The Situational Factors of Control, + “Defense in 3-D”
The Myth of Randomness - Part 3
In nature, predators naturally and instinctively target the weakest, most vulnerable prey. This behavior is as predictable as it is logical. It’s like a law of nature. The only time predators deviate from this law is in times of extreme desperation.
Humans who choose to prey on other humans—be they Professionals, Predators, or Potentials—behave in much the same way. Whether the Bad Guy is a terrorist, con artist, schoolyard bully, or a hardened street criminal looking to commit rape, robbery, murder, assault, or some combination thereof, he is fundamentally looking for the same qualities in his targets: Vulnerability. Weakness. A target who cannot or will not fight back. They are looking for what we in the security industry call a “Soft” target.
I would argue, based on over two decades studying and defeating Bad Guys, that they not only want a Soft target; they fundamentally need a Soft target.
Buy why? What are they afraid of?
Most people immediately think of the three most common fears that we might ascribe to Bad Guys: getting hurt, getting caught, or getting killed. Perfectly logical. But unfortunately it’s not quite that simple…
Take a look at a “top of the food chain” Bad Guy, an international terrorist. Is he afraid of dying? The answer of course, must be no. Being willing to die for the cause is almost a prerequisite of terrorism. If they aren’t afraid of dying, then they aren’t likely to be afraid of getting hurt or killed in the process.
So, if a terrorist isn’t afraid of getting hurt, killed, or caught, how do we deter him? Can he even be deterred?
I argue that he can. In fact, I would suggest that terrorists can be deterred fairly easily. The key is in understanding that while they may not be afraid of dying, they are deathly afraid of being stopped before they complete their mission.
They fear failure.
Obviously, we can’t read people’s minds. And certainly, different Bad Guys fear different things. A Potential Bad Guy might be afraid of going to jail, while a Predator might not fear jail, but the idea of getting hurt or killed stops him in him tracks. Ultimately, though these fears may seem disparate, they all equate to that same fear in the mind of the Bad Guy: failure. To each of them, failure means succumbing to whatever they fear most, whether that is getting caught, hurt, killed to stopped before they complete their mission.
This is why even the most desperate Bad Guy is careful about selecting his prey; why he is so tuned in to finding a Soft target. It is also why Deterrence and Defense is far less complicated than most people think. You don’t need to have a PhD in criminal psychology or even a black belt to defend yourself from them. You simply need to represent enough potential for failure that they decide to move on to easier, softer targets. Bad Guys are remarkably detached from ego in this manner. They’re not looking for a challenge. They don’t feel a need to prove themselves. They simply keep hunting.
In many ways, this makes Deterrence much like the joke about the bear: How fast do you need to be to outrun a bear? Faster than the next guy...
This means you don’t need to be bigger, stronger, and faster than every Bad Guy you might encounter. And it means you don’t have to put your workplace on lockdown or live in a house with Fort-Knox-level security. You simply have to understand what threats you are trying to mitigate and stack the deck enough in your favor to project a high potential for failure to the Bad Guys who may try to target you.
DEFENSE IN 3-D
Understanding who our adversaries are, what qualities they are looking for in a target, and ultimately, what they are afraid of, allows us to articulate a defense—one that’s centered around the situational factors you can and must control.
Whether we are protecting a person, place, or thing, my close-protection teams (and those we train) follow the same 3-D process: Deny, Deter, Defend.
Deny
Rule #1 of all security, regardless of what kind of security we are taking about—physical, financial, digital, etc.—is to Deny opportunity. If you remember only one thing from this article, let it be this: You have the ability to Deny opportunity. Based on the choices you make related to the situational factors, you can successfully avoid most attacks.
Denying opportunity means more than just avoiding trouble. Embedded in the principle is the ability to recognize danger—specifically, to recognize when you might be being set up or targeted.
Many pay this principle lip-service by saying things like, “I don’t go out at night,” or “I don’t go to bars,” or “I don’t go downtown,” as if violence only occurs to certain people, under certain circumstances, at certain times, or at certain locations. This is the Myth of Randomness hard at work! The reality is that anyone can be targeted anywhere, and at any time. The critical facet of avoidance is in knowing what the warning signs are that a Bad Guy may be targeting you and then responding to avoid further trouble.
If you know the warning signs, you can recognize danger before it reaches critical levels, and take action. Of course, some Bad Guys are better at masking their intent than others, and sometimes even the best-trained people can miss the signs. When this happens, we must progress to the second “D.”
Deter
Deterrence can be defined simply as creating, in the mind of the adversary, fear. But to do this effectively, we have to remember what Bad Guys are afraid of and use that fear to become a Hard target. This means you MUST be willing and able to participate in your own security. But while willingness is a state of mind, ability is a statement of fact.
If you are not willing and able to respond, the Bad Guys will spot you as easily as a lion spots the Softest gazelle on the savannah.
DefenD
Sometimes, in the realm of personal security—as in life—even though you do everything right, you still find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sometimes, you’re outnumbered, or the Bad Guy has a force multiplier like a weapon, and the balance tips in his favor. Sometimes, despite your best efforts to Deny or Deter, the only way out is to through, and you’re going to have to physically respond to Defend yourself.
As the Greek warrior poet Archilochus wrote 2,500 years ago, “We don’t rise to the occasion, we fall to the level of our training.” I’m not going to sugarcoat it; without proper training and possibly the right tools, most people simply will not be equipped to defend themselves or their loved ones. This is a hard reality of nature. As humans, we simply aren’t born with the innate capacity to defend ourselves. We don’t have claws or fangs, or even combative instincts to guide us.
In fact, absent the right training, what we are left with is a limbic system hardwired to reflexively panic, or more likely, freeze under extreme stress.
The good thing is that this same human mind that sometimes betrays us also allows us to learn. We are equally well programed to study, store, and recall lifesaving information—such as how to commit violence, should it become necessary. Equally fortunate is that, contrary to popular belief, learning the right skillsets for personal defense does not require years of dedicated martial arts practice, great athletic ability, or constant sparring. This is the subject of another forthcoming series…
For now though, in Part 4, the final installment of the Myth of Helplessness, we will focus our attention on how to recognize the warning indicators that you are in fact being targeted, and then how to interrupt the patterns of attack to Deny or Deter the threats before Defense is even necessary. As, regardless of your skill sets, this is the surest way to prevent yourself from becoming victimized.