But short of this type of assault, other means of maintaining a defensive posture are available, some of which have been employed in the Chiapas conflict. The most obvious forms of concealment utilized by the Zapatistas are their palicates and ski masks. Although limited, this method does prevent identification and in the watchful eyes of military intelligence keeps the combatants as an autonomous mass.

The Zapatista's use of masking may prevent immediate identification of individual EZLN combatants, but if or when the Mexican armed forces, in conjunction with the U.S. military intelligence community, decide to inflict another military assault against the Zapatistas, it is unlikely that the mere use of these face masks will add significantly to a defensive posture.

Given the hegemonic capability of being able to both locate targets and direct weapons from afar, there seems to be little in the way of military defense. One significant difference between the physical environment of the battlefield in Operation Desert Storm and the future battlefields in southern Mexico is that one is a desert and the other is jungle. While advances in remote sensing and guidance systems are making jungle wars like Vietnam more difficult to wage, the Zapatistas do still maintain a defensive posture in their knowledge of and ability to move through extensive jungle territory.