Force Multipliers - Part 1

"Amateurs obsess about guns and gear. They practice until they get it right. Professionals obsess about tactics and training. They practice until they cannot get it wrong. But logistics trump strategy in the long war."

On the spectrum of prepping, what follows (particularly in Part Two) tends towards the more extreme end - scenarios in which criminality and violence are increasing and rule of law is diminishing. Thankfully, Wyoming is not New York nor San Francisco and never will be. But if your own threat analysis for the future includes potentially having to fight for your life and the life of others, then you will want to maximize your efforts starting now. Focus, prioritization and anything else that amplifies your effectiveness are vital.

Most threads on gun boards and survivalist forums when talking about force multipliers begin with a warning that the "poors" need not apply. Or at least they should post such a warning, since the discussion quickly launches into descriptions of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of dollars worth of equipment for night vision, thermal sights, drones, radios and even drones with thermal cameras. This is often accompanied by advice to sell off a gun or three to help finance such wizard eyes because the increase in capability over one's potential enemies is worth it. And they are not wrong - at a certain point in the preparedness journey taking things to the next level and giving yourself a significant advantage in a deteriorating hostile environment is all about owning the night and the sky. Or at least learning to own it.

But before we go down that rabbit hole, a few words about other, less expensive (though not necessarily easier), force multipliers. Want to be better prepared than the vast majority of everyone else? Want to be better prepared than most who might seek to do you and your family harm? If you have been consuming our other articles, you will have detected some common themes. Each of them is absolutely a force multiplier:

- Fitness

- Training

- Situational Awareness

- Friends, groups, networks and community

Whatever your starting point, you can be faster, stronger and healthier next month than you are now. And being faster, stronger and healthier helps protect your body and mind when the stress is high. The only competition to make progress is with yourself. There is no instant gratification from diet and exercise: the gains are small, incremental and hard won. It takes discipline, commitment and sheer bloody will power to shed pounds, build muscle, eat better, manage medical conditions and kick bad habits. Excuses are easy to come by and no-one can force you to choose this path. The motivation has to come from within and you have to make it a priority for yourself. Either you want to do something about it or you don't: we must all be honest with ourselves and, if we truly think worse times are ahead, we need to take it seriously. If we start improving our own chances of survival, we are also in a better position to help those we care about and those who depend on us. This has the added benefit, even if there is no actual disaster or chaos, of improving quality of life and longevity. Unplugging from the Matrix, turning off the TV, taking the stairs, hitting the gym or the outdoors, walking your dogs (or someone else's), taking up a martial art or playing a sport, cooking from scratch, fasting, cutting back on sugar and carbs are all things that cost little and can have a big impact over time. Only those who are oblivious to the threats on the horizon or who want to concentrate on rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic would struggle to see the value.

Skills training and practice also make you much more effective, allowing you to "punch above your weight". There are too many disciplines that are equally important to allow anything more than a "Jack of all trades" approach: an expert knows everything about nothing and probably not much about anything else. A medical course here, a firearms course there and a canning course squeezed in somewhere will almost certainly serve you better than becoming a gun nut bouncing from one celebrity trainer to the next. Of course, if shooting is your passion, then try to become as rounded as possible: develop a level of competence with not just pistol but also rifle, carbine, subgun, shotgun, precision long range shooting, team tactics, patrolling, force on force, gunsmithing, gun building and reloading. Just make sure you also have the fundamentals ticked off on trauma care, first aid, nursing, communications, water purification, survival, food preservation, driving, gardening and raising animals. Seek out quality training from competent instructors whether paid formal courses or free informal mentoring. Read books, watch videos and practice what you learn, regularly. Always be learning. Take a structured approach. Identify deficiencies in your skill sets and create a plan to plug the gaps, even if you don't particularly like the subject matter. Especially if you don't particularly like the subject matter.

We have dedicated a large number of articles to the art and science of Situational Awareness and Surveillance and will continue to do so. Being clued into your environment, switched on to what is happening and spotting trouble before it becomes fully developed, exponentially increases your chances of prevailing. Whether by avoiding a brewing ugly situation or maximizing the time you have to formulate a good response, you are operating at a higher level than the vast majority of people out there. Noticing the pedestrian crosswalk countdown as you approach a junction in your car allows you to anticipate the change of traffic lights and slow down in plenty of time to avoid being rear ended, T-boned or hitting the eager kid on his bike across your path. Paying attention to the couple of unsavory looking characters tracking your movements before you put your card in the ATM gives you time to seek shelter inside the bank, drive off in your vehicle or covertly draw your pistol just in case, depending on the exact circumstances. Don't text and drive. Don't walk around clueless in your own little world with your phone glued to your face. Save Condition White for when you are locked away in your castle. And even then, check to make sure the doors are locked, the alarm set and the security cameras are working. Be good to your four legged early warning system as well.

The last of our economical force multipliers is, you guessed it, building a mutual support group of like minded individuals, friends and family. Your own community of people you know well, like a lot and trust implicitly. They have your back and you have theirs. The old standard of "friends who would help you bury the body" may apply. A new hypothetical one could be "friends who would help take care of the problem while you were out of town with a cast iron alibi". But, regardless, you cannot deal with a widespread collapse on your own. There are too many things to take care of, too many skills to apply and too many resources required for any one person to cope effectively. It is bad enough if they are just looking after themselves but, much worse, when they are caring for others. Everyone needs to sleep, everyone gets sick or injured and everyone's luck runs out at some point. Being able to count on others, who all bring capabilities, talents and supplies to the equation, is huge. Just finding one such person more than doubles your capacity to deal with serious challenges. The sum of the parts of a support group is much greater than the individual components: intellectually; physically; psychologically; emotionally; and morally. You must choose others wisely to minimize the risks of rejection, betrayal, mismatched motivations, reliability and unsuitability. And be deliberate in your networking, seeking out those with specific skills and experience. Cultivate and recruit new members carefully, deciding just how formal or informal you want your group to be. No doubt, some people will end up disappointing you. But overall you will be much better off having at least a small roster of people to call in case of emergency. And so will every single person on that roster.

Only if you are making meaningful strides on all of the above could we ever recommend even thinking of getting out your checkbook for any of the expensive force multipliers. Although we could talk about things like the Harvest Right food freeze dryer in this vein ($2000 - $5000 just for the machine, which opens up a whole new world of home food preservation), we really want to focus on the area of security and protection. To that end, we are going to presume that you are already squared away with a pistol and AR15 type carbine, along with a good amount of ammunition, magazines and load bearing equipment for them (holsters, belt and pouches or bandoleer or fighting bag or chest rig). Plus ancillaries such as cleaning equipment, optical sights, weapon white lights, a good folding knife and a compact trauma kit. But try to resist the temptation to buy gun after gun after gun. Don't get us wrong - guns are addictive and seem to easily multiply, especially when you start wanting to build a collection of different types for different applications. And while you ultimately might want to acquire multiples of the same type (eg. a dozen AR15s) as an investment, or to hand out to allies or to give to grandchildren, we would advise to wait doing so until the armory is a bit more rounded. There are several other things which should take precedence and we will cover these in our next article.