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Title: Anarchy & Strategy Author: Aragorn! Date: 2005–2008 Language: en Topics: AJODA, AJODA #60, AJODA #61, AJODA #62, AJODA #66, strategy Source: Proofread online source http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=4616, retrieved on July 12, 2020. Notes: Published in Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed, #60 #61 #62 #66.
Why are we concerned with anarchist strategy?
If strategy is the process of having priorities and subsequently acting
on those priorities then an anarchist strategy names a discreet
objective (in this case the establishment of an anarchist society upon
the destruction of a capitalist and statist one) and sacrifices other
priorities in the pursuit of that goal. An anarchist strategy is not a
strategy about how to make a capitalist or statist society less
authoritarian or spectacular. It assumes that we cannot have an
anarchist society while the state or capitalism continues to reign.
We are not for more freedom. More freedom is given to the slave when his
chains are lengthened. We are for the abolition of the chain, so we are
for freedom, not more freedom. Freedom means the absence of all chains,
the absence of limits and all that ensues from such a statement.
(Bonanno The Anarchist Tension)
It is important to inform our discussions about strategy in a clear
vision about what exactly our strategic goals are. If we are incoherent
on this point our efforts will suffer.
An anarchist strategy differs from a military strategy. Military
strategy is the conduct of warfare. Warfare is a particular
technological application of violence from states, or statist bodies,
upon people; sometimes citizens of rival states, sometimes people in the
way, and sometimes in the name of defending the very people it violates.
It differs from other forms of conflict that could and have occurred in
other contexts (economic, political, and technological). An anarchist
strategy should understand more about military strategy than just the
tactics of the Sierra Maestra guerrillas, the movements of the armored
columns against Rommel, or the Miami Model — while refusing to confuse
the medium of warfare with strategic goals.
Social change does not always occur due to warfare, or violence, or the
threat of either. Social change (throughout the past 10,000 years of
human history) can be generally understood as happening through a)
conquest, b) decline, c) the power of ideas, d) economics, e) the
changing of the guard, or f) revolution. Revolution is the most recent
addition to this list and doesn’t have nearly the currency that those of
us who were raised to believe in social change through direct action,
protest, and petition believe that it does.
Because of the semiotic coding of the term “social change” within
radical or revolutionary movements (embedding a meaning of such social
change as being composed of entirely, or primarily, positive
characteristics), examination of how societies (the various formations
of humans throughout history) have changed becomes complicated. Change
is not necessarily positive. Especially from a historical perspective it
is probably more accurate to understand how most societies have changed,
as being entirely negative. If we refer to the Eurasian exportation of
values, systems, and technics upon the rest of the world we are not
referring to choices made by the people of Oceania, the Americas, or
Sub-Saharan Africa in an egalitarian, or even well-informed, fashion. We
are talking about imposition, warfare, genocide, and human bigotry in
the most pure forms ever run rampant. We call this social change because
it is, not because it is good.
Why do we use words like good, or bad, in relation to phenomena like
social change? Do we understand the transformation of society from the
drudgery of our industrial proletarian forebears to the happy communards
we would like to become as happening through an evolutionary, or
staggered, process of good things happening? If we understand history,
whether strictly materialistic, sociological, or mythological, as being
a series of bad events for good people and victories for bad people, are
we limiting our own ability to accrue information that might actually
allow us to make more successful strategic choices than scaring off the
cops for 12 hours in parts of Seattle? Does our inability to stop
morally coding things limit our ability to make more interesting
choices?
Why am I interested in anarchist strategy? Because I would like to be
truly free. I would like to be free of rent and work and shitty
microscopic sectarian politics. I would like to slow down and learn more
about trees and walking and many of the people I blow by out of
impatience. I have these desires in such abundance that I choose to
devote my limited abilities and potential to understanding how things
that I abhor work and things that I love thrive. An anarchist strategy
is the body of ideas about how things (societies, people, structures)
have changed, how people have changed them, and the practice of being
that change.
Enough of the preliminaries — let’s get down to brass tacks. Whenever
the question of a total social transformation is raised, the
accompanying concerns multiply during every breath taken in response.
Anarchists have, by and large, rejected traditional models of Social
Revolution a la France even as they have not rejected the imagery of the
storming of the (metaphorical) Bastille. The question first and foremost
would be how exactly would we deal with the military might that
currently exists? Do anarchists need to raise an army to stand against
the military might of today?
Many, if not most, anarchists feel comfortable responding to the more
general question of whether the ends justify the means by stating
unequivocally that they do not. Since, given this statement, most
scenarios of contestation against forces of repression are going to be
under conditions of tension it is safe to assume that many of them will
be under terms un-anarchistic. If the ends do not justify the means and
the means are evaluated as the mechanisms by which conflict would be
waged, this argument does not allow for vigorous conflict. War, by any
definition but the most tortured, is not anarchist. Put another way, you
cannot make revolution and keep your hands clean. Radical social
transformation is, just about, the most authoritarian action ever
undertaken. It is pretty hard to make an anarchist case to the contrary.
The two popular approaches today to this question hedge somewhat against
this question. The Mass Movement model implies that the radical
transformation of society through minority action of scale (whether it
be labor groups or the dispossessed) would mitigate the authoritarian
reality of imposing social transformation on a docile population. In
practice this model uses the language of democracy, and internally
democratic (also often representative) structures, to cloak its
oppositional and political (as in partisan) nature. If there were a Mass
Movement on the scale of even the American resistance to the Vietnam War
our generation would see these things in practice. Instead we watch or
participate as activists attempt to build a movement, with greater
concern to its efficacy in-this-world and its size than in its potential
structural and political constraints.
The people using the insurrectionary model argue that the decision to
make a radical break will happen in a time of crisis and that our task
is to encourage the conditions of this crisis. Additionally, they
encourage, this corresponds well with anarchist principles like direct
action, resisting the state, and “action without measure.” If the action
that anarchists take already corresponds to our desire, then the fact
that it may not result in a radical break is of little consequence. The
authoritarian aspects of this break will be shared with everyone who
participates on the day-of-days and therefore doesn’t have to be
examined today.
The means and ends question (and particularly the way we answer it)
prevents us from asking the hard questions about whether we are being
honest with ourselves about either the implications of our personal and
political practice or the consequences of those actions into the future.
Possibly the question of an anarchist army should be approached in
reference to a few libertarian revolutionary moments. The Russian
Revolution was not won with an army; the Bolsheviks filled a power
vacuum created by the handling of the German war and missteps of the
Provisional Government. The army was only needed to defend the
revolution. The Spanish Civil War was not fought by a specifically
anarchist army but a coalition of Anarchists, Communists, and Democrats.
The Paris Commune was inspired by the militias and rebelling army troops
but not by force of arms against the population as much as reaction to
the failure of the Franco-Prussian War.
If there is a lesson to draw here it is not so much that there is the
need for an anarchist army but a need to be able to communicate with
members of the military when morale is low. If the new film Sir! No Sir!
reminds us of anything it is that members of the military are not
unthinking automatons. This should be particularly clear after hearing
the stories of the latest Gulf War when tens of thousands of Reserve
soldiers gave up their daily lives. As we have forgotten the story of
the rebellion within the Army in Vietnam we will not hear the story of
the people who have rejected their orders to be stationed in Iraq.
Even if we were to reject the basic canon of modern anarchists that the
ends do not justify the means we still would not advocate for an
anarchist army. Social struggles of the past have not required such
artificial contrivances, the exposure to the forces of repression that
such an effort would cause would be incredible, and the paradigm of
social conflict that such a question embeds is archaic. When struggle
ensues next it will not look anything like redcoats lining up against
bluecoats. It will likely not look like militias holding the line
against the forces of counter-revolution. It will likely be a total
surprise.
Next time we are going to develop more of the consequences of the
means-and-ends conundrum. What use is talking about strategy if we are
not willing to act in the world? Can we stand still on a moving train?
I want to apologize for the terminology I am about to use. I believe
that this information, on the militaristic approach to problem solving,
is important information for those who are seen as the problems. In
understanding this approach I have used militaristic language that
converts humans and groups into units, squads, and platoons. This
language is par for the course given their intentions but it is
important to draw a clear distinction between their mentality, our
education, and how we would want to apply this knowledge. I strongly
discourage using their terms and methodology in contexts that we choose
to involve ourselves with. Naming is power.
At the Our Lives Ahead conference this summer I attended an interesting
workshop on Crowd Control & Street Tactics led by an ex-National
Guardsman who had been through several sessions of (anti) protest
training. This person led the room full of people through exercises that
included marching, baton handling, formations, and an introduction to
crowd control. It was interesting to see the reactions of the attendees
to this education, to guess at what trainees experience during similar
situations in the Guard, and see how the attendees transformed through
the process of the techniques taught in the workshop. Additionally, the
strategic implications of this workshop demand reflection.
What was not surprising, given the context of 1) video game culture, 2)
the attendance of several boys around the age of 16–20 and 3) the
presence of sections of PVC pipe serving as metaphorical batons, was the
level of horseplay, phallic and weaponized. More surprising was exactly
how quickly the group of baton-wielding humans turned into a scary,
seemingly trained, group of crowd-controlling automatons. As an observer
I could feel the terror of how easy it would be for these people to hurt
me, how it would be possible for them to do it without compassion (as I
was not part of the group), and how attractive being on the other side
of this line was for the participants.
These were not bad people. They were goofy, young, activist types who
wanted to understand the specifics of how they are terrorized by armored
thugs when they go to protest events. However, the logic of formations
and batons was far more powerful than the intentions of the people who
participated in that training. The feeling of pushing other people
around, and having group approval to do it, to have the stick instead of
merely being right, was the lesson.
I have no doubt that the majority of the people who went through this
training and experienced this will not become cops or automatons but
will remember the power of simple techniques in controlling people. A
lot of time and energy is spent by social scientists and military
functionalists to come up with these techniques and they use several
metrics to determine success. Are the techniques actually usable to
achieve their primary goal? Do they achieve their secondary goals? Are
the techniques trainable?
Regarding crowd control there can be several primary goals: containment,
dispersal, and immobilization. The training that the NG uses (as
demonstrated in the workshop cited above) focuses on formations, baton
control, and technology to accomplish their primary goal. They are less
interested in immobilization (and capture) than a police force would be.
Secondary goals include maintaining unit morale, demonstration of force,
and mobility. The implication of the question of morale is of much more
concern with the NG than with the police because of their voluntary
rather than professional status and the limitations of their training.
Finally, and related to the first two issues, is the idea that while
certain techniques may be more effective at tactical containment and
dispersal, their training and implementation require professionalism
that doesn’t exist in the National Guard.
The bulk of the training in the workshop reflected what would be
necessary in an NG unit. The formation training was simple but distilled
the basic formation types in a brief period of time. The line formation
is the classic crowd control formation with the unit, a squad of eight,
facing the crowd in a single file line with squad leaders in a receded
line. Three squads (in the context of NG) comprise a platoon.
The column formation is used to move a unit from one point to another.
Other formations (the wedge or square) were also taught but their use,
in a modern context, is related more to team building and hierarchical
self-identification than to practical pursuits. The baton training was
similarly simple and boiled down to two actions, using the baton to push
a crowd and using the baton to hold and shape the line formation. Since
the goal of the presentation, and the training generally, is to hold the
line rather than to beat a crowd (we will get into the reasons for this
in a minute) baton use is a strategic rather than a tactical
consideration. It is more important that everyone is doing the same
thing rather than anyone being particularly proficient — never mind
skilled — in baton use.
This training is markedly different from police training in a number of
regards. Police have a primary goal of immobilization leading to
prosecution, which means that even in the context of the traditional
line formation they have additional operational forces than the
corresponding NG unit (although it is possible to imagine NG units using
these special units in many situations). The linebackers (what we
usually refer to as the snatch squad) have mobility behind and in front
of the line and use cues to target and immobilize members (usually
perceived leaders) of a crowd. They usually do not dress in uniform but
are known to wear either some sort of marker (including visible badges,
armbands, hats, etc) or use hand signals to pass through control lines.
Many crowd control situations include several kinds of grenadiers using
a variety of types of projectile weapons against crowds. These include,
but are not limited to, tear gas canisters, projectile rubber batons,
rubber bullets, beanbags, wooden dowels, tear gas projectiles (fired
from paint ball guns with the same form factor), and water cannons.
An article from the FBI informs about police innovation in crowd control
over the past decade. “Riot Response: An Innovative Approach” (1997)
distills the lessons of the LA riots into a few simple lessons. This is
a lesson you will not see applied in an NG context but only in one where
the units are highly trained. Whereas the traditional line formation
(the Skirmish Line) has made sense in a variety of contexts, it
de-emphasizes mobility and flexibility in the interest of containment
and dispersal. The FBI proposes the Augmented Skirmish Line, where
squad-level units can act semi-autonomously (they are still directed by
a platoon leader), thereby allowing for a greater degree of granularity
in achieving primary goals. The second proposal is the creation of TANGO
(Tactically Aggressive and Necessary Gambit of Options) squads. The
TANGO squad is essentially a high tech snatch squad that waits behind
police lines until deployed against so-called aggressive targets. “The
Tango Team can bring to bear the entire spectrum of use-of-force options
from command presence through deadly force — in a controlled,
self-contained package.”
Developing an understanding of the mentality and tactics of
state-sponsored groups stands on its own as a worthwhile activity for
anti-statists. The state’s reliance on simple objectives and techniques
to accomplish complicated tasks is a testament to the amount of human,
intellectual effort that is put into these problems. The abandonment by
the planners and participants in these activities of their own
individuality and critical thought is but one horrible consequence.
Another is the complex and scientific examination of what works to
disturb, terrify, and isolate individuals, done by the planning class
and implemented by the participant class. These processes of social
abandonment and social quantification are two mechanisms that anarchists
can avoid in their own practice and in their understanding of how to
engage with each other. Recognizing these traits in the state’s behavior
can allow some forewarning of the specifics of their intentions.
Developing ideas on how to foil these processes should continue to
inspire our activity.
Board games are immensely popular in Germany where some recent games are
a genre unto themselves. German-style board games combine thoughtful
play, some strategic elements, and enough randomness to make games
competitive for different levels of players. They usually do not include
elements like player elimination or complicated calculations. They tend
toward themes rather than abstraction (think Risk rather than Chess).
While some of these games have become popular in North America, the
difference between the German family sitting at the dinner table playing
a board game and an American family whose only time together is spent
watching television speaks volumes about the difference between the two
societies.
An interesting characteristic of German Games (GG) is the exploitation
of different kinds of game processes, which makes a game more playable
for more types of players — if not more satisfying. Competitive players,
new players, and casual gamers can all enjoy German-style board games.
Recently I was at the home of a co-worker, where we played a highly
modified version of Settlers of Cataan, the most popular GG in North
America. These house rules softened most of the hard elements of the
game (namely the elements that are competitive and aggressive) to make
the game more pleasant for some of the players. The result is that the
number of ways to win the game were drastically reduced, more time was
spent setting up the pieces (the technics of the game) than actually
playing it, and the lifespan of the game (the amount of time it would
take to grow bored of it) was greatly reduced. Our hosts did not realize
that it is the complexity-through-simplicity of Settlers of Cataan that
makes it appealing, rather than the hard or soft elements of the game.
These house rules apparently worked for my hosts but made the game, on
the whole, less engaging to me and the other non-house players.
On the flipside of this kind of play, a small circle of us around town
have taken to playing Settlers of Cataan with some regularity. Our games
are, to put it gently, rough. Rough enough that people who are turned
off by competitive environments steer clear of our games altogether and
only a few types of personalities stick with the playing. The play
itself is an odd combination of psychological conflict, harsh laughter,
and the different personalities. Along with the boorish alpha males
(among whom I count myself) are the pre-postal uptight white people, and
the people who play to lose. The gaming becomes a microcosm of the
political universe most of us have a desire to escape.
Those who refuse to play write off the whole practice as
more-of-the-same and while they are right, their analysis raises a
question. How do we break patterns, socialize, or engage in any project,
if we don’t do it with the full knowledge of who we are working with?
How do they deal with pressure? How do they win and how do they lose?
What if, instead of judging the merits of an activity (like a board
game) on its political palatability or how anarchist it is, we evaluate
games on criteria like rule implementation, effective symbolism, and
relation to life outside the game? Rather than focus on the correctness
of a perspective or how it will play to the Lowest Common Denominator,
we could focus on systemic flexibility. For example, if our goal is to
have a pleasant evening, we first have to provide for chatty and
competitive people; second, provide enough structure to give our evening
a beginning, middle and an end; third, allow enough fluidity for
everyone to feel included in each part of the evening and the game.
Warfare has heretofore entailed the strategic placement of material and
actors. Resolution invariably reflected the amount of material placed,
positional superiority, and/or the kind of violence inflicted by the
actors. The major conflicts of the twentieth century were of this type;
one brutal violent machine pressing against another — grinding people in
between.
The twenty-first century (especially if you start the 21^(st) century
immediately at the fall of the Berlin Wall) holds the possibility of
transforming (a)social violence beyond all recognition. There will still
be terror raining from the sky (at least until the fuel runs out) but
the likelihood of another conflict where rival factions place nearly
identical military units on a battlefield to slug it out for a hill or a
city seems as quaint as lining up redcoats in the city square. It could
still happen, but the past 20 years doesn’t lead one to believe it will.
Birthrates, new holy wars (the Fedayeen vs. the Neo-Cons), food riots,
fuel riots, and suicide bombing comprise modern elements to conflicts in
this epoch. They aren’t icons that can be placed on a battlefield by
disinterested generals. These are not vectors with one dimension. They
are markers to a conflict in a multi-dimensional universe. They
represent forces that combine ideology and power in such measure as to
defy (post)modernist categorization.
Anarchism has become both more like a game and more like non-traditional
warfare since the twentieth century came to a close. On the one hand the
goals of anarchism have become as varied as life in society. No longer
are anarchists chained to the role of leftist partisans,
givers-of-charity, martyrs, or villains. Anarchists can be book sellers,
academics, carpenters, and a thousand other things. Anarchism, as a goal
and a practice, is something that brings joy to the practitioners or is
a habit to be shunned. Anarchists are either people we enjoy playing
with or they should return to the gray.
On the other hand, the methods by which Capitalism and the State will be
defeated (in North America at least) will not look like organizing the
workplace, selling newspapers, or chanting the name of our fearless
leader. It will probably not look like black masks and broken windows
either, but it is likely there will be both. It is likely that if a
near-total transformation is to happen, it will be by NTW
(non-traditional warfare). It will be because of rioting, IEDs
(improvised explosive devices), and un-mappable violence in the belly of
the beast. It is likely to look like attack-by-all-means. It will look
like raising children without aspirations toward the colonists, and
without hope. It will, if it is to occur, look like the last gasps of a
cultural regime that has run its course.
Our play today speaks, without comprehension, to this future. Knowing
the futility of running into planted pikes, we resign ourselves to this
play. But pikes are nothing but metal-capped staves.