Modern examples of a similar strategy- terrorists- seem to not be terribly effective at enacting their political goals.
That’s far from the truth. Leaders seem to give them exactly what they want and the terrorists have success beyond anything they could have hoped for. At the rationalist boot camp we had some fun calculating the amount of economic damage caused by one attempted act of terrorism with a shoe bomb that failed. The extra time spent every day by Americans at airports waiting in lines to take off their shoes is hilarious (to anyone for whom costs measured in dollars do not have the instinctive salience that costs in pain and death do when multiplied out). Then there are the effects that 9/11 had on instilling fear (overt goal!), undermining legal rights and causing about a billion dollars worth of expenditure on war per 9/11 victim.
You obviously consider terrorism to not be successful and so we have a significant disagreement there but probably not one that we need to get into. Because ‘terrorism works’ is so incredibly political and it isn’t something I am trying to claim here. I would concede the point for the sake of the argument because I am not advocating terrorism (of the kind you describe).
Blowing up the oppressor’s civilians is terribly impractical. It just costs far too much in terms of lives of your people. Reserve blowing up the enemy’s civilians unless you have a way to make it look like it was the doing of a rival of your enemy—then it is just about perfect! No, you kill whichever enemy leader is the most hostile to your people. If the situation has escalated such that the enemy is making reprisals against civilians then you probably should expand the assassination to “leaders who ordered civilians killed plus their family if convenient”. Whatever it takes to make the replacement figure of power desperate to make the other guy be the one to take the initiative on the tyranny front.
It’s not always going to work—some fights can’t be won no matter what you do. Some fights aren’t worth fighting at all. And most of the time it is better to let some other guy do the fighting and dying for you if you can manage it.
That’s far from the truth. Leaders seem to give them exactly what they want and the terrorists have success beyond anything they could have hoped for. At the rationalist boot camp we had some fun calculating the amount of economic damage caused by one attempted act of terrorism with a shoe bomb that failed.
By “political goals” I meant things like “remove American soldiers from Saudi Arabia” not “divert American effort towards protection,” as we were originally discussing independence efforts rather than destructive efforts. I agree with you that terrorism is very effective at getting people to spend money on defense. What I am looking for, and do not see, is many terrorist groups that make the transition from oppressed minority to political leadership. The Tamil Tigers were crushed after 9/11 made funding terrorism passe, the IRA managed to get a truce with Britain but then turned on itself in a civil war. Palestine doesn’t seem much of a success story, given the dominance of Israel.
To the best of my knowledge, no contemporary group has tried the Ismaili strategy you advocate. I don’t know enough to say why.
That’s far from the truth. Leaders seem to give them exactly what they want and the terrorists have success beyond anything they could have hoped for. At the rationalist boot camp we had some fun calculating the amount of economic damage caused by one attempted act of terrorism with a shoe bomb that failed. The extra time spent every day by Americans at airports waiting in lines to take off their shoes is hilarious (to anyone for whom costs measured in dollars do not have the instinctive salience that costs in pain and death do when multiplied out). Then there are the effects that 9/11 had on instilling fear (overt goal!), undermining legal rights and causing about a billion dollars worth of expenditure on war per 9/11 victim.
You obviously consider terrorism to not be successful and so we have a significant disagreement there but probably not one that we need to get into. Because ‘terrorism works’ is so incredibly political and it isn’t something I am trying to claim here. I would concede the point for the sake of the argument because I am not advocating terrorism (of the kind you describe).
Blowing up the oppressor’s civilians is terribly impractical. It just costs far too much in terms of lives of your people. Reserve blowing up the enemy’s civilians unless you have a way to make it look like it was the doing of a rival of your enemy—then it is just about perfect! No, you kill whichever enemy leader is the most hostile to your people. If the situation has escalated such that the enemy is making reprisals against civilians then you probably should expand the assassination to “leaders who ordered civilians killed plus their family if convenient”. Whatever it takes to make the replacement figure of power desperate to make the other guy be the one to take the initiative on the tyranny front.
It’s not always going to work—some fights can’t be won no matter what you do. Some fights aren’t worth fighting at all. And most of the time it is better to let some other guy do the fighting and dying for you if you can manage it.
By “political goals” I meant things like “remove American soldiers from Saudi Arabia” not “divert American effort towards protection,” as we were originally discussing independence efforts rather than destructive efforts. I agree with you that terrorism is very effective at getting people to spend money on defense. What I am looking for, and do not see, is many terrorist groups that make the transition from oppressed minority to political leadership. The Tamil Tigers were crushed after 9/11 made funding terrorism passe, the IRA managed to get a truce with Britain but then turned on itself in a civil war. Palestine doesn’t seem much of a success story, given the dominance of Israel.
To the best of my knowledge, no contemporary group has tried the Ismaili strategy you advocate. I don’t know enough to say why.