42
" Norton defined a feral city as “a metropolis with a population of more than a million people, in a state the government of which has lost the ability to maintain the rule of law within the city’s boundaries yet remains a functioning actor in the greater international system.”47 This kind of city, Norton points out, has no essential services or social safety net. Human security becomes a matter of individual initiative—conflict entrepreneurs and community militias emerge, Mad Max style. And yet feral cities don’t just sink into utter chaos and collapse—they remain connected to international flows of people, information, and money. Nonstate groups step up to control key areas and functions, commerce continues (albeit with much corruption and violence), a black market economy flourishes, and massive levels of disease and pollution may be present, yet “even under these conditions, these cities continue to grow, and the majority of occupants do not voluntarily leave. "
― David Kilcullen , Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla
43
" Before independence, huge numbers of Somalis, who could best be described as semi-pastoralists, moved to Mogadishu; many of them joined the civil service, the army and the police. It was as if they were out to do away with the ancient cosmopolitan minority known as “Xamari,” Xamar being the local name for the city. Within a short time, a second influx of people, this time more unequivocally pastoralist, arrived from far-flung corners to swell the ranks of the semi-pastoralists, by now city-dwellers. In this way, the demography of the city changed. Neither of these groups was welcomed by a third—those pastoralists who had always got their livelihood from the land on which Mogadishu was sited (natives, as it were, of the city). They were an influential sector of the population in the run-up to independence, throwing in their lot with the colonialists in the hope not only of recovering lost ground but of inheriting total political power. Once a much broader coalition of nationalists had taken control of the country, these “nativists” resorted to threats, suggesting that the recent migrants quit Mogadishu. “Flag independence” dawned in 1960 with widespread jubilation drowning the sound of these ominous threats. It was another thirty years before they were carried out.74 "
― David Kilcullen , Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla
46
" Each dismounted fighter and each vehicle commander need only remember five basic rules. These rules define how the group fights at every scale (the individual, the dismounted squad, the vehicle, and the group of vehicles) and they never change, regardless of the terrain, the tactical situation, or the size of the engagement. They are: “Maintain an extended line abreast,” “Keep your neighbors just in sight, but no closer,” “Move to the sound of the guns,” “Dismount when you see the enemy,” and “When you come under fire, stop and fire back.” This "
― David Kilcullen , Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla
53
" I’ve already mentioned how the LeT raiders at Mumbai nested within the urban metabolism of the two megacities—Karachi and Mumbai—that formed the launching pad and target for their raid. They slipped out of Karachi under cover of the harbor’s dense maritime traffic, blended into the flow of local cargo and fishing fleets, then slipped into Mumbai by nesting within the illicit networks of smuggling, trade flow, and movement of people, exploiting the presence of informal settlements with little government presence (in effect, feral subdistricts) close to the urban core of the giant coastal city. Once ashore, the teams dispersed and blended into the flow of the city’s densest area as they moved toward diversionary targets (taxis, the railway station, a café, a hospital) that had been carefully selected precisely to disrupt the city’s flow, draw off Indian counterterrorism forces, and hamper an effective response, before they hit main targets that had been chosen for sustained local and international media effect. "
― David Kilcullen , Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla
56
" the specifics of a particular war may be impossible to predict, but the parameters within which any future war will occur are entirely knowable, since wars are bounded by conditions that exist now, and are thus eminently observable in today’s social, economic, geographic, and demographic climate. If we accept this idea, along with the fact that war has been endemic to roughly 95 percent of all known human societies throughout history and prehistory, it follows that warfare is a central and probably a permanent human social institution, one that tends (by its very nature as a human activity) mainly to occur where the people are. "
― David Kilcullen , Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla
58
" the ability to pass word rapidly in downtown Mogadishu, using radios, runners, and signal fires, was a key local capability. The battle occurred in an area where the terrain and population were intimately familiar to the locals, distances were short, it was easy to move on foot, Aidid’s core group could quickly draw on local allies for reinforcements, and there were multiple routes through the city to and from any given point. The locals could thus react flexibly to American moves—they could aggregate or disperse, their force could shrink or grow in size in response to the changing threat, and they could put ambushes or roadblocks in place ahead of the ground convoy. "
― David Kilcullen , Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla