In a few previous posts on this blog, I have pointed out that relying on mass protest marches as the sole tactic of a struggle of strategic nonviolent resistance is as stupid as the British High Command's insistence on constant daily frontal assaults against German positions was in World War 1. This observation may be disputed by some, yet the observation points out the fact that practitioners of strategic nonviolent resistance have often learned valuable lessons from the study of armed conflict. In particular, it is possible to notice those commanders of forces who made the most out of limited resources in order to achieve surprising victories. It is also possible to notice and study those commanders who were inept, hidebound, or who otherwise doomed themselves to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory - even when these commanders started out with overwhelming numerical and material advantages.
And it is possible to trace how tactical tools evolve in their composition and methods of use as they are deployed by wise commanders who are observant, willing to listen to different perspectives, and who otherwise display the characteristics of reflective practitioners. So let's consider in this post how the experiences of World War 1 influenced the development of infantry as a component of the armed forces of modern nations. At the outset it must be said that the poor use of infantry by the Allies throughout much of World War 1 led to large losses on the Allied side. From 1914 to 1916, it was also true that the German military suffered heavy losses as well. However, the Germans seem to have been the quicker to realize how massed artillery and machine guns had altered the battlefield, and what tactical and strategic adjustments were needed to make their fighting forces more survivable as a result. On the other hand, the British and French forces continued to use outdated and obsolete tactics in deploying their infantry, with the result that a casual observer might be forgiven for concluding from the British example that dismounted infantry had become obsolete. But infantry as a tool had definitely not become obsolete. This was shown by the German development of the concept of defense in depth. Defense in depth greatly reduced the effectiveness of British and French artillery against German defenders, and enabled the Germans to inflict heavy casualties on British and French attackers while suffering relatively few casualties of their own. The Germans also developed a more flexible skill in maneuver warfare which made German forces highly dangerous and much more survivable during the German offensive of 1918 than the British and French had been in previous Allied offensives. (To their credit, however, the British army became much more effective toward the very end of the war, when they also began to implement defense in depth.)
After World War 1, those nations which had observant and teachable commanders and generals carefully studied the battles of the war in order to apply lessons to their own armies. As a result, the militaries of the United States and other powerful nations began to make changes to the tactics of infantry deployment, switching from trench warfare to the use of foxholes in the defense, learning also to deploy elastic defense-in-depth, and beginning to learn new techniques for offensive operations at the small unit level and beyond. However, the Germans once again proved to be far ahead of their peers in applying these new lessons, as demonstrated by the World War Two deployment of the blitzkrieg method of combined arms offensive warfare. Learning by observation of enemy tactics, tools, and technologies on the part of both the Allies and the Axis powers led to the continued evolution of infantry by the armies of these nations, including evolution of technologies such as the assault rifle, the armored personnel carrier, and the tools of combined-arms assault, as well as changes to small-unit offensive tactics which resulted in the development of the traveling, traveling overwatch, and bounding overwatch dismounted squad formations. The result is that a modern army which has incorporated modern tools and techniques for the deployment of its infantry can easily defeat a military which digs long lines of trenches for defense, which is rigid and inflexible in its use of artillery, and which day after day at regular times sends its infantry troops on assault in neat lines of men who move at a slow walk. (By the way, according to a number of historians, this inflexible style is what characterized the British army in World War 1 under Sir Douglas Haig.)
In other words, by observation, learning from history (and especially from mistakes), and responding to that learning by making the necessary tactical innovations, the infantry as a component of modern militaries has continued to make itself relevant even to the present day as a key component of an effective fighting force. What lessons can we take from the infantry's continual self-reinvention to apply to the field of strategic nonviolent resistance?
Well, let's take the methods of protest and persuasion as a key category of the methods of strategic nonviolent resistance. As I said at the beginning of this post, I have argued that the use of mass protest marches as the sole go-to tactic of resistance is stupid, because this has become the method of resistance which oppressors are most equipped to meet and to counter. But does this mean that the entire category of methods of protest and persuasion is now obsolete? Not necessarily. It is true that the methods of protest and persuasion are among the weakest methods of nonviolent action, just as it is true that the squad-level dismounted small infantry unit is the weakest troop unit in warfare. But just as the squad-level dismounted unit is still relevant in war-fighting, the methods of protest and persuasion still have value in the battlefield of 21st century strategic nonviolent resistance. What is needed, however, is an evolution of tactics, of tactical thinking, and of methods. And these tactics and methods must be deployed by wise leaders whose tactical and strategic thinking has evolved with the times in order to remain relevant and effective.
A hypothetical, yet concrete example may be helpful. Suppose you are a resister against the fascist Trump regime and you want to weaken his pillars of support. We know that the white American evangelical/Protestant church remains one of the staunchest pillars of support of the Trump regime. (By the way, that shows just how little white American evangelicals are actually interested in obeying the words of Jesus!) Let's say that you want to plan a series of operations designed to weaken this church as a pillar of support of Trump. You could adopt one of two possible approaches. The first would be to gather as many people as you can by means of Facebook, Reddit, or other social media announcements in order to besiege as many churches as you can with armies of protesters carrying picket signs to show your outrage over the white evangelical support of Trump's fascist policies and imperial overreach. To make things even more interesting (and stupid), let's say that you want to repeat this same tactic Sunday after Sunday for several weeks in a row. Let's examine such a tactic through the lens which
Peter Ackerman provided us in one of his Fletcher Summer Institute lectures. In particular, let's ask what is the purpose and what are the risks of such an action, and how likely it is that such an action would achieve its stated goals. Below is my summary of possible answers to these questions.
- Purpose: To attempt to shame the white American evangelical church by expressing outrage over its hypocrisy, its worship of secular power, and its use of religion to support the oppression of the poor and nonwhite in the U.S. and throughout the world.
- Likelihood of success: very small. Why? In attempting to shame these people by means of a series of mass protest marches, you are attempting to appeal to their better angels. But most of them don't have better angels. They are perfectly willing to do or to say whatever it takes in order to maximize their secular economic and political power and supremacy, regardless of the morality of their actions.
- Risks: Very, very high! Why? Because of the following factors:
- Your protest marches will provoke a violent response from the organs of right-wing power in this country. In particular, you can count on Trump taking over the local police forces, sending in troops from the regular military (and not just the National Guard), and initiating a massive crackdown on civil liberties.
- To facilitate and legitimize that violent crackdown, the fascist element will inject violence into your protest by means of agents provocateurs. They will then blame the outbreak of violence on you and your fellow protestors, using such organs of right-wing media as Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp media empire (including Fox News) to make their case. On the TV screens in every household there will be scenes of rooms full of stone-faced middle-aged men sporting buzz cuts and wearing blue uniforms who announce that in town X or city Y the police had to "declare a riot" because of the actions of "subversive hooligan elements bent on sowing CHAOS because they HATE AMERICA!!!"
- By your protest marches you will make your opponents look like innocent little lamb martyrs who are being "persecuted solely for the name of Christ" (that is, being persecuted merely for being "innocent and nice people"), thus boosting their standing in society and actually strengthening them as one of Trump's pillars of support. And you will get yourselves painted as "attackers of the Constitution's guarantee of religious freedom".
So we see that such a direct deployment of mass protest marches would actually not work in weakening the white evangelical church as a pillar of support because it would not persuade the members of that church to abandon Trump, and because Trump and his fellow fascists would easily be able to turn the effects of such protests against the protestors, thus actually boosting the power and prestige of white evangelicalism.
Now let's consider the second approach. Suppose you have studied the changing battlefield of strategic nonviolent action and you decide to deploy a smarter tactic of protest. Your goal remains the same: to weaken the white American evangelical/Protestant church as a pillar of support of a fascist regime. But instead of calling for massive protest marches to picket as many churches as possible, you talk to your physical, flesh-and-blood neighbors and say, "From now on, let's each put out a sign on our lawns every Sunday which says 'THIS SUNDAY, I AM WASHING MY CAR.'" And let's say that you all agree that at the hour in which most churches have their Sunday services, you and your friends start washing your cars. Moreover, let's say that you video yourselves all washing your cars at 11 am every Sunday and post those videos online. Let's say that you make it abundantly clear that your choice of 11 am every Sunday for car-washing is an act of protest, your sending of a signal that you will not be attending church on Sunday because the churches have become the corrupt handmaidens of a fascist regime. What can Trump or his goons or the liars who work for Rupert Murdoch possibly do to counter such an act of protest?
What I have described in this second approach is what is known as a
dilemma action. (See
this also.) And it is a
tactic of dispersion, which is much harder to repress than tactics of concentration. It is also an action which has the capacity to produce massive amounts of
backfire if the oppressor tries to stop it. For instance, if ICE or Marine Corps troops violently seize someone and beat him up simply for washing his car on a Sunday morning, how will such an act look in the eyes of witnesses? Won't such a response produce serious questioning of the Trump regime, as well as serious revulsion toward that regime? Moreover, as the idea of washing your car on Sunday (or pulling weeds, or cleaning your gutters, or my favorite - sleeping in!) catches on, the revenue and attendance numbers at most evangelical churches will start to show a definite decline. And there will be very little they can do to stop it! (You can also boost the effectiveness of your tactic by making bumper stickers that say "I AM NOT GOING TO CHURCH THIS SUNDAY" or "I'M SLEEPING IN THIS SUNDAY.")
Thus we see that just as in the use of weapons and tactics in war-fighting, a method or category of methods of nonviolent resistance can remain relevant and effective as long as the practitioners of that method or of those methods continue to evolve their capacity for tactical and strategic thinking. A key to the evolution of tactics of nonviolent resistance can be found in the methodology which the German army used to re-invent itself on the fly during World War 1:
- Perception of the need for change
- Solicitation of ideas, especially from the front-line units
- Definition of the change
- Dissemination of the change
- Enforcement throughout the army
- But in this case, since we are dealing with a civilian movement rather than a military operation, the word "enforcement" may be too strong. For the members of civilian movement organizations, a better way to phrase this is the building of a culture of discipline throughout the organization. This discipline must facilitate adherence to wise strategy. An essential part of this discipline is the maintaining of strict nonviolent discipline.
- Modification of organization and equipment to accommodate the change
- Thorough training
- Evaluation of effectiveness
- Subsequent refinement
