The idea of non-violent civil defence is based entirely on this idea. The first step is to ensure everyone knows that just because the enemy has lots of armed men marching through the streets doesn’t mean you’ve lost. The second step is to be as uncooperative, incompetant, disruptive and annoying as possible to destroy the enemy’s will, and encourage them to give up and go home.
This will only work against enemies who are unwilling to make atrocities part of their official pacification doctrine. It took killing ~30% of (male?) Afghans to convert them to Islam.
On a slightly less odious level, collective punishment and population dispersal/resettlement work pretty well.
Yes, like all strategies it depends on the economic, geopolitical, and technological situation you find yourself in. If the enemy is willing to depopulate the land so that they can colonise it, then of course you’re not going to be able to win through non-cooperation but if they need you as workers then there comes a point where your willingness to sustain losses is so great that in order to blackmail you into submission they have to expend so many resources and destroy so much of their potential labour force that it’s not worth doing. That is, unless their goal is directly achieved by commiting atrocities, they are only ably to win by doing so if their willingness to commit atrocities (or other). Also, there’s the effect on morale of commiting atrocities. Iraqi soldiers described how disturbing Iranian Human Wave attacks were, and they were killing (para)military forces who were trying to kill them and invade their homeland. The psychological impact of killing civilians would presumably be much greater. Even if the leaders were willing to do so, the soldiers could lose their will to attack unarmed targets and have to be rotated out, which is expensive and could destroy the invader’s national will to fight. While the Prague invasion was ultimately able to suppress the Czechs (until the late ’80s) the Russians did have a lot of morale problems and needed to rotate their troops out very often.
Population dispersal and resettlement need to be worked out on a case by case basis. It may be possible and worthwhile to resist, depending on how able the enemy army is to physically pick up and drag the citizenry to the trains or whatever (or how well your side has prepared their supplies for being starved out). Population dispersal relies on the enemy being able to coerce you to move from one place to another, and can be considered in the same way as anything else the enemy wants to coerce you to do.
I’m not a pacifist, and I’m trying to avoid believing in it to seem wise (“violence doesn’t solve anything”) or be contrary (“Everyone thinks armed defence is necessary, so if I disagree it proves I’m smarter”), but as a non-expert I think it’s a plausible strategy. While it wouldn’t beat the Barbarians (just as standing in front of a trolley won’t stop it, no matter how fat you are), it could beat many real world enemies.
I wonder how well this would have worked on the Mongols? They were certainly willing to slaughter all the inhabitants of a city that resisted—but if you shut up and paid your taxes they usually wouldn’t kill you. I don’t know what they would do with people who were willing to give up their property but not willing to perform labor for them. The Mongols frequently conscripted artisans, engineers, and other skilled workers from conquered peoples into performing supporting roles in their armies—saying “no” was probably a good way to get a sword run through you.
The idea of non-violent civil defence is based entirely on this idea. The first step is to ensure everyone knows that just because the enemy has lots of armed men marching through the streets doesn’t mean you’ve lost. The second step is to be as uncooperative, incompetant, disruptive and annoying as possible to destroy the enemy’s will, and encourage them to give up and go home.
This will only work against enemies who are unwilling to make atrocities part of their official pacification doctrine. It took killing ~30% of (male?) Afghans to convert them to Islam.
On a slightly less odious level, collective punishment and population dispersal/resettlement work pretty well.
Yes, like all strategies it depends on the economic, geopolitical, and technological situation you find yourself in. If the enemy is willing to depopulate the land so that they can colonise it, then of course you’re not going to be able to win through non-cooperation but if they need you as workers then there comes a point where your willingness to sustain losses is so great that in order to blackmail you into submission they have to expend so many resources and destroy so much of their potential labour force that it’s not worth doing. That is, unless their goal is directly achieved by commiting atrocities, they are only ably to win by doing so if their willingness to commit atrocities (or other). Also, there’s the effect on morale of commiting atrocities. Iraqi soldiers described how disturbing Iranian Human Wave attacks were, and they were killing (para)military forces who were trying to kill them and invade their homeland. The psychological impact of killing civilians would presumably be much greater. Even if the leaders were willing to do so, the soldiers could lose their will to attack unarmed targets and have to be rotated out, which is expensive and could destroy the invader’s national will to fight. While the Prague invasion was ultimately able to suppress the Czechs (until the late ’80s) the Russians did have a lot of morale problems and needed to rotate their troops out very often. Population dispersal and resettlement need to be worked out on a case by case basis. It may be possible and worthwhile to resist, depending on how able the enemy army is to physically pick up and drag the citizenry to the trains or whatever (or how well your side has prepared their supplies for being starved out). Population dispersal relies on the enemy being able to coerce you to move from one place to another, and can be considered in the same way as anything else the enemy wants to coerce you to do.
I’m not a pacifist, and I’m trying to avoid believing in it to seem wise (“violence doesn’t solve anything”) or be contrary (“Everyone thinks armed defence is necessary, so if I disagree it proves I’m smarter”), but as a non-expert I think it’s a plausible strategy. While it wouldn’t beat the Barbarians (just as standing in front of a trolley won’t stop it, no matter how fat you are), it could beat many real world enemies.
I wonder how well this would have worked on the Mongols? They were certainly willing to slaughter all the inhabitants of a city that resisted—but if you shut up and paid your taxes they usually wouldn’t kill you. I don’t know what they would do with people who were willing to give up their property but not willing to perform labor for them. The Mongols frequently conscripted artisans, engineers, and other skilled workers from conquered peoples into performing supporting roles in their armies—saying “no” was probably a good way to get a sword run through you.