It has been noted on several occasions that nowhere in the literature on non-violent defence does one find anything remotely like a strategic analysis of the confrontation which results when military occupation is countered by non-violent resistance. One does find a number of scattered suggestions which are often pertinent but which, not being placed in the framework of a strategy, do not show their necessary character but appear as so many ‘useful ideas’ or naive proposals’ depending on one’s point of view. What one finds in the literature are really collections of ‘tactics’, of methods for putting pressure on the opponent. But from these no strategy can ever emerge. It is impossible to start with the methods of Chapter II and with them construct a strategy. One must start with a strategy and then determine the role - large or small - of each tactical method in relation to it. The result of applying a system of forces haphazardly to a body is normally that they cancel each other out. To be effective, pressures must be given a common point of application and a common direction. The task of strategy is precisely to provide an overall view of the entire confrontation, to offer criteria for distinguishing useful from less useful means, and criteria for organising these means into a coherent and purposeful whole.

The lack of a general strategic conception is undoubtedly the gravest single shortcoming in the literature on non-violence. It shares this shortcoming with current military defence thinking. Like much work on civilian defence, military defence thinking does not derive from a strategy, but consists rather of collections of military means of pressure, the cumulated effect of which is simply assumed to add up to a defence policy. This lack of an overall strategic analysis on both sides of the fence is the main factor which precludes a meaningful dialogue between the proponents of either, and - for the same reasons - prevents a ‘pragmatic’ comparison of these two modes of defence. As long as the general features of a strategy are not made explicit, any claims about the superiority of either mode of defence must remain pure conjecture.

The purpose of this chapter is to sketch what a strategy of non-violent defence would necessarily have to be, thereby situating this mode of defence in relation to other possible approaches. In so doing we base ourselves on classical strategic theory as developed by von Clausewitz. This theory makes two main assumptions: first, that the aim of war is to ‘win’ over the opponent, so that the conflict is conceived of as pure antagonism; second, that winning is the sole criterion by which possible courses of action are to be judged. The theory is therefore directly applicable to the ‘negative’ and ‘pragmatic’ approaches to nonviolence followed in this book and in most of the recent literature. With a ‘positive’ perspective on conflict, or if the case for nonviolence is argued on ethical grounds, classical strategic theory would be of no relevance.

Strategic theory seeks to determine which plans of action (strategies) are most likely to lead to victory over the enemy. It does not stop to consider costs and does not seek to minimise the human or material losses incurred in the process. ‘Philanthropy’, Clausewitz says, ‘must be extirpated’ before one can embark on the strategic analysis of war. In that sense war may be compared with a game of chess where the one and only aim is to checkmate the king. How many pawns are lost in the process is of no interest whatsoever, except in so far as it affects the prospects of a successful checkmate. So in the strategy of war: soldiers and civilians have no value per se. Either they are strategic resources (or in some way affect these), or else they are worthless and their loss irrelevant.

Nevertheless strategic analysis is not immoral but amoral. The determination of ‘best’ strategies (in terms of securing victory) is a purely intellectual task. Death and destruction result from the application of strategy to war, and it is here that ethical considerations can and must enter. It is often the case in a struggle that the preferred strategy (meaning desirable and acceptable in terms of costs) is not the ‘best’ one (in the above sense). Overriding considerations may thus rule out certain strategies which would have provided a greater likelihood of success, and make one settle for less. The immorality (and logical confusion) of the apologists of Realpolitik is precisely to be found in their failure to make this distinction between the strategically optimal and the morally desirable. In identifying these two concepts they make two assumptions which are generally true in the case of parlour games, but which are always wrong in war: namely that there is a perfect polar relationship between the ‘players’ so that each must pursue exclusively his own interest and, secondly, that the pursuit of ‘victory’ is a full and adequate measure of that interest.

Classical strategic theory is almost entirely the work of von Clausewitz, and is to be found fully developed in his major work On War, in which it is applied (mainly) to the Napoleonic wars. The same theoretical frame has been used by Mao Tse-Tung (in On Protracted War) to analyse guerrilla warfare in China. The theoretical differences between these authors are hardly more than questions of emphasis. A third source which has been made use of is Glucksmarin’s The Discourse of War which provides a more transparent formulation of the theoretical principles than does Clausewitz himself In addition it gives an analysis of nuclear weapons in Clausewitzian theory on which we have drawn extensively.

None of these authors, of course, deal with non-violence (except perhaps von Clausewitz, a few of whose remarks can possibly be interpreted as contemptuous rejections of it), but that does not matter. Clausewitzian theory is not a set of dogmatic rules of more or less universal validity, but a method for analysing a confrontation and for discerning effective strategies from less effective ones. It is therefore in any case necessary to reapply the theory from first principles each time a new conflict is to be analysed. Although he has often been read that way, Clausewitz’ purpose never was to affirm that cavalry are better placed behind than in line with infantry, but to expose the methods by which the best deployment can be determined in each particular case.

At first sight it might appear that the best approach to develop a strategy is as follows: first decide what is really worth defending and what is not, what the enemy might want to conquer, and how, considering the situation from his point of view, he is likely to go about it (i.e., draw up ‘scenarios’ of the possible attacks you may be subjected to). Then survey available or potential means of defence deleting those (if any) which are morally unacceptable, and decide how to deploy them to counter each attack scenario. Assuming such a plan of deployment were implemented, find out what would then appear to be the best attack scenarios from the enemy’s point of view (i.e., find the flaws in the defences). If these differ from the original scenarios repeat the whole procedure with the new ones, and go on in this way until no further improvement in the defences seems possible.

Despite the fact that this ‘stop-gap’ procedure is the method by which military planners normally proceed, this approach to the problem is a complete mistake and the surest path to disaster. It violates virtually all of the basic principles of strategy. To show this, and to indicate how to approach the problem correctly, it will be necessary to expose the principal features of classical strategic theory before turning to non-violent defence as such, and to the application of strategy to the particular conditions of the day.

1. CLAUSEWITZIAN STRATEGIC THEORY

The main elements of the theory which need to be considered are the relations between war and politics, the principle of polarity or unchecked escalation in war, the principle of the superiority of the defence over the offence, and the concept of centre of gravity.

First it is necessary to distinguish two concepts which we call the aim of war and the purpose of war: the former is military and the latter political. This distinction is the key to Clausewitz theory of strategy, indeed to any unified strategy of war at all. Politics sets the purpose. In a very general sense it is ‘to gain possession of something’ and it differs from war to war. When politics resorts to war the political purpose is temporarily replaced - displaced in fact -by the aim of war, which is to achieve victory, ‘to subdue the enemy’, to ‘force him to comply with our will’. Thus the aim of warfare is always the same but the purpose of warfare is usually a different one for each war (and different for the two belligerents). Therefore, victory on the one hand, and the fruits of victory or their enjoyment on the other are not to be confused.

This displacement of the purpose by the aim is the leading idea. Through it, each war becomes an indivisible whole, and its different elements (battles and campaigns) become organised in relation to a single strategic target (the aim: victory) which becomes the only standard by which they are to be measured. What would otherwise merely be blind actions thus become strategic moves. Furthermore this displacement ensures the theoretical unity of war: it makes a unified theory possible since all wars have the same aim. Finally the displacement of the purpose by the aim determines the principal characteristics of war: it becomes a pure struggle of polar opposites which necessarily tends to escalate to the extreme, to the full and immediate use of all the mobilisable forces. In a political confrontation where all sorts of purposes may enter, there may be a certain community of interests, compromises and trade-offs are then possible and there can be no complete polarity. In war the aims are completely antagonistic; one belligerent can only win to the extent that the other loses. The struggle is an absolute and uncompromising contest for ascendancy: ‘every advantage gained on the one side is a corresponding disadvantage on the other.’ No limitation in the amount of force used is possible; no pause is conceivable, for if one belligerent wishes to delay action, for instance to restore his forces, to that same extent and for that same reason the other must wish to precipitate it.

Such, in crudest theory, is war. In reality it is very different: ‘If’, as Clausewitz says, ‘we cast a glance at military history in general, we find . . . that standing still and doing nothing is quite plainly the normal condition of an Army in the midst of war, acting, the exception.’ In each particular case all sorts of factors may cause a standstill: the timidity of commanders and cabinets, overestimation of the enemy forces must accelerate war beyond its natural tendency. To explain the theoretical paradox that war is often slow, inconclusive and timid when it ought, according to theory, be always quick, decisive and of utmost violence, something else is needed: there must be a general principle at work to which polarity is not applicable and which will ‘like a ratchet wheel in machinery, from time to time produce a complete standstill.’

Clausewitz then proceeds to show that there is only one such possible ratchet wheel, namely the superiority of the defence over the attack. If A is too weak to attack B and would rather wait, it is in the interest of B to be attacked at once, not later. In this case there is complete polarity, but it does not follow that B is strong enough, himself to attack A. Hence polarity breaks down and pauses in war become logically possible once it is recognized that defence and attack are different things and not of equal strength. In classical strategic theory, therefore, military stalemate, cease-fire and peace are not the result of some delicate balance of opposing strength, of an impossible equality of antagonistic forces, but of the inequality of the forces of offence and defence. As Glucksmann (1969) has shown, these two principles - of polarity and of the superiority of the defence - together constitute the necessary and sufficient foundations of classical strategic theory. As they interact with the reality of particular nations, their moral and material forces, the weapons of the time, and the accidents of military genius and mediocrity they produce the complex and diverse phenomenon of war as we encounter it in each epoch.

The principle of the superiority of the defence over the offence may at first seem counter-intuitive as it would appear that superior forces must be the decisive factor. But it is so only if we conceive of the confrontation in terms of a battle, army against army, where the forces of each are given in advance. However, the importance of the principle lies precisely in the fact that it deals with the war as a whole. It addresses itself not to what can be done with given force levels but to the size of these force levels throughout the war, to the different types of initiatives the belligerents can and cannot take, and establishes an asymmetry between them - providing a measure of the opposing, forces which is not a mere material counting procedure tank for tank, man for man, but a measure of the real strategic potential of the enemies actual conditions of combat.

How would one prove this principle? Rather: in what sense is it true? It is logically necessary; that follows from what we have already said: without it there could be no pause in war, and, to put it in very crude terms, the system of states as it exists and has existed, could not be stable, and there could only be a single world-wide empire or continuous war. In this sense the principle of the superiority of the defence is already implied by the conception of escalation as the natural form of war.

But then it does not suffice for a theory that its propositions should be logically necessary. They must also have a certain correspondence with reality. Yet it would be of no avail to try to illustrate with examples from particular wars, for the principle does not maintain that it is always (or even mostly) the defence which prevails in war. This principle has to do with the course of war, not its outcome, and what it affirms is that the defence decides (or rather has the greater say in deciding) what form the war shall take. (Exactly what this means we shall see later). What we must show is therefore that in war the defence can take certain initiatives, mobilise certain resources, and that the possibilities of the offence are much more limited in this respect.

The best defence, conventional wisdom has it, is offence. What this means is that in war the offence alone can achieve a rapid and final decision. Offence is not ‘better defence than defence’, but it may render defence unnecessary. The superiority of the defence derives from the fact that where the offence is not immediately successful it soon wears itself down. The defence on the other hand can go on mobilizing resources. In this it has the advantage of combating on its own terrain (information, support, supplies, etc.). Furthermore the thrust of the offence itself, helps mobilisation of resources for the defence by the popular hostility it generates (increased ability to levy taxes, to conscript troops, to turn popular uprising, etc.) and by the envy, jealousy or anxiety it creates in previously neutral states or among its own allies. Thus it is a general principle that if it can hold out for a while, time will work for the defence and give it the strength, not only to hold the offence at bay, but also, increasingly, to counter-attack. The offence must always hope for a quick outcome. It has the advantage of the surprise in the initial attack ‘of the whole on the whole’, it determines at first where to attack and has the initiative in space, but nonetheless it is forced to attack the strongest points of the defence, and even here, therefore, it is dependent on the previous dispositions of the defence. Moreover, after the initial offensive strike the defence has the initiative in time. It decides when and where to hit back. It therefore determines the structure of the whole war and can do so to suit its own advantage. Unless the war is quickly settled by the victory of the offence it is, in the literal sense, the defence which conducts the war. Time being on its side it can choose to attack the weakest points of the enemy first. It does not have to finish him in a quick blow but can wear him down.

The intention here is not to ‘prove’ the ‘truth’ of the theoretical principle of the superiority of the defence. Theoretical principles can never be proven by reference to facts. They can be shown to be logically necessary within a theory and to be not in contradiction with the facts, indeed readily reconcileable with them once the theoretical meaning of these principles is properly understood. Their ultimate ‘proof lies in the usefulness in practical application of the theory of which they are part. This, therefore, must be postponed until the other main elements of the theory have been considered.

‘The aim of war in conception must always be the overthrow of the enemy; this is the fundamental idea from which we set out.’

Now what is this overthrow? Is it the destruction of the enemy Is army, his complete disarmament, or the conquest of his country? Clausewitz puts great emphasis on each of these factors. In his time and in most of history they have indeed been ‘the surest commencement, and in all cases the most essential.’ Yet he is emphatic that the importance of these factors is not to be elevated into a universally valid dogma:

All that theory can here say is as follows: that the great point is to keep the overruling relations of both parties in view. Out of them a certain centre of gravity, a centre of power and movement, will form itself, on which everything depends; and against this centre of gravity of the enemy, the concentrated blow of all the forces must be directed.

He goes on to illustrate: Alexander had his centre of gravity in his army, so had Gustavus Adolphus, Charles XII, and Frederick the Great, and the career of any one of them would soon have been brought to a close by the destruction of his fighting force; in states tom by internal dissensions, this centre generally lies in the capital, in small states dependent on greater ones, it lies generally in the army of these allies; in a confederacy, it lies in the unity of interests, in a national insurrection, in the person of the chief leader, and in public opinion; against these points the blow must be directed.

To concentrate the blow of all one’s forces against the centre of gravity and to attack it ‘with the greatest possible dispatch’, as Clausewitz says, what does that mean? It is not a prescription for action, not a strategy in itself, but the principle by which strategy is to be measured. Countless delays and roundabout manoeuvres may be justified in war. The principle gives a meaning to the word ‘justified’. It states that detours, delays and the diversion of forces to the attack of secondary targets is correct strategy in so far as it adds to one’s ability to reach the main target with the maximum force and maximum speed, and is otherwise to be rejected. The correct strategy follows a straight line, but projected on a map that line, to the uninformed, may appear tortuous. It follows that this principle of maximum force and maximum dispatch is inseparable from the principle affirming the existence of the centre of gravity, its role as the focal point of the war, its character of summarising the whole struggle in one point and of being, not only similar in form to the different battles of which the war is composed, but their sole measure and justification.

As the buyer decides which article to purchase, and the seller what it shall cost, so in war it is the offence which decides what the purpose shall be but it is the defence which chooses the centre of gravity. It does not, however, choose this* point arbitrarily. As everything else in war, its location is subordinated to reasons of policy (a question to which we return later). What is important to note at this point is that it is essentially by the choice of a mode of defence that the centre of gravity is determined.

Consider a specific example: Denmark in 1974, faced - so we assume for the sake of the argument - with a Soviet threat. Two modes of defence are normally considered to be worth contemplating: armed neutrality, and the Atlantic Alliance. In the former case, armed neutrality, the centre of gravity is evidently the Danish armed forces, and it is upon their annihilation that the attack must concentrate. The target, of course., is less the physical strength of these forces than their moral strength and, as in 1940, that of the political authorities. In the second case, that of an alliance with the United States and reliance upon their forces (and, to a lesser degree, those of other Western European powers), the centre of gravity is the solidarity of that alliance. What Clausewitz says in the piece just quoted, that ‘in small states dependent on greater ones, [the centre of gravity] lies generally in the army of these allies’ is true in many cases (viz. Napoleon’s great weakness in his inability to strike at the main allies of the European coalition: Britain and Russia), but it does not apply in this one. The conquest of Denmark evidently does not presuppose the conquest of the United States. If the Soviet purpose (i.e. the political goal) lies in Denmark it would be sheer madness to strike a blow at the American forces. To strike one at the Danish forces would be a waste at best, and counter-productive at worst, as it would probably be the surest way to solidify the alliance. The centre of gravity being the solidarity of the alliance, it is against this point that the forces must be thrown. Military action against Denmark, if indeed any had been advisable, would have to be in the form of carefully dosed stings, meant, not to weaken the Danish forces (as noted this would be pointless or dangerous) but to try to strain the alliance.

These examples should suffice to make the main points clear: first, that there is in each case a specific centre of gravity, and that it is (on the whole) determined by the mode of defence chosen; second, that it is of paramount importance for the attacker to identify this centre of gravity correctly and to aim his blow directly at it; finally, that the centre of gravity determines, among the many different means at the attacker’s disposal, which ones can be used and must be used (and how to use them) and which ones are useless.

It is now possible to see exactly what is meant by the superiority of the defence over the offence and to understand in what sense it is absolute and inalienable: the defence, by choosing the centre of gravity, also chooses ‘where’ the attack shall occur, ‘what’ shall be attacked, and ‘how’ (with what ‘weapons’). Properly used this is an immense and often decisive advantage (cf. how the form of warfare in Vietnam has been entirely determined by what is strategically speaking the defence: the guerrilla forces. Also how this form of warfare makes certain weapons useless, if not worse: those of strategic bombing for instance). It can also be seen that the superiority of the defence is not historically contingent and has nothing whatsoever to do with the peculiarities of the weapons which happen to exist in a given epoch. Nor is there any contradiction between this superiority on the one hand, and on the other, the obvious historical fact that wars have often been won by the attacker. The defence can force the struggle to that point where it itself is strongest, but it does not always do so, and it may be too weak even in that point. Besides, any number of mistakes may be made in the implementation of a defence strategy in practice: in the conduct of war.

The advantage of the theoretical vantage point used here, and the reason why it was necessary to approach the subject of defence strategy the roundabout way taken, now becomes apparent. Given a catalogue (however comprehensive) of ‘weapons’ and means of defence (however broadly conceived) which are potentially available for a small Western European country, and given another catalogue of ‘scenarios’, of descriptions of the possible forms a Soviet attack might take, no amount of speculation could ever have shown this central point, namely that it is the offence which is the dependent factor and which must mould itself after the defence. On the contrary with the method of ‘scenarios’ and counter-measures, it is already built into the assumptions that it is the defence which must mould itself after the offence. The reason for such a mistake would be easy to pinpoint: it would have arisen from giving to the concept of defence not its precise strategic meaning, but a vague political one -something like ‘protection’ - thus assuming that defence consists in protecting whatever happens to be attacked. Anyone who is familiar with chess knows how disastrous such a piece-by-piece strategy would be.

Nor would it of course make any sense to settle priorities first, adding to the other catalogues a third one of ‘things thought worth defending’. For in strategy things are worth defending only in proportion as they may serve to defend one’s own centre of gravity and attack that of the opponent. Hence their value can be determined only after a strategy has been found, not before.

In fact there are generally two distinct centres of gravity in war. One is determined by the defence and is - or rather should be - the point of attack of the offence in the first place. If that one holds, if the defence succeeds in absorbing and containing the blow of the offence as it reaches its maximum intensity (the ‘culminating point’ of the war, in Clausewitz terms) then the counter-attack becomes possible and, as time goes by, increasingly so. While continuing to protect its own centre of gravity against the pressure of the enemy forces, the defence will now also attack the second centre of gravity, that of the forces of the offence when they serve in the defence. It may seem that this second centre of gravity is determined by the offence, just as the first one is by the defence, and that therefore the initial attacker, the offence, must have the upper hand in the counter-offensive. This is however only partly true, for the second centre of gravity largely depends on the means used in the initial attack. Generally, the ‘purpose’ of the counter-offensive is not an independent political goal, ‘to gain possession of something’, but the destruction or explosion of the means with which the enemy attacked. But these means themselves are to some extent determined by the choice of the first centre of gravity. Therefore in choosing this first centre of gravity one has a certain influence both over the means which the offence will have to use and, by implication, over the centre of gravity of those forces, the ‘Achilles heel’ where their strength can be destroyed. This illustrates the intimate relation of mutual determination which exists between offence and defence and between the successive phases in the war. In the discussion of non-violent defence this second centre of gravity will be of considerable importance, but until then it may safely be ignored.

Like the offence, the defence must seek to concentrate all its forces on the centre of gravity. It must do this both when trying to withstand the initial blow of the attacker, and, later, when trying to sustain the defence while the forces needed for the counter-offensive are being built up. One consequence of this is that it is very unlikely, in the midst of war, after the enemy has annihilated the centre of gravity that one could regain one’s balance after the blow, choose a new centre of gravity, concentrate new forces upon it, and fall back on it for defence. This was illustrated in Chapter IX where the idea of a two-level defence - first military, then civilian defence - did not appear practicable.

In a very simplified and abstract form, the centre of gravity gives a shorthand representation of the most important basic features of a strategic doctrine, stripped of all the confusing details in which it is necessarily wrapped when it takes its practical, applicable form as a fully deployed system, with all the attendant hardware, organisations, doctrines, role allocations and so forth. This can be illustrated with the two modes of defence considered previously: armed neutrality and the Atlantic Alliance. When they are seen in their theoretically pure form as centres of gravity the general weaknesses of these two modes of defence become readily apparent. In fact it is not easy to think of anything weaker and more vulnerable on which to base a defence than the strength (in its various meanings) of the Danish armed forces or the political cohesion of the Atlantic Alliance. But apart from this, the need to concentrate all the forces of the defence on the centre of gravity immediately shows one fundamental and irreparable shortcoming of these modes of defence. Since in choosing a mode of defence we ipso facto choose a centre of gravity, a major consideration must be to so choose the former so that it does indeed become possible to ‘pile up’ forces in defence of the latter. But both of the alternatives fail to meet even this simple criterion of a good strategy, for both centres of gravity are points on which there is virtually no possibility of concentrating defensive forces. There are very narrow limits to the strength of armed forces Denmark is able to build up (the centre of gravity in the first example), and to improve the solidarity of the alliance (the centre of gravity in the second example) there is probably absolutely nothing Denmark can do. Both modes of defence are, strategically speaking, complete dead-ends, in the sense that with both, all expansion, all strengthening of the defence is excluded. So is, by the same token, virtually all initiative and resourcefulness, particularly with latter of the two. The former, it can be seen, does permit some limited flexibility - revealed in the ambiguity of the concept of the ‘strength’ of the forces. ‘ In their applied form as defence policies implemented in practice, strategies, of course, retain those shortcomings they have in their pure, stripped form as centres of gravity. Only they may be much less apparent, both to oneself and to potential enemies.

A few additional points need to be made before we have all the elements of’ the theory which are needed to analyse nonviolent defence in terms of classical strategic theory. First a remark on the ‘choice’ of the centre of gravity: to choose a centre of gravity is not to pick arbitrarily on some material or symbolic object and then proclaim that not until that object is conquered or destroyed by the enemy shall we admit defeat. What one chooses is a mode of defence. More or less uniquely this imposes a centre of gravity objectively on both belligerents, in the sense that they have no choice but to concentrate their forces on it. This centre of gravity is that point at the heart of the defence which, if it holds out enables the defence to continue the struggle even if weakened, and which, if it falls, must necessarily lead to the collapse of the entire defence, whether for reasons of morale or for material reasons.

But how then are the mode of defence and the corresponding centre of gravity related to the purpose of the attacker (i.e. hi’s political goal). Inspired by the idea of non-cooperation in civilian defence one might be tempted to reason as follows: the point in non-cooperation is to deny the enemy his purpose; therefore the mode of defence must consist in perpetuating denial; and therefore the centre of gravity must somehow be the ability to perpetuate denial. This would be a complete mistake. It is so because it fails to take account of the separation of aim and purpose. When war occurs the purpose is displaced by the aim. The entire activity of the enemy (if he acts intelligently) is directed towards the aim (annihilating the centre of gravity), not towards the purpose. Therefore it is not necessarily so that one must seek to bar access to the purpose, and therefore there need not exist any simple relationship of ‘protection’ between centre of gravity and purpose. The above view would be as false as the idea that in military strategy the defence must somehow be situated ‘in front of’ the purpose, constituting a kind of physical obstruction. This is obviously false and completely ignores the possibility of a strategic withdrawal, pending counter-attack (strategic withdrawal of Russian forces before Napoleon in 1812, guerrilla strategy of withdrawal, etc.). What really matters is that the centre of gravity should be so chosen that as long as it is preserved intact, counteroffensive and reconquest are possible.

This should suffice to clarify the main points: centre of gravity, its relation to the mode of defence, and to the superiority of the defence over the offence. It remains to explain how war is related to politics.

No other statement by Clausewitz is more widely quoted than the assertion that war is a ‘continuation’ and an ‘instrument’ of politics, and none is more often misunderstood. It is not some sort of Bismarckian ‘Blood and Iron’ philosophy that he gives voice to, neither is it an article of prudent statecraft, or an affirmation of the moral legitimacy of war. It is meant to be a scientific statement about the nature of war.

What it affirms is, first, that war always has a political purpose -war arises out of a social and political context - and, second, that after war has taken over and the aim has displaced the purpose, still it is ‘by no means an independent thing, in itself.’ When war erupts, its own laws of escalation and uncompromising struggle do not completely take command.

‘Our own power, the enemy’s power, allies on both sides, the characteristics of the people and their Governments respectively, etc.’ are of a political nature and determine the form war takes. The limits of war are still set by policy, which penetrates the entire act of war. Should war, following its natural bent and losing sight of political demands, reach extremities and divorce means from ends, this ‘extreme effort would be wrecked by the opposing weight of forces within itself.’

Because of this complete subjection to politics, war does not normally assume its ‘absolute form’, but remains, in Clausewitz words, ‘a half-and-half thing’: ‘war [as it actually occurs] may be a thing which is sometimes war [as it appears in theory] in greater, sometimes in a lesser degree.’ This gives its meaning that the expression utmost use of force in attacking or defending the centre of gravity. There may be no logical limit to the force one may think of using, but there certainly is a political one.

Nonetheless, ‘the political [purpose] is no despotic lawgiver... it must accommodate itself to the nature of the means’. Where the purpose in war is petty and unimportant, few forces will be put into the offence, few will be needed by the defence, and in any case, few will be forthcoming. Such were the wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth century when social and political conditions severely limited the size of armies, and when, if one was destroyed, a new one was not easily got. No one could afford to accept battle unless certain of victory, and in this fact, political ambitions found their necessary, and political fears their sufficient limitations, and, reflecting the weakness of motives, wars dragged themselves feebly along.

Without a ‘grand and powerful purpose’ the full mobilization of the forces of the defence is not possible. Certain forms of warfare presuppose certain forms of policy. In proportion to the degree that war attains to its absolute form, its relation to policy therefore becomes tighter and more completely determinate. The more impetuous and self-serving war appears to be, the more completely is it regulated by politics. Never before, Clausewitz maintains, had war been more absolute, and never before had it been more purely political, than it was under the French Revolution and Empire. Mao Tse-Tung makes absolutely the same point when maintaining that only with a revolutionary policy is it possible to conduct the protracted people’s war to its end; and, further, that there is no more absolute war than it, and no war which, down to the minutest details, is more completely determined in its form by its political ends. As noted in Chapter 111 one finds in much of the literature on non-violence a similar idea in the assertion of the necessarily democratic and participatory character of the form and of the goal of civilian defence.

To say that one ‘chooses’ a mode of defence is therefore a crude over-simplification. The political conditions and the conditions of warfare in a particular epoch determine both the nature and extent of the purpose of war and the means which the offence and the defence can mobilise, but they are also themselves determined by them. Nowhere in the chain is there truly a point where one can say: here is the determinant factor, the rest follows. War and politics, as much as the offence and defence, stand in a complex and intimate relation of mutual determination in which policy must adapt itself to the general conditions of war, as war must to those of policy. But the relation is not a symmetrical one. War is ultimately subordinate to politics, as is the offence to the defence, and this subordination is never more absolute than when war approximates to its pure form.

2. THE UNITY OF THE RESISTANCE

If a country adopts a defence method based on non-violence it ipso facto chooses what is to be the centre of gravity of its defence. What is this centre of gravity? In previous chapters it has shown up time and again as being the focus upon which everything has concentrate and the basic resource, the loss of which meant the collapse of the resistance: it is the unity of the resistance. It is against this point that the whole thrust of the attack must be directed and to its preservation that all efforts of the defence must tend. To attacker and defender alike, this unity above all else is crucial. It is the only standard by which specific weapons, means and actions can and must be weighed.

Let us consider how the general theoretical principles fare when applied to this particular case. The most important from our point of view is the principle that means, whatever they be – a conventional battle, a piece of artillery, a strike, an act of sabotage -have no intrinsic value whatsoever, except in so far as they relate to the centre of gravity. If they have no bearing upon it they become mere wasteful or counter-productive paraphernalia. This is to be taken in its literal meaning in the form of warfare discussed here. The utility of a rifle is not measured by its ability to shoot but by its ability to destroy the unity of the resistance. If it cannot be used to destroy that unity it is just a piece of iron. If the attacker ignores this he merely makes things more difficult for himself and easier for the resistance. If the attacker loses sight of the fact that the unity of the resistance is the ultimate target, his shots are as likely to cement the resistance together as to break it down.

The invasion of Czechoslovakia provides a forceful illustration of this. The invading armies were taken by surprise by the novel mode of defence used on Czechoslovakia. Their initial belief that once the country had been successfully occupied and armed resistance subdued the main task would be over, was entirely mistaken. Because the centre of gravity had shifted, the act of occupation in itself contributed little or nothing towards achieving the aim, and hence the purpose of the invasion. On the contrary, it was the tanks in the streets of Prague which themselves created the unity of the resistance, a unity which had not been there before, or had been so to a much lesser extent, and which completely silenced the orthodox wing in the party, the strengthening of which must surely have been once the invaders’ purposes. These tanks were worse than scrap-iron, they were like the grenade which explodes in the hands of the thrower.

Gradually the invading forces learnt the lessons. They brought in genuinely useful equipment (such as tracking stations and jamming transmitters); they removed the tanks and most of the troops from the streets (ostensibly as a concession. Perhaps it was felt to be one, but it was certainly in the best interests of the invading forces); and they began the political manoeuvres which alone could succeed. Few events could better illustrate the general principle that in war it is the defence, not as is generally assumed to be the case, the offence, which chooses the weapons, on condition, of course, that it is aware of this prerogative and turns it to advantage. And that is why, as was said at the outset, the method of the military planner who pieces together a defence as a collection of counter-measures to attack ‘scenarios’ is a complete mistake and the surest path to disaster.

This is not to say that the armed forces of the occupant are completely useless in this kind of warfare. All that is being said is that their usefulness is measured by their effect upon the centre of gravity and by nothing else. This severely curtails their utility. In particular it means that sheer numbers are of little relevance in this context. There are two main ways in which armed forces may be used: one is to terrorise the population. As noted in Chapter V, and as is now almost self-evident, such terrorism must be selective: it must hit specific groups of people to the exclusion of others, seeking in this way to drive a wedge between the groups. Indiscriminate terrorism is most likely to cement the unity of the resistance. But intelligently applied, selective terrorism, it seems, may often be a powerful weapon. It is to be noted, however, that what matters is not to make the resistance less extreme for the sake of it, to frighten it into submission. The occupant may wish to encourage certain groups to a resistance which is more radical than that which others are willing or able to engage in. The second possibility is to use the armed forces to run certain nonmilitary operations such as strike breaking, economic blockading of certain groups, etc. in so far as this is relevant for the war aim. Here they merely serve as a well-disciplined corps. The workers’ soup kitchens in the Ruhrkampf are an example, although not a very convincing one.

There are many ways in which the occupant may seek to disrupt the unity of the resistance. The Ruhrkampf and Czechoslovakia provide two quite different examples. In the first case privations, in the long run, affected different groups differently (small shopkeepers and self-employed being particularly hard hit). This, as explained in Chapter VI, was in some measure intentionally exploited by the occupant, and the divisions were consciously fostered - those between employers and employees for example. In Czechoslovakia the situation was quite different. A few persons had become such powerful symbols of the country’s unity that the attack had to concentrate on them. Socio-economic groupings played no discernible role (until much later when students and workers seemed to continue some form of opposition long after the middle class had yielded). In the early weeks of the resistance it was not so much groups of people which were split from one another as two idealised images which were gradually becoming incompatible: one was the idealisation of the resistance as an uncompromising defiance of the occupant; the other the idealisation of the leaders as symbols of the resistance . These two perceptions of the situation became incompatible because the leaders were openly accommodating and compromising with the occupant. The resulting ideological ambiguity sapped the force of the resistance at its core and effectively split the leaders from the masses, although the ambiguity itself prevented a complete realisation of the fact. This extensive reliance from the outset on intrinsically vulnerable symbols (as leaders are), a reliance which could not subsequently be dispensed with without precisely endangering the unity of the resistance, was undoubtedly one of the weakest links in the chain in Czechoslovakian resistance.

In the first phase of the war, it was noted, the forces of the resistance must all be directed to the goal of protecting the centre of gravity. Achieving this is the one, unique criterion by which the methods of Chapter II and the organisational forms of Chapter Ill are to be judged (ignoring here their possible bearing on dissuasion prior to invasion and on the counter-offensive - the latter of which is dealt with later).

It is at once apparent that with the methods of Chapter 11 what matters is the symbolic function (this function being defined in Chapter II in terms of the effects on the resistance itself). The idea of engaging in non-cooperation for the sake of denial, and the idea, particularly, of denying the enemy his ‘purpose’ (in the above meaning) figure prominently in the literature on civilian defence. This it is now apparent must be rejected as an activity which is generally quite irrelevant. In so far as it is irrelevant it is even dangerous because if it succeeds, nothing is gained, and if it fails the psychological costs may be great. Non-cooperation is useful in two ways: on the one hand it is a form of collective action and as such it has a symbolic value; but then this value is not intrinsically greater than that of other forms of collective action, and where there are no decisive advantages on this count, the likelihood of successful application must be the main consideration in determining which of various alternative actions to chose. On the other hand non-cooperation (and denial in general) may sometimes be useful as a device for denial per se, but then not for denying the enemy his purpose, but for denying him useful means towards the aim (disrupting the unity of the resistance). As noted previously it is not necessary (in the general case) to deny access to the purpose. Clearly, denial has a much less important role to play than is generally assumed.

It is also clear that the undermining functions (splitting, and weakening the opponent) of the methods of Chapter II relate to the counter offensive and are not of primary importance in the initial, predominantly defensive phase. Their crucial importance in the counter offensive will become clear later.

Unity, as we saw in the discussion of the options at the disposal of the occupant, is not just a matter of standing shoulder-to-shoulder. It may take different forms which are not similarly resistant to attack. The unity flowing from intense reliance on a few leaders seems particularly vulnerable. An ideology, which instead of the excellence of leaders and individuals, emphasises the people as a whole and its unity as the true basis of strength seems much more likely to be able to resist the occupant’s efforts at disruption. In devising methods with an essentially symbolic aim such distinctions may profitably be kept in mind. As noted in Chapter 111 there is a tendency in most of the literature on nonviolence to see the role of leaders as primarily symbolic (providing an example of courage and firmness) and to attach little importance to their role in strategic planning. This appears on the basis of the discussion in this chapter to be a grave mistake from every point of view. It is not heroism per se which is needed, but flexibility by the leadership in adapting to those forms of resistance which the population can sustain and is willing to sustain under the given conditions.

These points about non-violent resistance should suffice to show that the abstract principles developed previously do provide concrete answers when applied to concrete problems, and that they are helpful when it comes to devising a strategy instead of simply drawing up a catalogue of things one could do when attacked. Abstract principles are also helpful in that they show where further elaboration is required. But it is doubtful whether there is much value proceeding further than has been done here, for one soon reaches the limit of what can usefully be said on the basis of abstract reasoning. A correct strategy for a specific struggle must rest on two pillars: general theoretical analysis, and a detailed study of the facts of the case: of the nature of the antagonists, of their ‘weapons’ and resources, and of the ‘topography’ of the ‘theatre of war’. To build on either alone is another sure path to disaster.

3. THE COUNTER-OFFENSIVE

While the centre of gravity of the defence is determined fairly unambiguously by the general characteristics of non-violent defence and could therefore be discussed in fairly abstract terms, the second centre of gravity, that involved in the counter-offensive, is not so easily specified. This is so because it depends in some measure on the means used in the offence and these may vary considerably from case to case. A precise specification of this second centre of gravity presupposes an analysis of the details of each particular confrontation. Moreover, the offensive means may change to some extent in the course of the struggle and so may therefore may the corresponding centre of gravity.

Here only one particular case will be considered; that in which repression in the form of physical violence is being used against the resistance, whatever the reason, whether to split it or simply in the hope of threatening it into submission. There is not much reason to believe that physical repression would play any major role in practice. In Czechoslovakia it did not occur on any significant scale and the previous analysis suggests that it is probably too crude a means to be of much use to the offence Nevertheless in a theoretical discussion of the feasibility of non-violent defence against military attack it is of course necessary to consider the possibility that it may occur, since it is the main ‘resource’ which the specifically military character of the attack confers on the attacker.

As with every other act in war, repression is not and cannot be merely a senseless act of wreckage. It is a purposeful act, even if it may be so, only in terms of some weird and misconceived logic. Repression occurs in a particular social, political, cultural and ideological context in which it somehow appears justifiable and appropriate. Conceivably it may be a sheer act of revenge, but even so its limits are set by the political and cultural context in the widest sense. Physical repression can therefore not be conceived of as a wholly arbitrary act, an act which is always "possible in principle", and which is only limited by the physical means available and the humaneness or lack of sufficient motive of enemy leaders.

One cannot divorce the ‘psychology’ and technology of repression from its politics and sociology without severing at the same time all links with reality.

Seen in its proper context, the threat of physical violence as well as its execution is therefore not arbitrary and unlimited but circumscribed by certain inhibiting factors. These factors are not given once and for all. They depend, among other things, on the character of the confrontation between the belligerents, since, for example, violent resistance makes violent repression more acceptable culturally, and hence more feasible politically. Even if the limits thus set may be ill-defined and ill-known, the magnitude of the threat is therefore in principle predictable and in some measure controllable by the resistance. This introduces certain possibilities of a strategy based on the deliberate manipulation of these inhibiting factors.

The centre of gravity for the counter-offensive is constituted by those political, ideological and other factors which ultimately determine the enemy’s ability to pursue the offence, and, in the case we are considering, the repression which goes with it. The precise character and relative importance of these factors, and hence the points at which the counter-offensive must be aimed, varies of course from case to case. Generally these factors operate at three points: the local executioners of repression (troops), the domestic political base of the enemy leaders, and the international alignments on which they may depend. It should not be assumed, as there is a tendency to do in much of the literature on nonviolence, that the best point of application when it comes to the domestic base of enemy leaders is necessarily public opinion. This may be an important factor to aim at in a country such as the United States where policy is relatively sensitive to public attitudes and information relatively open, but in other cases, as also in that one, rivalries within the political elite, strains within the army, etc. may often be better targets.

Generally, the task is to exploit those strains and contradictions which the act of occupation and the struggle themselves generate within the enemy camp, for it is these which are most readily manipulable by the resistance. These strains may manifest themselves in a variety of ways and they change in the course of the struggle. They may for instance take the form of ideological incompatibilities between self-images of peacefulness and righteousness, and the realities of occupation and repression, between the ostensible purposes of the occupation and its actual effects, and so forth. Reactions in America and abroad to the war in Vietnam provide countless examples, and also illustrate the general proposition stated above, namely that provided it can hold out, time is necessarily on the side of the defence, as these strains and divisions go on widening with time, and this in large measure irrespective of whether the struggle is escalated or deescalated. How much such contradictions change from one war to another becomes clear when one compares Vietnam with the occupation of Czechoslovakia. Here the ideological conditions which could be exploited were entirely different and gave to certain groups and institutions (such as Czechoslovak workers and the Communist Parties in Czechoslovakia and abroad) a particularly important role in creating and exposing the contradictions of the enemy. Had it been possible to go on tearing at these wounds the occupation could hardly have continued in the long run. Without a closer analysis of the specific conditions of a given conflict the centre of gravity of the counter-offensive can probably not be specified with greater precision than it is in Mao Tse-Tung’s formulation: ‘the internal contradictions in the enemy camp’. It is these which must be deepened and exploited.

It may seem that we are here getting far away from one of the fundamental principles of Clausewitzian strategy: the separation of war and politics, of aim and purpose, and that strategy as we are here using the term merges into politics. That is not the case. It is politics, culture and ideology which are becoming weapons in a fully Clausewitzian sense. To act on the contradictions - the internal brakes in the enemy camp - is not an act of policy but of strategy, an act of warfare, properly understood. It does not arise from some independent political purpose but is, as must be all action in war, the overthrow of the enemy. The relation between means and purpose is mediated by the aim, as it always is in war, properly conducted. What happens is-that in this way the ‘strategic space’ is expanded well beyond what is traditionally conceived of as the ‘theatre of war’, but it is still governed by the general rules of strategy.

Action on these political and other ‘brakes’ is a genuine strategic move in the Clausewitzian sense. It relies upon one’s own ‘forces’ and exploits the weaknesses of the enemy. Whether these are lines which can be outflanked, inadequate supplies, or cultural norms and internal dissensions which block his possibilities of action, makes no difference. Clausewitz constantly refers to ‘human factors’ as resources in war, and explicitly recognises such immaterial objects as ‘unity of interests’ and ‘public opinion’ as possible centres of gravity, hence as suitable points of attack by military or by other means. It is therefore a misunderstanding to conceive of non-violent defence (in the ‘negative’ mode) as ‘putting oneself at the mercy of the enemy’ and ‘appealing to his conscience’. The inhibiting factors to be exploited are not the good feelings of the enemy (in strategy one always assumes that they are non-existent) but external factors over which the enemy has little or no control, but on which the resistance has a certain influence. The tendency to emphasize conversion as a change of mind and appeals to conscience as a change of heart in the enemy which were noted in Chapter II, therefore seems to be misplaced (in negative non-violence). Devices such as ‘amplification of suffering’ could be of some use, but then for rather different reasons. Similarly the laboratory experiment by Shure and associates which was described in Chapter II and which suggested that non-violence had no significant effect on the enemy is perhaps of some relevance in relation to positive non-violence, but not in relation to non-violence in the negative conception, for it deals exclusively with ‘psychological’ effects in individuals which are completely divorced from their social context and which therefore are subjected to no constraints.

From a purely strategic point of view, i.e. disregarding the moral issues involved, the specific utility of non-violence as compared with other means of defence lies in its double function of at once giving rise to a wide range of ‘contradictions’ in the ideological fabric of the enemy camp, and at the same time denying the enemy the justification, the ideological licence for violence, which a violent response would have provided. These are of course only the two sides of the same coin. The more the enemy resorts to violent repression, the more he widens the contradictions in his own camp until he either reaches a limit beyond which he cannot go, or else, in Clausewitz words, his ‘extreme effort would be wrecked by the opposing weight of forces within itself.’ As time passes and contradictions widen, the enemy’s tolerance for conducting repression steadily declines.

The utility of non-violence as such is therefore primarily to be found in the counter-offensive. In the defensive phase, what counts in general strategic terms is the popular character of the resistance. Indeed, in considering the first centre of gravity we did not in any way make use of its non-violent character. This is not to deny that in practice this aspect may be important even in the defence, but it is so essentially to the extent that it is a precondition for maintaining unity and it thus depends on the specific ideological conditions in each case. In resistance against a military coup, for instance, non-violence appears to be virtually a necessity because the inhibitions against firing ‘army upon army’ are so great. On the other hand there would be no point in using violence unless it can actually be expected to contribute to unity (as noted in Chapter IV this cannot in all cases be excluded a priori).

From the point of view of strategic reasoning it is therefore clear that one cannot argue a general case for non-violence. There may be other factors than the ideological ones which are much more readily exploitable. To put it differently: non-violence seeks to do two things: on the one hand it so organises the defence as to leave as little scope as possible for the use of the enemy’s military force; on the other hand it seeks to achieve the attrition of these forces mainly at the ideological level. But a physical attrition of these forces, when it is relatively slow as in guerrilla warfare, may be compatible with retention of the ideological advantages, and may yet be possible without offering any substantial target for the enemy military forces. No abstract reasoning could show that either non-violence or guerrilla warfare is in all cases the most effective. That question can only be settled in each particular case, taking due regard to its specific conditions. It is however clear that in the general context of a non-violent defence, sporadic violence is wholly counter-productive in that it lifts the restraints on the enemy’s use *of violence without achieving anything worthwhile in return. There is no gliding transition between guerrilla strategy and non-violence: intermediate courses of action are generally worse than either of them.

To show that non-violent defence is a perfectly consistent application of classical strategic theory one last point needs to be considered, which relates to the unity of the strategic field as a whole: the, relation between the centres of gravity, and between these on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the purpose of the war. In the simplest case of military force against military force, the symmetry of means suffices to ensure that unity. Consider two armies disputing a certain territory (the purpose). The two centres of gravity lie in these two armies respectively, in their survival as meaningful fighting forces. It is then immediately clear that the destruction of one centre of gravity automatically ensures the survival of the other and is the necessary and sufficient condition for the appropriation of the purpose (on anything but a temporary basis). In the much more complicated and highly asymmetrical case of non-violent resistance against military force these simple relationships cannot be taken for granted.

What needs to be shown in each particular case is that as long as the unity of resistance is not broken the resistance can go on, and as long as this is the case the counter-offensive (deepening contradictions in the enemy camp) can continue so that the possibility remains that the enemy will ultimately be forced to withdraw. This is not always the case (Clausewitz notes the obvious general exception which arises when the purpose is an ‘easily removable’ object), but where it does apply, consistency is ensured, for the offence will then have to attack the centre of gravity of the defence. Then the separation of aim and purpose is possible; the reciprocal relation of polarity (in Clausewitz sense) between the centres of gravity, whereby the destruction of one is the necessary and sufficient condition for the preservation of the other is then ensured; and the identification of the aim with this pair of centres of gravity is necessary, in the sense that it is objectively imposed on both belligerents. In other cases, as was noted previously, the defence would have to be specifically designed to protect the purpose.

4. STRATEGY AND DEFENCE IN THE NUCLEAR AGE

It follows from the preceding analysis that non-violent defence, in the form in which it has been presented in this book (i.e. in its negative, pragmatic form) satisfies the general requirements which make it a strategy in the classical, Clausewitzian sense. It may run into any number of problems in actual implementation, and some of these have been discussed in previous chapters, but theoretically it belongs on a par with all other Clausewitzian strategies. Its theoretical foundations are, solid.

Clausewitzian theory is a strategic theory because within it, all strategies serve to achieve the same aim: the overthrow of the enemy. They can therefore all be compared in terms of their efficiency. In practice war is such a complex phenomenon and involves so many imponderable factors and chance elements that theory can never hope to become a perfect calculus to determine precisely the best strategy. But in principle there is in each particular case one strategy which is ‘better’ than all others. Theory can at least help to identify it.

Since Clausewitzian theory establishes a hierarchy among all the strategies which are applicable to a particular conflict, two questions immediately arise: first, are there any defence policies which are not Clausewitzian strategies, and which are therefore incommensurate with the latter. If so, which? Second, what is the complete range of Clausewitzian strategies in the case, say, of a small industrialised country faced with a threat from a major nuclear power? Is there a spectrum of such strategies, and if so which among them would appear, on theoretical grounds, to be the most effective?

For a country which faces a threat by a nuclear power there are indeed ‘defence options’ which are not Clausewitzian strategies. One is to surrender whenever the enemy issues a threat. Another is to respond to threats with a counter-threat of nuclear reprisals, thus establishing a so-called ‘balance of terror’. The latter is obviously not a Clausewitzian strategy, for in the ‘balance of terror’ virtually all the assumptions of classical strategic theory are violated. War becomes a senseless act, not an instrument of policy. It is not a struggle carried to the extreme but is on the contrary totally dominated by the endeavours of both belligerents to avoid the extreme. The belligerents are not in polar opposition to one another but have overriding common interests, and the aim cannot be the overthrow of the enemy or his submission since that would be to court suicide. Finally, in Clausewitzian theory moderation in war and, indeed, peace itself which, to Clausewitz, is like a pause in war, become possible because of the ultimate superiority of the defence over the attack. In other words, peace is rendered possibly by the strength of the defence; in the ‘deterrence theory’ on the other hand, it is claimed that it is precisely the weakness of defence due to the total vulnerability of each antagonist which ensures peace, and moderation in war.

In the ‘deterrence theory’ nuclear weapons come to appear as absolute, ultimate weapons in comparison with which all other weapons are dwarfed. The nuclear weapons alone become strategically decisive.

In this situation one is dealing with a case of ‘non-antagonistic’ conflict, rather similar to that which was called the ‘positive’ view of conflict. As mentioned briefly in the introduction, the conflict model associated with positive non-violence has a certain similarity with great-power confrontation under conditions of nuclear deterrence. Despite the quite dissimilar underlying philosophies these two cases give rise to analogous ‘strategic’ situations. With nuclear deterrence the situation is that of a two-player coalition against a third party, this third party being a noncalculating player and which represents the possibility of common nuclear annihilation. Only in a second approximation is this coalition overlaid with a minor, purely antagonistic conflict which divides the coalition partners over some comparatively unimportant stake. This is of course a non-Clausewitzian situation (as is that of positive non-violence) because the antagonists no longer have any clearly definable interests. They tend to fuse, for when one threatens the enemy he also threatens himself, so that logically speaking it is as though he belongs to both camps at once. Both ‘players’ become so schizophrenic and all of their actions so ambiguous that there is no longer anything like a ‘best’ course of action. All that ‘deterrence theory’ can do is to list the possible courses of action, but it cannot weigh them. It is inherently nonprescriptive.

Deterrence policies arise from, or assume meaning, only within a framework where the acts of the enemy are conceived of as essentially arbitrary acts. Nuclear attack is seen as being always ‘possible in principle’ if the enemy so chooses. It is an act of his free will, limited only by his technical means and by his calculation of the consequences. This is the intellectual frame in which the ‘Push-button war’ is the enemy and becomes a ‘decisionmaker’ with all the arbitrariness in choice which this expression implies. Because its use is always ‘possible’ the atomic weapon becomes the arbiter of all confrontations, and as such the absolute weapon, the decisive weapon of ultimate recourse.

The policies of deterrence build on assumptions which are rather suspect in that they conceive of the ‘decision situation’ in terms of individual psychology. Not that it is demonstrably wrong to do so - threats of reprisal may obviously be effective in some cases (though it is not easy to tell in advance) - but it is a very limited perspective. As a ‘theory’ of the factors determining the use or non-use of nuclear weapons, it is so narrow that it restricts the range of available counter-measures unduly. This is so because it is an ‘abstract theory’ in the worst sense. It does not consist in abstracting from superfluous and confusing details to get a clearer view of the whole, but it abstracts from the whole, it completely disregards the political purpose and the political context of real war (and war of nerves), to get a supposedly better view of a little corner: the ‘psychology’ of ‘decision-makers’. By thus divorcing the nuclear threat from its context, that threat inevitably comes to appear as an arbitrary abstract, limitless and omnipresent threat. Moreover, one starts in this way with an assumption about where strategy should find its point of application (namely, in the mind of the ‘decision-maker’ -compare on this point too with positive non-violence and its reliance on conversion of the enemy). But this was precisely the question in need of an answer. Subsequently deterrence theory remains prisoner of that initial assumption of having started with the answer not the question, and everything is reduced to ‘psychology’. For instance the entire debate between doves and hawks becomes a debate over imponderables such as the enemy’s ultimate reasonableness and good intentions (implying the utility of arms control and tension reduction) or the enemy’s lack of these desirable qualities (implying the necessity of hard-line deterrence and maximum preparedness).

Yet it is only in the lofty abstractness of ‘deterrence theory’ that one can thus divorce the psychology and technology of the nuclear threat from its sociology and politics. In complete analogy to what has been said about repression, nuclear threats and nuclear attacks are not the unconstrained and arbitrary acts of ‘decision-makers’. In the real world they emerge out of a political and cultural context in the widest sense; they have to be imaginable and to seem appropriate and useful, and not only to the issuer of threats or those who implement it. The use of the nuclear threat being thus necessarily circumscribed and at each particular moment limited to some level short of all-out destruction, the nuclear threat therefore ceases to be an absolute threat. So-called nuclear blackmail, however logical and possible it may appear ‘in principle’, becomes a thing one can resist, even without being a nuclear power or sheltering behind one. And because it becomes relative, the nuclear threat does not necessarily have to be responded to in kind. In fact, if it is assumed that inhibitions of a political, social and cultural nature are normally more decisive in holding back the hand on the nuclear trigger than is fear, then a policy responding to threats with counter-threats becomes nothing less than disastrous, for no policy is more likely to weaken those inhibitions.’ Instead of a symmetric response, countering like with like, an asymmetric one comes to seem most appropriate.

Thus different assumptions about what it is which ultimately determines the magnitude of the nuclear threat give rise to quite divergent policies.

It has been repeatedly stressed that a weapon per se, separated from the context in which it is employed, is an utterly meaningless abstraction. It is no wonder that such conceptions should flourish today when vast investments are made in military hardware which is supposed to frighten by its mere existence, rather than show its value in actual combat, but it is a misconception all the same. A piece of equipment only becomes a weapon when it is given a place in a particular strategy, and only then does it become a useful instrument or a piece of worthless paraphernalia, or even a boomerang. This is as true of nuclear weapons as of any other weapon. Nuclear weapons are absolute weapons in a context of bilateral nuclear confrontation, not in other contexts.

The case of Vietnam may serve to illustrate this. Throughout, the use of nuclear weapons by the American forces has been virtually unconceivable. It has been so, not because there was a risk of nuclear reprisal by the Soviet Union or China - that risk was probably always exceedingly small - but because such an act would lie far outside the limits set by political, social and cultural factors. True, the risk that they may be used, if vanishingly small, is nevertheless not absolutely zero. But if they were used, as is ‘logically possible’, this would be completely self-defeating, as the aggressors’ camp would be wrecked by its internal divisions. There is a small risk of sheer madness, but it is strictly a risk of madness, not a risk that the enemy may employ a more effective weapon to improve his prospects of victory. The American nuclear weapons are therefore strategically unimportant. They are in this context a ‘paper tiger’. But the possibility that they may be used is not absolutely nil and therefore these weapons must be taken into account tactically. This is all the more essential because the impossibility of using them strategically (i.e., to further the ‘aim’ of war) is not an a priori fact but is entirely dependent upon the specific form the struggle takes. The factors which inhibit their use in a way like that of Vietnam are the relatively limited use of violence which takes place on the battlefield, the specific conditions of international alignments and of political strains within the United States itself, and the fact that the counteroffensive proceeds by ‘stings’ and does not threaten the American homeland, only the forces which penetrate enemy territory. Thus the uselessness of the nuclear weapons depends on the specific conditions throughout the strategic space: the field of battle as well as the political sphere, domestic and international. These particular conditions must be preserved and extended by deliberate action since it is precisely the constraints arising out of these conditions which keep the nuclear risk limited. As a nuclear weapon is not an absolute weapon per se, it is also not a ‘paper tiger’ per se. It is only devoid of strategic importance provided it is taken fully into account tactically. It is only by adapting one’s entire strategy to the fact of its existence, i.e., to the conditions of the nuclear age, that one can turn the nuclear weapon into a ‘paper tiger’.

The main features of a strategy designed to achieve this have already been considered, for it is essentially a special case of strategies designed to limit the possibility of repression. It is a strategy where the counter-offensive lies at the political level - acting on the internal constraints in the enemy camp. As regards the forces in the field it is a strategy of dispersal (denying the enemy a worthwhile target) and of interpenetration (using the enemy’s forces as hostages to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction). It is a strategy which makes maximum use of the defence’s superiority in respect of time by subdividing battles into small, focal and autonomous confrontations, which are too small, too brief and too unpredictable to allow the use of large-scale weapons. Most important of all it is a strategy which refrains from threatening the enemy’s homeland physically, since that would be the certain way to bring down the inhibitions against the enemy’s use of massive repression, nuclear or otherwise, and to turn the ‘logical’ possibility of nuclear attack into a real possibility.

This asymmetrical type of strategy is of course the general method for coping with an enemy which is militarily superior. Guerrilla strategy and the strategy of non-violent defence both belong in this category, the latter being merely a purer form, a more extreme and consistent application of the general principles which also apply to the former. The parallels between guerrilla warfare and non-violent defence which have been noted at several points in this book arise from their common character of being defence methods against an enemy with, relatively speaking, unlimited means of repression. It is reflected in the fact that in both cases the centre of gravity corresponding to the counter-offensive is the same: ‘the internal contradictions in the enemy camp’. The differences between these strategies are reflected in the fact that the centres of gravity associated with the defence differ in these two cases (which in turn reflects the different social, artificial and natural conditions under which one or the other is more applicable). In one case this centre of gravity lies in the unity of resistance, in the other it lies in the political mobilisation of the ‘masses’ for a specific political programme, not necessarily of the people in its entirety. In a confrontation with a nuclear power where one uses a symmetric policy (deterrence), nuclear weapons take on an absolute character. When these asymmetric strategies are used these weapons become instruments of repression, not substantially different from others, only much more destructive and with a greater moral opprobrium attached to them, and therefore rather less useful than ‘conventional’ means of repression.

In contrast to the symmetric policies, the asymmetric strategies are fully Clausewitzian. It is only if all-out nuclear war is a real possibility and if the steps leading to it can be rationalised as purposeful policies, (i.e., solely in the case of a bilateral nuclear confrontation), that the common interests of the belligerents come to dominate in such a way that the basic assumptions of classical strategic theory cease to apply. In a confrontation where only one side possesses nuclear weapons there is no community of interest between the belligerents which is in any way different from that which may apply in classical strategy as a result of the subordination of war to policy. Both sides can pursue their own interests singlemindedly and nothing tempers the polarity between them. War may be too costly, in which case the opponents will terms, it would be a complete mistake to think that this arises from an underestimation of its importance or of the vast destruction it can cause. On the contrary, asymmetric strategies are devised in full cognition of the nuclear danger, in the realisation that savage repression is a distinct possibility. Their major concern is to diminish that risk and to block the use of nuclear weapons and any other means of repression the enemy may possess. It is precisely because asymmetric strategies must take full account of the contemporary fact of nuclear weapons that they come to differ so markedly from the primarily military Clausewitzian strategies of earlier times. Neither deterrence nor non-violence ignore the realities of contemporary weaponry. Both seek to cope intelligently with the problem of nuclear weapons, though in very different ways: on their own terms as does the former, or on completely different terms as does the latter.

But this also means that non-violence is something more than an approach to the somewhat parochial, and perhaps even unreal problem of defending the small wealthy countries of Western Europe against hostile Soviet designs. At a deeper level nonviolence, like guerrilla warfare and other asymmetric strategies, provides a valid, if not unproblematic, answer to one of the central problems of our age: how to put an end to the hegemony of the nuclear powers, how to annul the nuclear threat by rendering it obsolete and useless. In short: how to leave the nuclear age behind.

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BIBLIOGRAPHIES:

Carter, April, Hoggett David, and Roberts Adam, Nonviolent

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CIVILIAN DEFENCE PROPER:

Roberts, Adam (ed.), The Strategy of Civilian Defence, London,

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Tolstoy, Leo, On Civil Disobedience and Non-violence (selected writings), New York, Bergman Publishers, 1967.

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TYPOLOGIES AND ANALYTIC WORKS:

Naess, Arne, ‘A Systematisation of Gandhian Ethics of Conflict Resolution’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 2 (1958), No. 2, pp. 140-155.

Galtung, Johan. ‘On the Meaning of Non-violence’, Journal of Peace Research. (1965), No. 3, pp. 228-257.

Galtung, Johan, ‘Pacifism from a Sociological Point of View’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 3 (1959), No. 1, pp. 67-84.

Galtung, Johan, ‘The Strategy of Non-Military Defence’ (supra).

Sharp, Gene, The Politics of Non-violen t Action (supra).

Lakey, George, ‘The Sociological Mechanisms of Non-violent Action’, Peace Research Reviews, Vol. 2 (1968), No. 6.