Against Pacifist Linearity

This is the second pamphlet of the Tactical Analysis Series. Following Gelderloos we can all say that pacifism is tactically problematic, but why? It is not enough to just point out the usual outcomes of pacifist failure. Rather the problem goes to the heart of pacifist linearity, the attempt to impose an ethical and conceptual framework in fluid and particular moments. The basis of the failure of pacifism lies in the failure to interact with situations in a tactical way, opting rather for the attempted imposition of conceptual frameworks in tactical situations. As the previous pamphlet in the series explains, police tactical analysis is constructed off a similar attempt, the attempt to make the tactical situation conceptually legible in the process of developing tactical operations to attempt to operate this conceptual universe as a tactical terrain. Pacifism fails not because of the rejection of self-defense or offensive attack, it fails because in its simple positing of limits generates an already legible situation without any contingency, a situation that is already decelerated and demobilized at the point of deployment.