency and the ways it is used by the state, as well giving a brief history of the development of counterinsurgency in different national contexts as a method of suppression of popular, anti colonial uprisings. Listen to part one on spotify or via the 3CR wesbite here.
Recommended reading:
Sakai, J. 2023. The Shape of Things to Come.
Williams, K., Munger, W. & Messersmith-Glavin, L. 2013. Life During Wartime: Resisting Counterinsurgency.
Peterson, T. 2024. Revolutionary Warfare: How the Algerian War Made Modern Counterinsurgency.
Dunlap, A. 2014. ‘Permanent War: Grids, Boomerangs and Counterinsurgency’. Anarchist Studies Vol 22(2). 53-77.
Recommended listening:
Millenials are Killing Capitalism Live – “center[s] organizers who represent and work with marginalized communities building survival programs, defense programs, political education, and counterpower. We also plan to bring in perspectives on and from the global south to highlight anti-capitalist struggles outside the imperial core. We view solidarity with decolonization, indigenous, anti-imperialist, environmentalist, socialist, and anarchist movements across the world as necessary steps toward meaningful liberation for all people.” The podcast and youtube channel features an ongoing series on counterinsurgency with indepth analysis of methods, history, texts and insights from organisers and authors.
Listen here or join the lives on youtube
Part 2: Counterinsurgency and the Media
Mercedes and Abi discuss the rhetorical and linguistic devices that the media and state employ to build the legitimacy of the state, delegitimise resistance and justify expanding militarism. There is a particular focus on phrases used by the media and the government. The two-fold nature of such devices is explored in how they attempt to separate activists and movements from the broader public, whilst justifying state-sanctioned violence. Listen to part two on spotify or via the 3CR website here.
Recommended reading:
‘Stigmatising narratives and implications on the exercise of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association’. Melbourne Activist Legal Support Submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, 2024. https://mals.au/2024/07/30/
Seraphin, Bruno. 2023. ‘Settler colonial counterinsurgency: Indigenous resistance and the more-than-state policing of #NoDAPL’. Security Dialogue Vol. 54(3). 272-289.
Fernandes, Clinton. 2022. Sub-Imperial Power: Australia in the International Arena.
Neocleous, M. 2021. A Critical Theory of Police Power: The Fabrication of the Social Order.
Recommended listening:
A Friday Rave 10th January 2025: https://omny.fm/shows/a-
Part 3: The Mythos of ANZAC Day
Part 3 of Missiles for the Masses focuses on the development of the mythos of ANZAC Day, and how this ties into the 28 Articles of Counterinsurgency, outlined in military field guides. Mercedes and Abi discuss the fabrication of nationalist narratives as an attempt by settler-colonies to legitimise the occupation of First Nations lands, and the expansion of militarism. The politicisation of the ANZAC mythos is analysed historically in the context of defence build up, the bicentennial of 1988 and the normalisation of militarism through events like the Avalon Airshow. Listen to part three on spotify or via the 3CR website here.
Recommended reading:
2021. Munro, D. History Wars: The Peter Ryan – Manning Clark Controversy. ‘The Australian History Wars’. ANU Press. https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n9034/pdf/ch02.pdf
2014. Uncle Gary Foley. History, Nationalism and ANZAC Day. https://kooriweb.org/foley/essays/pdf_essays/anzac%20day.pdf
2003. Macintyre, S. The History Wars. https://www.evatt.org.au/post/the-history-wars
2018. Holbrook, C. ‘Commemorators-in-Chief: How Politicians Appropriated Anzac Commemoration’. Australian Policy and History. https://aph.org.au/2018/11/commemorators-in-chief-how-politicians-have-appropriated-anzac-commemoration-and-why-we-should-be-concerned/
2006. Kilcullen, D. “Twenty-Eight Articles”: Fundamentals of Company-level Counterinsurgency. Military Review. 134-139.
2014. Holbrook, C. ANZAC: The Unauthorised Biography. NewSouth Publishing.
2001. John Howard. Address at the ANZAC Day Parade, Canberra. https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-12363(link is external)
2020. Crotty, M., Holbrook, C. ‘The Anzac legend has blinded Australia to its war atrocities. It’s time for a reckoning’. The Conversation.
Music: The Bicentennial Rap. Tanya McConvell. Raps, radio programs and more from Tanya and stories from over 50 years of activism: Radio Tanya – https://radiotanyaweb.wixstudio.com/radiotanya2
Part 4: It’s all about data! The origins of the internet as a tool for counterinsurgency
This episode of Missiles for the Masses explores the origins of the internet as a tool developed for counterinsurgency and data collection. We trace its beginnings in ARPANET and the Cambridge Project, and then move on to the modern entwinement of corporate technologies with the surveillance apparatus of the state. We discuss how projects that seemingly protect users’ privacy are funded by intelligence agencies’ capital funds like In-Q-Tel, and how programs like Tor and Signal have been used as soft power mechanisms of counterinsurgency.
It’s all about data!
Listen to part four on spotify or via the 3CR website here.
Recommended reading:
Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet – Yasha Levine
The Cambridge Project: Social Science for Social Control – Students for a Democratic Society
Basic Politics for Movement Security – J Sakai
The Pentagon’s Brain – Annie Jacobsen
The Cybernetic Hypothesis – Tiqqun
Uprise Radio broadcasts on Community Radio 3CR on the stolen lands of the Kulin Nations.