The Insurgent Sleep Cycle

[Music] there is nothing quite as dull to discuss yet absolutely mandatory to understand as the concept of how sleep impacts capabilities and the ability to conduct operations it doesn't take a genius to realize that sleep is one of the most important aspects of everything from modern warfare and civil unrest to overall health and general survival but despite its importance sleep is one of the very first things that goes right out the window when things get crazy so to begin we have to make a slight digression one of the things that is quite apparent in the tactical slash prepping military community is that almost all of the doctrine that makes it to the civilian world comes from the us military and not without good reason more tax dollars have been spent on defense than literally anything else in american society so it makes sense to take advantage of everything that we have access to on that front especially if that doctrine has been tested and those lessons have been learned in actual warfare however sometimes we get overzealous and try to implement things from the us military that are not the best as we have said many many times before we sometimes focus too much on tactical ge d try to implement things from the us military that are not the best as we have said many many times before we sometimes focus too much on tactical gear when we should perhaps be looking at the entire picture the classic example that we've mentioned before is the war in afghanistan if we americans were to look at that conflict with objective eyes we would see the benefit of adopting doctrine from both belligerents in that war in other words as distasteful as it seems i would actually be more inclined to incorporate tactics from the taliban into my emergency plans or even daily life if it comes to that rather than the doctrine established by us forces and this is for many different reasons for one who actually won the afghan war it certainly was not the united states also here in the u.s we do not have the benefit of learning from our adversaries at least as much as we do learning from our own peers find any gun range any firearms training course any tactical company any gear manufacturer any podcast blog website or even youtube channel i feel pretty comfortable in saying that none of these are being run by former taliban members so when it comes to certain things we must absolutely l i feel pretty comfortable in saying that none of these are being run by former taliban members so when it comes to certain things we must absolutely take into consideration the tactics of our nation's adversaries particularly if they end up winning the war and one of those tactics is the concept of sleep for anyone who has served in the us military the informal approach across all branches is more or less you can sleep when you're dead a concept that is most often applied in combat right at the point when you want people to be well rested even when not in combat sleep is certainly not a priority for leadership for those of you who have served in the military how many times has the following scenario happened you have a range day scheduled for zero eight hundred but the sergeant major wants everyone there at zero 700 to load the vehicles and first sergeant wants everyone there at 0-600 to get the briefing oh when the armory opens at 0-400 for weapons draw so you've got to be formed up at 0-300 to get in line for that well actually 0-245 since your platoon sergeant wants to make sure you aren't late see how insane this is sure it's doable and millions of service members have done t 245 since your platoon sergeant wants to make sure you aren't late see how insane this is sure it's doable and millions of service members have done this over the years even on combat deployments it's completely normal to work 12 16 even 18 hour shifts sometimes only to crash for a few hours and do it all over again the next day or night without any break for a full year and people can definitely adapt to this kind of sleep cycle for a year-long deployment but what about our adversaries right now the us military tries to keep combat deployments to about a year long just to make sure that people don't get burned out and so that people have time to decompress but imagine the taliban forces who have been fighting and living inside an 18-year combat deployment in their own country and that's not even including the soviet occupation as a result and over the course of history our nation's adversaries have had a very different approach to well warfare in general but specifically rest as american soldiers found out rather quickly when fighting most insurgencies an insurgent force almost always has the luxury of deciding the time and place of an actual battle in this case the phrase pick yo g most insurgencies an insurgent force almost always has the luxury of deciding the time and place of an actual battle in this case the phrase pick your battles is actually picking an actual battle whereas american ground troops for the most part always seem to find themselves on the defensive even when they were supposed to be on the offensive also insurgent forces were usually forced to adapt to an invading force and as such that hardship that they endured made them a very durable and unyielding combat force what this results in is a lot of interesting doctrine being created and lessons learned but specifically when it comes to sleep and periods of rest so let's dive deep and take a look at what this actually might look like so to cut to the chase let's use a specific example of a typical insurgent from the later years of the afghanistan conflict since that conflict is winding to a close allegedly and here's what his day might look like he would get up quite early depending on the season and time of year this might be as early as 4am this is for a number of reasons for one bmnt or the beginning of morning nautical twilight that point in time where the sky just starts to brighten m this is for a number of reasons for one bmnt or the beginning of morning nautical twilight that point in time where the sky just starts to brighten in afghanistan that could be as early as 4am during the height of the fighting season in the summertime so our insurgent wakes up and goes about his day farming heading down to the local mosque for prayers and to get orders or going to the market to check on his contacts preparing food things like that ordinary lifestyle stuff and about midday during the hottest part of the day our insurgent sleeps and again this is for a few different reasons for one it's hot and in a country where famine is commonplace it is wasteful to expend calories and sweat during the hottest part of the day so there is a very practical element to taking a siesta also since our insurgent is well an insurgent it would be a bad idea for him to go about doing his insurgent things like running supplies checking on weapons caches traveling outside and things that require the security of darkness so our insurgent takes a long nap during the hottest part of the day then in the afternoon while there is still daylight and it's a bit cooler chores remember a lot of times a long nap during the hottest part of the day then in the afternoon while there is still daylight and it's a bit cooler chores remember a lot of times more often than not insurgent forces throughout history have not been professional full-time guerrilla forces sure in recent years specifically taliban forces were directly and openly supported financially by pakistan and iran but by and large most successful movements from anything like the vietcong and vietnam and the kaimuris in cambodia to the dutch resistance fighters during world war ii the vast majority of these folks were not full-time guerilla soldiers so when there was a lull in combat they had to work to sustain themselves and when the fighting season was over they simply went home and the same is true with our insurgent but once the evening chores are finished this is where things get interesting despite all of the technologies that allow us soldiers to see in the dark and see the heat of a human that is trying to hide in foliage the fact of the matter is that human beings naturally feel comfortable in the dark every culture throughout the evolution of our species is the same in that regard if somebody has got something s aturally feel comfortable in the dark every culture throughout the evolution of our species is the same in that regard if somebody has got something shady to do they are going to be more inclined to do it at night even in cases where they know their adversary has the ability to see in the dark so evening time just after sunset is a great time to move supplies or visit colleagues or do anything that might seem a bit odd to be seen doing during the day remember our insurgent is not only hiding from u.s drones and other surveillance systems but he also has to hide from his neighbors as well particularly if his neighbors know that they can get a pretty penny for turning informant and especially if that neighbor has an incentive for our insurgent to not be around also our insurgents adversaries i.e the united states are comically predictable when it comes to conducting their own operations even early on in the afghanistan counter-insurgency mission every single local afghan knew that the americans only conduct offensive operations at night now of course early on in the conflict when there was an outpost every couple of miles around the country things were a bit different but when the in now of course early on in the conflict when there was an outpost every couple of miles around the country things were a bit different but when the insurgency settled into a long drawn-out fight the us military was discovered to be almost completely incapable of achieving surprise even special forces so what this means for our insurgent is that if it's a couple of hours after sunset and there hasn't been a raid in his village and his network hasn't seen or heard americans helicopters he knows he's safe for the night so he can sleep like he normally would this is even more true if our insurgent's buddies in the next proven over call or radio him that there is a raid over on their side of the district our insurgent knows that the chances of a simultaneous raid occurring in his district are very very slim so once he finds out that a raid is happening on the other side of the province he can safely rest easy for the night but if he does hear helicopters or if his network of informants detects the movement of u.s troops in his area he has a choice he can either stay and fight or he can do nothing at all so in this example let's say that there's a raid going on in his area and that he's a choice he can either stay and fight or he can do nothing at all so in this example let's say that there's a raid going on in his area and that he's too far away from the action to safely be of help to his taliban comrades but let's also say that he needs to safely stay awake and watch what's going on or help prepare medical supplies or stuff like that well he can do that since he took a nap earlier in the day you see how this is starting to shake out of course we're not saying that the us military is completely incompetent when it comes to periods of rest obviously all combat services know the extremely important nature of sleep however sometimes actually more often than not conventional military forces have to push through fatigue and lack of sleep to accomplish a mission the key distinction here is that yes both the insurgent and the soldier most of the time have to function with little sleep but the decision of when to rest or when to conduct operations lies with the insurgent not the soldier no conventional soldier in any military on the planet gets to choose when to go on patrol or move supplies or even wake up and go to work he or she is always given orders from somebody el ry on the planet gets to choose when to go on patrol or move supplies or even wake up and go to work he or she is always given orders from somebody else well if you are an insurgent who has a much less rigid combat structure and command system or in some cases no command structure at all the individual has a lot more flexibility which is perfect for sustained conflicts of attrition over decades of time so hopefully this gives everyone some idea of how important sleep is to the average citizen in the united states today of course we are not encouraging anything untoward we are most certainly not saying that we should turn the us into afghanistan that's that's not good at all what we are saying is that right now in the united states things aren't super great and average citizens are having to use the skills of criminals and people that we traditionally think of as bad guys just to be a little bit more private in a nation where the federal government states that their largest adversary is its citizens so when this is the case as it is now if one is so inclined to try to increase their capabilities and learn new skills it would be wise to not only look at us military doctrine but also w if one is so inclined to try to increase their capabilities and learn new skills it would be wise to not only look at us military doctrine but also the doctrine of our nation's most capable and successful adversaries over history as distasteful as that might seem to some so open your mind to thinking about things from a different perspective and make sure that you're seeing the whole picture instead of just the side that promotes gucci gear and stuff and on the other hand this doesn't mean go grab an ak and go pretend to be timmy taliban in the mountains for a few days to make yourself feel better what it means is to learn like we constantly reiterate the boring stuff is what wins conflicts so don't forget to get some sleep and more importantly be ready to adapt your sleeping habits to adjust to long-term changes and with that we will see you all next time and always remember fight in the shade [Music] [Music] you