From Resistance to Victory: on the logic of emancipatory warfare

Resistance

Humans seem to be inescapably bound to a position of double pressure. On the one hand, they are constricted by the limits of the mortality of their flesh, and by the finitude of the resources which surround them. On the other, they endure the weight of a system of abstract thoughts which, as well as ‘lifting’ them above the mortal world, also threatens them with sets of impossible demands. It is within this structure, I believe, that we should understand the meaning and practice of resistance.

At the same time stuck and enhanced by these two invisible neighbors, human life unfolds as constant negotiation between them. In its struggle to resist the pressure of mortality, and in their quest for what we could define synthetically as ‘health’, humans employ their ability for abstract thought. This is what is at heart, for example, of the development of science, technology, art and philosophy, but also, and most importantly, of politics.  Perhaps it is politics, understood as the management of all available resources with the aim of enabling the enjoyment of life, above any other human practice, that constitutes our way of resisting the uncanny proximity of death.

Addressing the void at the heart of our mortal condition – the whirlpool of death, which hollows and structures mortality – politics attempt to contain it, with the aid of abstract thought and structures. Conversely, as it addresses the void at the heart of our abstract thinking – the abyss which has ‘God’ as one of its thousand names – radical atheism tries to dam its edges, aided by the soft desires and necessities of our living, mortal flesh.

I defined as resistance such attitude towards both these kinds of pressure, since the specific set of multiplicities which we call ‘human being’ is not only limited, but also deeply structured by them. Resistance, then, when no victory is ever possible or even desirable.

War and Politics

How are we then to interpret the use of the word resistance, as commonly employed when discussing so-called ‘political’ resistance?

First of all, we must begin by clarifying the meaning of politics, and disentangle it from the militaristic acceptations that have been superimposed to it. When we discuss about politics, that is, literally, ‘what has to do with the polis’, we are not investigating the causes at the origin of Society, as in a Hobbesian or Rousseauian fantasy. We not asking ourselves the historically impossible question of why people decided to congregate in Society: we are questioning why they – us – accept to remain within Society.

If we are to discard any transcendental explanation, we are left with the simple consideration that people accept to live within Society because of the benefits that associated life can offer to them. Politics, as the essence of associated life, is thus to be understood not only primarily, but exclusively, as the provision of free and universal services to all members of society, regardless of their transcendental ‘belonging’ to the abstract body of the Nation or Ethnicity.

Having thus defined politics, we can infer that such field is devoid of that warring antagonism which seems to pervade the current, common understanding of what politics is. As the scope of politics is one and one only – the universal provision of free services, which is at the heart of the justification of the existence of Society as such – political practice is a matter of administration rather than of conflicting interests.

Conflict, however, cannot be obliterated from our understanding of societal dynamics. Its place, however, should be located at the border of politics, and not at its heart. War – which is conflict’s true name – often appears as a field stretching at the doors of politics, precluding access to it. It is also not a rare occurrence that, like an eclipse, war casts its long shadow well inside the field of politics. Such eclipses, unfortunately, seem to constitute the norm rather than the exception, as they have characterised most historical examples of so-called ‘politics’, which are in fact nothing else but an occupation of the political field by that of the military. Any ‘political’ system which in any way maintains domination of humans over humans as a constituent part of its functioning, is to be deemed in no way as political, but as an aberrant outgrowth of the military logic.

The Logics of War

Following from the distinction between war and politics, we should now be able to reconsider what is commonly understood as ‘political resistance’, and possibly also to readdress its strategies and finalities.

As it exists within the field of war – and of war only – such ‘political resistance’ should be kept as far as possible from the very concept of resistance. By definition, resistance is a struggle against an invincible enemy, against which is only possible to engage in a fight to the last man, not in the pursuit of a happy life, but of a glorious death. There is no place in warfare for resistance, apart than as part of the ‘feasts for the dogs and birds’ sung in the opening lines of the Iliad. The logics of war proceed as simple and straightforward as the flight of an arrow: war is a process which aims at victory and at victory only. And the enabling of politics, whenever war lies at its borders, is the only prize for victory.

What can be the use of the concept of resistance, within the logics of war?
None, unless our death-drive has managed to override completely the rationality with which we are endowed. The logics of resistance have to be discarded, unless we wish to find ourselves facing a dignified, or an undignified, defeat as the only options. Even when pushed into the corner by our military adversaries – as it often happens with us today, crushed between the heels of the State and those of financial capitalism – every action that we might decide to undertake against them, has to be marked by a defined tension towards war, and that is victory, rather than resistance.

This shift of perspective implies the assessment of a number of basic – yet revolutionary, if compared with today’s tactics on the left – general principles. Perhaps similarly to what many of our adversaries do in their MBA courses, we should diverge at least part of our attention from the texts of philosophy, and focus it on those of military strategy.

Due to space constraints, it won’t be possible to examine not even a relevant number of the concepts that should inform a strategy of warfare, as applied to so-called ‘political resistance’. However, I would like to consider a selection of four elements, which I believe to be particularly essential.

Enemies. Adversaries within a war context are called enemies. The category of the enemy – once it is purified of its Schmittian connotations, which define the opposition Friend vs. the Enemy as the founding act of the ‘political’ – allows one to identify an objective adversary, without having to attribute to them any essential ‘evilness’. Enemies are those who have to be defeated. It is not necessary to organise a moral trial to judge – or most often, to insist on – their supposed moral faults, their worthlessness, the moral justification for attacking them, etc. Enemies can simply be attacked as part of a wider strategy of war, without any need to brew resentment against them. Perhaps paradoxically, it is the very definition of adversaries as an enemies which allows us to treat them humanely: once their function as enemies on the battlefield is concluded, those who remain to face us are no longer enemies – or morally reprehensible, evil characters – but merely humans like us. One’s status of enemy ends outside the field of war, yet, within the battlefield, it is not mitigated by our common belonging to the human race. The age-long argument about policemen, for example, – which goes, “but if you get to talk to them they are just people like us,” – can be resolved by the category of the enemy. Police forces – as long as they protect primarily the interests of capital holders, disguised as those of the State – are indeed composed by humans like us, yet they are to be considered enemies nonetheless. And they have to be fought as such, without having to deny their humanity, or without being paralysed by it.

Terrain. Every confrontation takes place on different terrains. Every terrain offers different opportunities and resources, and requires different strategies and tactics. The fact that a terrain has not been occupied by you, does not mean that your enemy has not or will not occupy it. It is interesting to apply such simple principles to war in the field of media. Every medium of communication offers different opportunities and resources, and requires different strategies and tactics. Yet, the fact that anarchists and the emancipatory left decided long ago to desert certain terrains such as the mainstream media, does not mean that those terrains have disappeared. An array of forces, from the nationalist and religious right to the advocates of financial capitalism, have now occupied them almost completely. While specific battles only take place on one terrain at the time, wars always develop on all terrains simultaneously. Our presence on social media, internet, alternative media and so on is certainly positive, but by no means sufficient if it not accompanied by a similar presence on mainstream media. It would be possible to unfold this discourse within that of a strategy for hegemony. Yet, I believe that the very concept of hegemony – as disguised within the contemporary practice of ‘political resistance’ – should be re-valued in terms of its military, warring potential, rather than it common ‘political’ understanding. Hegemony has to do with war, not with politics.

Weapons. Each confrontation, each different enemy and terrain requires a different set of weapons. Equipment which functions in one context might not work in another. Few things are more foolish that entering a confrontation equipped with the wrong weapons. A misunderstanding of this simple principle is perhaps at the basis of several failures of recent emancipatory battles. Think for example of the suicidal electoral strategies of a number of small ultra-left parties all over Europe. Although they do not stand a chance of conquering any form institutional power, their running for elections achieves the hardly enviable results of legitimising electoral democracy while at the same time weakening the position of their more powerful neighbours on the left – thus failing both on a parliamentary and on a revolutionary level. Electoral competitions require certain weapons, which such mini-parties do not have. It would be better for them not to enter the electoral confrontation, or to enter bigger political formations and influence their choices from within, along the trajectories of alliance as described in the following paragraph. On the other hand, another example of the failure to grasp the simple principle of adequacy of weapons is provided by virtually any case of political demonstrations in the last few decades. While demonstrators descend on the streets as if they were entering the agora of ancient Athens, their counterparts in the cabinet and among the police force understand and construct the street as the field for a pitch battle. Countless demonstration anti-G8 summit, from 2001 onwards, have provided ample evidence of this. Raising hands, waving placards and chanting slogans not only does not achieve any effects in terms of political communication – especially in the age of police kettles – but also reveals a misunderstanding in terms of the required equipment for this type of confrontation. Black Bloc groups, with their unholy mix of highly representational violence and utter military ineffectiveness, are perhaps the starkest example of this. From Genoa 2001 to London in 2009, Black Bloc groups have infallibly managed to achieve no military victories, while providing the smokescreen behind which unbridled police brutality unleashed. Since ‘social movements’ and masses of demonstrators are not regular armies or guerrilla groups, they should better avoid entering battlefields in which they are only going to be savagely beaten. Until they have seized control of comparable armaments to that of their opponents – possibly simply by infiltrating the ranks of their enemies, as I argued elsewhere(2) – they should simply avoid at all costs such confrontations. They might fare well in terms of the martyrdom commonly praised as ‘political resistance,’ but they are pure foolishness from the perspective of war – and thus, of victory.

Allies. Having the right allies is possibly as essentially as picking the right equipment and terrain for one’s confrontation. The category of allies, similarly to that of enemies, offers that military clarity which is typically missing in most contemporary practices of emancipation. Allies are simply others fighting at your side, not your comrades or your friends. There is no necessity to build a ‘unified front’ with one’s allies. It is enough to coordinate the general effort, and agree on a set of shared objectives. The capitalist right, perhaps better than any other force today, has shown how a variegated and non-homogeneous front can achieve outstanding results. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of an alliance, as opposed to an (almost mystically) ‘united front’, lies in the possibility of each ally to maintain their unique strengths and ranges of action, which do not have to be sacrificed for the achievement of a monolithic unity. Just as the right is able to deploy on the field a front which includes semi-illegal, neo-nazi Tea Party members, populist formations such as the Taxpayer Alliance, financial elites and ‘respectable’ parliamentary forces such as the Conservative or Republican Party, so the emancipatory front has to be able to develop a similarly variegated composition. In this sense, it must be possible to imagine a broad alliance which spans from anarcho-syndicalist groups such as the British Solidarity Federation, to insurrectionists, to trade unions, all the way to institutional forces such as the Labour or Democratic Party. While the Solidarity Federation can accomplish tasks which would be precluded to institutional trade unions, the latter can achieve results which are only possible as part of a formal negotiation with employers. While insurrectionists can perform targeted actions which are well outside of the law, parties such as Labour can gain results which are only within grasp inside of the Parliament. And so on.

Conclusions

It is hard to conclude so abruptly such a wide-ranging discussion, but I plan to develop in the future the arguments contained in this article.

We began our discussion with a brief examination of some of the structural constraints of human beings, towards which they enact a double form of resistance. Then we characterised resistance as that type of struggle which cannot possibly result in victory, and we distinguished it from the practice and logics of war. After describing politics exclusively as the universal provision of free and public services – functional to enabling people to enjoy their life to the fullest – we separated the practice of politics from that of war. In our discussion of warfare, we focused on four essential aspects, which can provide a fundamental shift in our vision of the logics and strategies of conflict.

In this conclusion, I would like to open our discussion of emancipatory warfare to its ethical implications, in the light of what we discussed in the opening paragraphs of this article. Due to space constraints, I will simply trace a few lines of enquiries, which I hope can lead to further investigation.

While strategies of war belong to what we described as abstract thinking – as it is amply proved by the ideologies of militarism, which push such tendency towards abstraction to its extreme – we remarked that humans exist and can only exist as mortal bodies. How do we understand the negotiation between the mortality of the warriors, and the abstract immortality of their strategies?

Such negotiation unfolds along different planes, but it primarily interests two levels of interaction. On the one hand, humans must remember to submit warfare to the necessities, dreams and desires of their mortal flesh. War is aimed at victory, victory is the condition for the enactment of emancipatory politics, and politics is a practice entirely submitted to the mortal happiness of the mortal flesh. When war becomes an end in itself – as it happens, perhaps paradoxically, when it is aimed at the abstract, limit-concept of ‘peace’ instead of at that of victory – abstraction takes over, and militarism begins.
On the other hand, and due to the finalities of war, warriors must never believe in the possibility of sacrificing their lives in the pursuit of victory. Politics and victory are only for the living to enjoy, while nothing remains for those who have fallen. Martyrdom, like the glory sung by militarists, is nothing but a dangerous spook.

In our pursuit of a strategy for emancipatory warfare, we must be able to combine the ruthlessness of Machiavelli, the efficacy of Sun-Tzu, the flexibility of Clausewitz, the cunningness of Leo the Emperor of Byzantium, the insight of Guy Debord, and the uncompromising atheism of Max Stirner. In the bloody battlefields of the real world, and in the painful absence of politics on a mass scale, it is perhaps this unlikely front of references that can help philosophy to emerge from the loop in which it has long descended. So far, philosophy has discussed how to change the world, now it is time to actually do it.
 

 

 

 

(1) see 'Radical Atheism [1]'

(2) see F. Campagna, Radicalising the Armed Forces, in A. Lunghi & S. Wheeler (eds.), Occupy Everything, Minor Compositions, Autonomedia, New York, 2012, pp. 81-84

 

 

This article was originally published in Move...ment [2] (Bookworks, 2013), edited by Federica Bueti