Martin and Mao
In his treatise on guerrilla warfare, Mao stated the chilling point that the guerrilla army obtains much of its supplies from the opponent. After the opponent manufactures, packages and transports everything needed to operate an army, the guerrilla helps himself to the end of the logistics train. Time has proven that this concept is fundamental to a guerrilla war in which the weaker side invariably has difficulty accessing reliable sources of supply, particularly at the beginning of the war.
The underlying strategy is “profit from the opponent’s action.” Another example used by guerrillas is the agent provocateur who seeks to turn the population against the authorities by committing outrages and exploiting the resultant backlash.
M.L. King used this approach in a nonviolent manner during the civil rights movement. Local law enforcement would be encouraged to arrest civil rights workers who broke segregation laws so as to create a spectacle of victimhood (and often brutality) that would highlight moral heroes and villains. With few exceptions this strategy succeeded and the authorities’ lack of respectable morality was revealed.
