Leaderless resistance, or phantom cell structure, is a social resistance strategy in which small, independent groups (covert cells), or individuals (a solo cell is called a "lone wolf"), challenge an established institution such as a law, economic system, social order, or government. Leaderless resistance can encompass anything from non-violent protest and civil disobedience to vandalism, terrorism, and other violent activity.
Leaderless cells lack vertical command links and so operate without hierarchical command,
Leaderless resistance has been employed by animal rights, radical environmentalist, anti-abortion, insurgent, anarchist, anti-colonial, and terrorist movements. It is a strategy used by hate groups as well.
History
The concept of leaderless resistance was developed by Col. Ulius Louis Amoss, a former U.S. intelligence officer, in the early 1950s. An anti-communist, Amoss saw leaderless resistance as a way to prevent the penetration and destruction of CIA-supported resistance cells in Eastern European countries under Soviet control.
In practice
Far-right
The concept of leaderless resistance remains important to far-right thinking in the United States, as a proposed response to perceived federal government over-reach at the expense of individual rights. Simson Garfinkel, however, found in his research that for the most part the far right seldom used this tactic. Timothy McVeigh is one example in the United States. McVeigh worked in a small cell which based its attack on motivations widespread among far-right anti-government groups and the militia movement. Louis Beam discussed leaderless resistance in an influential essay of the same name.
Leaderless resistance has been advocated by white supremacist groups such as White Aryan Resistance (WAR) and the British neo-Nazi Combat 18 (C18). The modern Ku Klux Klan is also credited with having developed a leaderless resistance model. Troy Southgate also advocated forms of leaderless resistance during his time as a leading activist in the National Revolutionary Faction and a pioneer of National-Anarchism. James Mason a former American Nazi Party member and neo-Nazi was a proponent of the idea of "leaderless resistance" as detailed in SIEGE a collection of writings from the defunct National Socialist Liberation Front (NSLF) which advocated violence against political opponents, Jews and non-whites of which he deemed to be the supposedly Jewish controlled entity he referred to as "The System" which has since been embraced by the Atomwaffen Division (AWD) in the modern day.
Stormfront, Aryan Nations, and Hammerskin Nation (HSN) link to Beam's Leaderless Resistance. These groups promote lone wolf actions. Stormfront, while regretting the loss of life, explains how Benjamin Nathaniel Smith's 1999 killing spree was compelled by circumstances. The World Church of the Creator (WCOTC) gave a mixed message, calling Smith "a selfless man who gave his life in the resistance to Jewish/mud tyranny," but noting "the Church does not condone his acts." as did the Earth Liberation Front.