Interposing Tactics is tactical concept, developed under
Terrorist Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures
Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) is an essential concept in terrorism and cyber security studies. The role of TTPs in terrorism analysis is to identify individual patterns of behavior of a particular terrorist activity, or a particular ...
, to explain a tactical action where a small-scale action takes place between two combatants, where one manoeuvres into interposition or interjection within a tactical situation, and disrupts the action or activity, of the opponent.
Origin
In the game of chess, for example, an interposing move would be one in which a player moves a piece between their king and the opponent's piece which has placed the king in check.
* The chess example demonstrates that a key feature of interposing tactics, namely the deployment of forces to block and cover friendly from hostile.
* An extension of this idea would involve opposing forces dispelling or scattering much more freely within an operational area to achieve the effect of blocking and covering all friendlies from hostiles.
The basis of these actions, is what are called tactical subdivision.
Tactical subdivision
The concept of tactical subdivision, is found in the work of
Liddell Hart
Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart (31 October 1895 – 29 January 1970), commonly known throughout most of his career as Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, was a British soldier, military historian and military theorist. He wrote a series of military histor ...
. His thesis on the nature of tactical subdivision in combat was that determination of capacity for tactical subdivision was capability for separate maneuver, offense, and resistance.
In developing the Interposing Tactics concept, the Liddell Hart concept of the 'combat unit' (which in his time period, was the smallest grouping capable of tactical subdivision, namely the infantry platoon), has been redefined as, "single individual fighters and unmanned or independently operating weaponry."
The Interposing Tactics concept, further identifies, that in an area of operations, in particular
terrorism
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
or
insurgency
An insurgency is a violent, armed rebellion against authority waged by small, lightly armed bands who practice guerrilla warfare from primarily rural base areas. The key descriptive feature of insurgency is its asymmetric nature: small irregu ...
operations, there can be many independent fighters who are spread out independently through a population, and concealed among opponent combat forces (even within their own control zones), and can independently block and cover individual opponent forces.
[Flaherty, C. (2014) 3D Vulnerability Analysis Solution to the Problem of Military Energy Security and Interposing Tactics. Journal of Information Warfare. (13)1: 33-41]
References
Counterterrorism
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