Power comes in four flavors:
– Physical power, which coerces with threats of death
– Financial power, which coerces with threats of poverty
– Reputational power, which coerces with threats of shame
– Cultural power, which coerces with threats of exile and of assimilation
Threats can appear to be lessor — a beating or a lay-off, but the threats only truly end with compliance or actualization — when the ability to coerce is gone.
Freedom is the means to ignore coercion either by having to fear of the ultimate actualization of that coercion, or by having the capability to defeat the threat, making it moot.
Warfare is about confronting the threats inherent to the four flavors of power.
Direct conflict attempts to meet the coercion’s threat itself and negate it.
Asymmetric conflict attempts to negate the ability to coerce by removing the fear of losing what is targeted by the threat.