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Title: War by Assassination Author: John Filiss Language: en Topics: primitivist, strategy, war Source: Retrieved on 29 January 2011 http://www.primitivism.com/assassination.htm
The capacity for warfare is both the ultimate justification and great
curse of the state. And the problem of both war and the state is, sadly,
one of the deepest tragedies of the human condition.
The following is one possible solution to the problem.
War as it has been played out throughout so much of history and into the
present day accepts a basic authoritarian assumption that quite possibly
accounts for almost the entire horror of warfare. That assumption is
that a nation’s leadership, and by implication the individuals who are
instrumental in enacting a state of war, should be immune from the fray.
The idea that warfare should consist of a clashing of arms between
soldiers and often the populations of the afflicted countries is
accepted without question, when in truth the first front of warfare
should be against the perpetrators of war themselves...its leaders,
architects, and profiteers.
If Nation A declares war on Nation B, then the most astute response on
the part of the population of Nation B is to target the leadership of
Nation A, given their initiative in creating a state of war. Not only is
this the most direct and least tragic solution, it is hard to imagine a
better deterrent to war than the knowledge that those who perpetrate it
will be targeted in proportion to their culpability.
The rub in the above example is that while the above actions on the part
of Nation B may be the wisest for the general population, they are not
necessarily the best solution for the heads of state of Nation B, since
Nation A will likely retaliate by trying to target the Nation B
leadership as well. Thus a certain “king’s agreement” of mutual
protection, one where the leadership is not directly targeted, has
reigned through so much of history. Exceptions in the modern world are
mostly confined to the conclusions of full-scale wars, where one country
is largely at the mercy of the other and hence not deemed a threat in
its ability to respond in kind; [1] or in cases where a nation’s
government is already inculcated in activities that could be perceived
as evoking an assassination threat against a nation’s head of state,
hence abrogating the king’s agreement.
It is important to note, that I am using the term “king’s agreement” to
describe not so much a conscious awareness of the mechanism described,
but what is apparently a feature of conditioning by authority that
applies to all of us in accepting the status quo of war.
What is fascinating is that, while we more or less accept the true
nature of war, it is not the image that is usually sold to us in the
West as justification. What both the government and the media commonly
do is focus upon particular personalities, usually the active or titular
head of the opposing nation, as malefactor and cause for the current
aggression. There is often a backdrop of a hostile governing elite,
e.g., Taliban, Politburo, etc., that is painted in to complete the
picture, but animosity towards entire populations is a relatively minor
theme, at least in the West. [2]
The media and government don’t focus on leadership personalities
primarily as an exercise in deception, but in response to what is
ultimately a humanitarian impulse. Few people really want to focus on
mass slaughter of the enemy population as the goal of warfare...rather,
they want a limited number of specific culprits who can be blamed for
hostilities. Unfortunately, even the best-intentioned modes of
contemporary warfare fail to show the same extreme prejudice in choice
of targets. I think we can do better. A system of war by assassination
effectively rips the facade off of war in that you are actually fighting
the perceived enemy, and not those under the enemy’s rule.
One of the most important features of war by assassination is its
portability to the needs of stateless and even cashless societies. The
issue of war by hostile states has been perhaps the hardest conundrum
for primitive societies, as well as proposed anarchist societies. [3]
While not necessarily a panacea for all the problems these societies
might face on this front, it is far more credible an approach in facing
off against the state than using conventional warfare, and much more
appealing than guerilla warfare. A more decentralized society may even
have a slight advantage in implementing this against a state, as the
latter is relatively more dependent on a particular leadership.
What might a system of war by assassination look like?
involving the payout of very large sums of money (although still small
relative to the costs of traditional modes of warfare). The sums of
money would have to be substantive to warrant the effort...they should
in fact be representative of the value of that individual’s death to the
paying nation. Moreover, there should be ransoms of varying amounts
placed on multiple key individuals within the target government or
terrorist organization. Not only can this potentially cut a broad swathe
through the target’s leadership, which will often be necessary anyway,
but it considerably increases the likelihood that any private mercenary
efforts can recoup capital investments and, naturally, be well rewarded
for the considerable risk of their undertaking.
intangibles as being a national hero and the gratitude of the peoples
rescued from the horrors of invasion. While this may sound ineffectual
in comparison with the cash bounty system described above, cashless
societies are generally far smaller in population and land area than are
societies utilizing some form of cash. Hence, they tend to be much less
valuable to an aggressor nation. [4] This reduced value can balance out
their reduced capacity to generate a thorough and effective response.
And of course, idealism and the desire to effectively protect one’s
homeland for invasion may be other relevant factors.
needed. These forces can be either governmental or private or both.
Private mercenary groups that would implement specific assassination
policies can be funded as necessary by speculators.
policies. This can involve disappearance via identity changes similar to
those performed by the United State’s Witness Protection Program, and
relocation to parts of the country or the world that would afford them
minimum risk of exposure.
policies, allowance should be made for the bounty to be paid to the
assassin’s family or designated beneficiaries.
It is not the author’s intent to emphasize a particular approach to
warfare as an adjunct to conventional warfare or warfare by any other
means, but to elucidate a method that effectively targets the
individuals concerned with creating war, thus giving them a powerful
incentive to avoid war, including war by assassination, altogether. In
upping the ante by making the act of war more personal for those
involved in its initiation and maintenance, it makes the use of
diplomacy and a more considered foreign policy far more appealing to a
country’s leadership. At its best, the acceptance of war by
assassination is a powerful check on the growth and depredations of
governments. At its worst, it is a sometimes useful tool to avoiding the
needless deaths of innocents, i.e., “collateral damage,” when nations
clash.
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[1] And even these instances usually involve some form of trial, e.g.,
those at Nuremburg following WWII.
[2] It is, however, much more common in wars with a religious or ethnic
basis, i.e., where the differences between cultures can’t be credibly
ascribed to a particular leadership. Conflicts of this nature may be
more resistant to resolution by an assassination approach, but the open
adoption of this method as a valid means of warfare does gives the
leadership a powerful incentive to forestall the breakout of
hostilities.
[3] To give but one example, in The Machinery of Freedom,
anarcho-capitalist David Friedman titles the relevant chapter “National
Defense: The Hard Problem” to denote the very real difficulties the
issue of war poses for an anarchist society, and writes “I would not try
to abolish that last vestige of government” should his proposals for
defending an anarchist society against a hostile state be inadequate.
[4] However, this safeguard can be overridden if any particularly
valuable resource is found on the land of a primitive society that does
not wish to capitalize on it, or in any small society occupying an area
that attains a crucial strategic importance to much greater powers.