Violence against Civilians as a Political Strategy

Abstract

This chapter demonstrates how targeted violence against civilians in amoral communities should be understood first and foremost as a political strategy. It then distinguishes between a political strategy and a military strategy while recognizing that the two may be complementary and used simultaneously by warring armies, political leaders, and the populations these leaders claim to represent. The main distinguishing feature is that a political strategy is characterized by the targeting of individuals who are defined by their political ethnicity and excluded from the envisioned nation-state or nation-body. Violence used as a political strategy may include individualized tactics, such as the torture, rape, harassment, and arrest of civilians in territory that was already conquered, as well as targeted massacres, looting, the burning of property, the destruction of cultural symbols, and the destruction of infrastructure. From the perspective of military strategy, some of these actions may be considered irrational, unnecessary, and ultimately destructive; however, when analyzed from the perspective of political strategy, a consistent pattern can be seen in the acts that target individuals who are perceived by the perpetrators as “political enemies” based on not only their ethnicity but also their political views.