The 33 Strategies of War (86 page)

Although the phrase "passive aggression" has negative connotations for most of us, as conscious strategy passive-aggressive behavior offers an insidiously powerful way of manipulating people and waging personal war. Like Metternich, you must operate on two fronts. You are outwardly agreeable, apparently bending to people's ideas, energy, and will, changing shape like Proteus himself. Remember: people are willful and perverse. Opposing them directly or trying to change their ideas will often have the contrary effect. A passive, compliant front, on the other hand, gives them nothing to fight against or resist. Going along with their energy gives you the power to divert it in the direction you want, as if you were channeling a river rather than trying to dam it. Meanwhile the aggressive part of your strategy takes the form of infecting people with subtle changes in their ideas and with an energy that will make them act on your behalf. Their inability to get what you are doing in focus gives you room to work behind the scenes, checking their progress, isolating them from other people, luring them into dangerous moves that make them dependent on your support. They think you are their ally. Behind a pleasant, compliant, even weak front, you are pulling the strings.

This was the real achievement of Metternich's policy, that it had killed Russian liberalism and achieved a measure of domination over Austria's most dangerous rival in the guise of submitting to him.

--Henry Kissinger,
A World Restored
(1957)

In this postscript on the solution of Caesar's problem, it is not our intention to trace Octavian's rise to power from the time he arrived in Rome to claim his inheritance until, in 31
B.C.
, with the aid of Vipsanius Agrippa, he defeated Antony and Cleopatra at Actium and became master of the Roman world. Instead, it is to describe in brief how as such he solved Caesar's problem and established a peace which was to last for over 200 years. When he contemplated the empire he had won and its heterogeneous local governments and peoples, he realized that it was far too large and complex to be ruled by the council of a city state; that instead it demanded some form of one-man rule, and that his problem was how to disguise it. From the outset he decided not to tamper with the constitution of the Republic, or contemplate monarchy....... Firstly, in 28
B.C.
he declined all honours calculated to remind the Romans of the kingly power; adopted the title of princeps ("first citizen"), and called his system the Principate. Secondly, he accepted all the old conventions--consuls, tribunes, magistrates, elections, etc. Thirdly, instead of ignoring the Senate and insulting its members as Caesar had done, he went out of his way to consult it and placate them. Lastly, on January 13, 27
B.C.
, at a session of the Senate, he renounced all his extraordinary powers and placed them at the disposal of the Senate and the people. And when the senators begged him to resume them and not to abandon the Commonwealth he had saved, he yielded to their request and consented to assume proconsular authority over an enlarged province, which included Spain, Gaul, Syria, Cilicia, and Cyprus, while the Senate was left with the remaining provinces. Thus in semblance the sovereignty of the Senate and the people was restored; but in fact, because his enlarged province comprised the majority of the legions, and Egypt, over which he ruled as king...the basis of political power passed into his hands. Three days later the Senate decreed that the title "Augustus" (the Revered) should be conferred upon him.

J
ULIUS
C
AESAR
, J.F.C. F
ULLER
, 1965

KEYS TO WARFARE

We humans have a particular limitation to our reasoning powers that causes us endless problems: when we are thinking about someone or about something that has happened to us, we generally opt for the simplest, most easily digestible interpretation. An acquaintance is good or bad, nice or mean, his or her intentions noble or nefarious; an event is positive or negative, beneficial or harmful; we are happy or sad. The truth is that nothing in life is ever so simple. People are invariably a mix of good and bad qualities, strengths and weaknesses. Their intentions in doing something can be helpful and harmful to us at the same time, a result of their ambivalent feelings toward us. Even the most positive event has a downside. And we often feel happy and sad at the same time. Reducing things to simpler terms makes them easier for us to handle, but because it is not related to reality, it also means we are constantly misunderstanding and misreading. It would be of infinite benefit for us to allow more nuances and ambiguity into our judgments of people and events.

This tendency of ours to judge things in simple terms explains why passive aggression is so devilishly effective as a strategy and why so many people use it--consciously and unconsciously. By definition, people who are acting passive-aggressively are being passive and aggressive simultaneously. They are outwardly compliant, friendly, obedient, even loving. At the same time, they inwardly plot and take hostile action. Their aggression is often quite subtle--little acts of sabotage, remarks designed to get under your skin. It can also be blatantly harmful.

When we are the victims of this behavior, we find it hard to imagine that both things are happening at the same time. We can manage the idea that someone can be nice one day and nasty the next; that is just called being moody. But to be nasty and nice simultaneously--that confuses us. We tend to take these people's passive exterior for reality, becoming emotionally engaged with their pleasant, nonthreatening appearance. If we notice that something is not quite right, that while seeming friendly they might be doing something hostile, we are genuinely bewildered. Our confusion gives the passive-aggressive warrior great manipulative power over us.

There are two kinds of passive aggression. The first is conscious strategy as practiced by Metternich. The second is a semiconscious or even unconscious behavior that people use all the time in the petty and not-so-petty matters of daily life. You may be tempted to forgive this second passive-aggressive type, who seems unaware of the effects of his or her actions or helpless to stop, but people often understand what they are doing far better than you imagine, and you are more than likely being taken in by their friendly and helpless exterior. We are generally too lenient with this second variety.

The key to using passive aggression as a conscious, positive strategy is the front you present to your enemies. They must never be able to detect the sullen, defiant thoughts that are going on inside of you.

In 1802 what today is Haiti was a French possession riven by a revolt of the country's black slaves under the leadership of Toussaint-L'ouverture. That year an army sent by Napoleon to crush the rebellion managed to seize Toussaint through treachery and ship him off to France, where he would eventually die in prison. Among Toussaint's most-decorated generals was a man named Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who now surrendered to the French and even served in their army, helping them to put down isolated pockets of revolt and winning from them much appreciation. But it was all a ploy: as Dessalines squashed these remnants of the rebellion, he would hand over the weapons he captured to the French, but secretly he always kept some of them back, stashing them away until he had quite a large armory. Meanwhile he built up and trained a new rebel army in the remote areas where his assignment led him. Then, choosing a moment when an outbreak of yellow fever had decimated the French army, he resumed hostilities. Within a few years, he had defeated the French and liberated Haiti for good from colonial control.

Dessalines's use of passive aggression has deep roots in military strategy, in what can be called the "false surrender." In war your enemies can never read your thoughts. They must make your appearance their guide, reading the signs you give off to decipher what you are thinking and planning. Meanwhile the surrender of an army tends to be followed by a great flood of emotion and a lowering of everyone's guard. The victor will keep an eye on the beaten troops but, exhausted by the effort it took to win, will be hugely tempted to be less wary than before. A clever strategist, then, may falsely surrender--announce that he is defeated in body and spirit. Seeing no indication otherwise, and unable to read his mind, the enemy is likely to take his submission at face value. Now the false surrenderer has time and space to plot new hostilities.

In war as in life, the false surrender depends on the seamless appearance of submission. Dessalines did not just give in, he actively served his former enemies. To make this work, you must do likewise: play up your weakness, your crushed spirit, your desire to be friends--an emotional ploy with great power to distract. You must also be something of an actor. Any sign of ambivalence will ruin the effect.

In 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt faced a dilemma. He was nearing the end of his second term in office, and it was an unwritten tradition in American politics that no president would run for a third term. But Roosevelt had much unfinished business. Abroad, Europe was deep in a war that would almost certainly end up involving the United States; at home, the country had been going through difficult times, and Roosevelt wanted to bring his programs to remedy them to completion. If he revealed his desire for a third term, though, he would stir up opposition even within his own party. Many had already accused him of dictatorial tendencies. So Roosevelt decided to get what he wanted through a form of passive aggression.

In the months leading up to the Democratic Convention, which was to choose which candidate the party would run in the race, Roosevelt repeatedly stated his lack of interest in a third term. He also actively encouraged others in the party to seek the nomination to replace him. At the same time, he carefully crafted his language so that he never completely closed the door on running himself, and he pushed enough candidates into the nomination race that no single one of them could come to the convention as the favorite. Then, as the convention opened, Roosevelt withdrew from the scene, making his large presence known by his absence: without him the proceedings were incomparably dull. Reports came back to him that people on the floor were beginning to clamor for him to appear. Letting that desire reach its peak, the president then had his friend Senator Alben Barkley insert into his own convention speech a message from Roosevelt: "The president has never had, and has not today, any desire or purpose to continue in the office of president, to be a candidate for that office, or to be nominated by the convention for that office." After a moment of silence, the convention floor began to ring with the delegates' cry: "WE WANT ROOSEVELT!" The appeal went on for an hour. The next day the delegates were to vote, and chants of "ROOSEVELT!" again filled the hall. The president's name was entered for the nomination, and he won by a landslide on the first ballot.

It is not an enemy who taunts me--then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me--then I could hide from him. But it is you, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend....... My companion stretched out his hand against his friends, he violated his covenant. His speech was smoother than butter, yet war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords.

P
SALMS
, 55:12-15, 20-21

Remember: it is never wise to seem too eager for power, wealth, or fame. Your ambition may carry you to the top, but you will not be liked and will find your unpopularity a problem. Better to disguise your maneuvers for power: you do not want it but have found it forced upon you. Being passive and making others come to you is a brilliant form of aggression.

Subtle acts of sabotage can work wonders in the passive-aggressive strategy because you can camouflage them under your friendly, compliant front. That was how the film director Alfred Hitchcock would outmaneuver the meddlesome producer David O. Selznick, who used to alter the script to his liking, then show up on set to make sure it was shot the way he wanted it. On these occasions Hitchcock might arrange for the camera to malfunction or let it run without any film in it--by the time Selznick saw the edit, reshooting would be expensive and impossible. Meanwhile the director would make a show of being happy to see Selznick on set and bewildered if the camera didn't roll or rolled but recorded no film.

Passive aggression is so common in daily life that you have to know how to play defense as well as offense. By all means use the strategy yourself; it is too effective to drop from your armory. But you must also know how to deal with those semiconscious passive-aggressive types so prevalent in the modern world, recognizing what they are up to before they get under your skin and being able to defend yourself against this strange form of attack.

First, you must understand why passive aggression has become so omnipresent. In the world today, the expression of overt criticism or negative feelings toward others has become increasingly discouraged. People tend to take criticism far too personally. Furthermore, conflict is something to be avoided at all costs. There is great societal pressure to please and be liked by as many people as possible. Yet it is human nature to have aggressive impulses, negative feelings, and critical thoughts about people. Unable to express these feelings openly, without fear of being disliked, more and more people resort to a kind of constant, just-below-the-surface passive aggression.

The idiom represents an archetype in world literature: a person with a smiling face and a cruel heart, dubbed a "smiling tiger" in Chinese folklore.

T
HE
W
ILES OF
W
AR
,
TRANSLATED BY
S
UN
H
AICHEN
, 1991