On Feb 6, 2014, at 12:59 AM, Bill Bartlett <william7 at aapt.net.au> wrote:
> Well we agree that non-violence as a fetish achieves little, but I think we are at odds about its strategic versus tactical value. This is no minor point, because no war is won without appropriate strategies. As Ho Chi Minh put it:
>
> when the strategy is right and tactics wrong battles may be lost but the war will be won
>
> when the strategy is wrong and tactics are right battles may be won but the war will be lost
Far be it from me to argue with Ho Chi Minh. And of course strategy vs. tactics is not at all a clear-cut distinction. But I'm not quite sure what 'nonviolence as strategy' might mean, unless it's the eschewal of violence. I don't think Ho Chi Minh would have signed up for that; at any rate, he didn't.
But no doubt I've missed Bill's point. I'd like to hear more specifics about what it means to embrace nonviolence as a strategy.
Of course I can't resist the observation that one can have neither strategy nor tactics unless one commands forces. But perhaps that's ill-natured.