On Kettling and Tactical Evolution

On Kettling and Tactical Evolution
8 January, 2012 – Applied NonExistence

Fuck kettling. There’s something to be said about the fact that kettling, as a counter-tactic of control and policing within crowd dynamics, has not yet forced greater innovation and experimentation in the tactical realms of communication and insurrectionary strategy. The Paris Commune of 1871 functioned according to a defensive strategy which viewed the metropolis as a series of blocked out buildings and structures which could only be entered and exited via the streets, alleyways, and boulevards which effectively acted as the only arteries in and out of the metropolis – the only way to traverse the city. Thus, the logic followed, that if you barricaded enough positions within these metropolitan arteries you could effectively hold the spaces you were in. What famously brought about such logic to an end was the innovative practice by government/Army of Versailles troops to quite literally “move through walls.” Blasting through buildings and creating holes in walls to allow for anti-communard troop movement behind communard barricades, proved to be a major innovation in urban warfare.

Obviously, with much different sociopolitical contexts (less militancy + increased surveillance) here in the States, it would be foolish to advocate such 19th century throwbacks – but the point I wish to articulate here is that moving-through-buildings-as-strategy was a development explicitly related to the efficacy of the Paris Commune’s ability to barricade strategically. Kettling has been becoming more and more refined as a policing counter-tactic, yet nothing has really presented itself as a viable option to evade such enclosure and entrapment. We’ve articulated the inherent tactical problems with meeting the police on their own terms (See “Beyond the Black Bloc) before, yet it is nonetheless a drama which actors still willingly participate in. That being said, as this almost suicidal (and often-times mostly symbolic) confrontation is to exist within radical anticapitalist milieus in the States, its continual failure contextualized entirely against the strategy of kettling, necessitates a much needed evolution of tactics.

One of the things which is often underutilized is the simplicity of diversions. In small-to-mid-ranged sized cities, counter-insurgency forces are often limited and sparse. Any coalescing of these forces into spaces where their presence becomes sheer density, requires that other spaces within the metropolis are not as policed. This goes back to our notion in “Beyond the Black Bloc” that sites of peripheral attack as zones of offensive opacity are less policed during direct/confrontations with counter-insurgency forces. For this reason and this reason alone, we still feel the black bloc serves a purpose, in that such actions which play on the proverbial “field” of policing apparatuses – sites on the periphery are essentially less-controlled. Thus, while this is not a direct counter-counter-tactic to that of kettling, it does explore the possibilities of what may happen on the offensive at sites far away from the kettle itself, where control has been temporarily decreased, lessened, and in some cases, entirely absent. Towards invisibility!

From Oakland with love,

Mary Celeste
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