"The study is the second product of SORO (CRESS) research on undergrounds and describes, on the basis of existing empirical information and current state of knowledge, the organizational, motivational, and behavioral characteristics of undergrounds in insurgent movements and relates thise characteristics to the total revolutionary structure, mission, and operations. There are six parts to the study: Organization; Paramilitary Operations; Government Countermeasures. Three appendices give details on the methodological approach, offer an analysis of 24 insurgencies, and summarize World War II underground rules of clandestine behavior."--Report documentation page.

The foreword to Special Warfare's 1966 Human Factors Considerations of Undergrounds in Insurgencies notes, "in the desire to understand the broad characteristics and societal impact of revolutionary movements we often neglect the study of the human element involved." "To understand the individual, his reasons, his behavior, and the pressures that society places upon him is at the heart of the problem of social change." The earlier study and this updated edition represent part of our intellectual investment in understanding the human domain. Understanding the human domain remains critical for future Special Warfare operations. Since the inception of the United States Army Special Forces, understanding indigenous individuals and the human domain in which they exist has been a persistent Army Special Operations Forces cornerstone. Relationships with indigenous individuals enable Special Warfare.

This book, Human Factors Considerations of Undergrounds in Insurgencies, is the second edition to the 1966 book of the same name. The first edition of this book was produced by the Special Operations Research Office (SORO) at American University in Washington, DC. SORO was established by the U.S. Army in 1956. During the 1950s through the mid-1960s, SORO social scientists and military personnel researched relevant political, cultural, social, and behavioral issues occurring within the emerging nations within Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The researchers conducted analyses, sometimes for the first time, on the effects of propaganda and psychological operations and the roles of the military in developing countries, and provided large bibliographies of unclassified materials related to counterinsurgency and unconventional warfare. The Army had a particular interest in understanding the processes of violent social change in order to be able to cope directly or indirectly through assistance and advice with revolutionary actions. In 1962, SORO published the Casebook on Insurgency and Revolutionary Warfare; in 1963, it published Undergrounds in Insurgent, Revolutionary, and Resistance Warfare; and in 1966, it published Human Factors Considerations of Undergrounds in Insurgencies-each of these publications remained in the Special Operations training curricula for subsequent generations. Most of the text in this edition is new. Some large sections of the first edition are retained verbatim, mostly in Chapter 3's study of Communist organizations and sections of Chapter 5 on recruitment and retention, but also in smaller sections of the other chapters as well. The ARIS project team preserved much of the overall structure, although not the specific chapters, and strove to answer many of the same underlying questions. Material from the first edition is used without citation. Material from other SORO studies is referenced like any other source. Intended as a complement to the second edition of Undergrounds in Insurgent, Revolutionary, and Resistance Warfare, this book delves deeper into theory and further into background materials and focuses less on operational details. The ARIS project team provides numerous chapter cross-references to the second edition of Undergrounds. They also drew heavily on the new, second edition of the Casebook; these cases are cited in the normal way. They also provide a table of contents at the beginning of every chapter to make the book more useful as a reference. The first edition of Human Factors was an important synthesis of a poorly understood topic and has proved to have some remarkable staying power, with much still relevant even in the edition's fifth and sixth decades. An update to the first edition is needed, however, simply because the world has changed profoundly since the 1960s and with it the Unconventional Warfare ecosystem.

An exact reprint of the original Special Operations Research Office (SORO) publication from 1966. The study was the second product of SORO research on undergrounds and describes, on the basis of the existing empirical information and the then-current state of knowledge, the organizational, motivational, and behavioral characteristics of undergrounds in insurgent movements and relates these characteristics to the total revolutionary structure, mission, and operations. There are six parts to the study: Organization; Motivation and Behavior; Underground Administrative Operations; Underground Psychological Operations; Paramilitary Operations; Government Countermeasures. Three appendices give details on the methodological approach, offer an analysis of 24 insurgencies, and summarize World War II underground rules of clandestine behavior. This classic Unconventional Warfare study has been brought back into print by Conflict Research Group.

From the preface: "The 1966 'Human Factors' edition focused on the contemporary threat of Maoist insurgencies, particularly in Southeast Asia, and also drew extensively on World War II resistance movements in Europe. Much of this information is still relevant and has been retained and integrated. In the post-Cold War world, the most important insurgencies tend to be ethnic and religious. Long-simmering conflicts, sometimes with roots in colonial policies, have become prominent; examples include the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka, Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Freedom or ETA) in Spain, the Hutu-Tutsi genocides, the Ushtia �lirimtare e Kosov�s (Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA), and the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA). Battle lines in these conflicts are often drawn along ethnic lines, even when land or politics are the immediate issues in contention. The other important new category is extremist religious movements, most prominently Islamic groups, including regional insurgent movements like Hizbollah and Harakat al-Muqawamah al'Isla�miyyah (Islamic Resistance Movement, or HAMAS) and global movements like Al Qaeda. These present a different profile of ideology, organizational forms, and psychology than either Cold War Maoists or post-colonial ethnic insurgencies (although the Palestinian cause could be considered a post-colonial issue). Globalization has also changed underground operations in numerous ways. Insurgencies, enabled by low-cost transportation, Internet based communications, and other information technologies, can more easily recruit, communicate, and operate across borders. It is correspondingly much more difficult to contain an insurgency in a region. Global media has led to development of new tactics, in particular new types of terrorism, designed to capture worldwide attention. Compared with what was available in the 1960s, there are orders of magnitude more academic research available relevant to this study's topics. We were able to draw on more recent work in psychology, political science, economics, sociology, organizational studies, and communications studies. Readers of this edition will, over the course of eleven chapters, get a wide exposure to basic concepts from a number of disciplines".