Defending decentralized societies from military aggression

[Kevin S. Van Horn]

John Kelsey wrote:

> This is the core question: What happens when the anarchocapitalist 
> society and the aggressive authoritarian one have similar technology 
> levels?  [...] If one side is organized as several hundred 
> independent, overlapping protection agencies, some with mutual defense 
> treaties, others without them, while the other is organized as a 
> centralized army, it looks to me like the centralized forces have huge 
> advantages. 


Let's take a look at some historical examples.

1. Switzerland during WWII.  While other more centralized nations were 
easy pickings for the Nazis, the tiny Swiss nation managed to retain its 
freedom and independence as a small island of freedom in a sea of 
fascism.  Several factors entered into this, including the Swiss 
willingness to fight to the bitter end and their long policy of strict 
neutrality; but one oft-overlooked advantage the Swiss had was their 
loose confederation and lack of strong central control.  Your average 
Swiss citizen doesn't even know who the Swiss president is; it's just 
not that important of a position.  Whereas other countries gave in to 
the Nazis without firing a shot when the governmental leaders 
capitulated and ordered a surrender, in the case of Switzerland there 
really wasn't anybody with the authority to surrender the country... and 
the fiercely independent Swiss would have disobeyed any orders to 
surrender, anyway.  (For example, at one point there was some concern 
among the junior officers in the Swiss military that their higher-ups 
might be considering capitulation. They formed an organization among 
themselves with the intention of offing their senior officers and taking 
over command should any form of surrender be attempted.)

As a result, although Hitler made it clear that he loathed Switzerland, 
and repeatedly had plans drawn up for its invasion, there were always 
easier targets and other pressing matters to be taken care of first.  In 
the meantime, the Swiss observed the German's military tactics and 
modified their own defense strategy accordingly.  The Swiss maintained 
their freedom not because they had the military might to defeat Germany; 
they didn't.  They stayed free because they ensured that the price for 
conquering them would be unacceptably high, and the gains unacceptably low.

2. Ireland and England circa 1100 A.D.  Ireland was a lawful anarchy; 
England was more centralized.  When the Normans invaded, it took them 
not much more than a month to conquer England.  All they had to do was 
obtain the surrender of the appropriate authorities.  As is often the 
case, the existing governmental apparatus was then used to administer 
the occupation.

The conquest of Ireland took 300 years, and some say it was never really 
completed. Ireland didn't have any central authority that could 
surrender.  The main form of societal organization was the tuath. The 
territory of a tuath was the sum of the lands of its members; people 
could and did change their affiliation from one tuath to another without 
moving their place of residence.  The tuath "king" was a religious and 
military leader; he was not a ruler, and had no special powers to make 
law nor immunity from lawsuit.  This system was an invader's nightmare. 
 The invaders had to fight for every square inch of Ireland.  Even when 
a tuath was apparently defeated, the tuath king could only surrender for 
himself, but not for the tuath members; they were free to join a 
different tuath.  So effectively, the invaders had to obtain their 
surrenders one household at a time.

3. Somalia. The world's sole remaining superpower, whose military 
spending and might exceeds that of the next several contenders combined, 
was sent packing by the people of a destitute country lacking any 
significant industrial base and still recovering from a nasty civil war. 
 The Somalis didn't have to defeat the invader to win; they just had to 
make remaining in Somalia too politically costly for the invader Clinton.