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Instead, protests like this focus on a strategy of *revealing* police violence for what it is, by creating opportunities for police to overreact and reveal their violence in situations where it can be observed and documented and thus shift public opinion. 5/13
Public opinion and voters, not the streets, is the 'center of gravity' (in the Clausewitzian sense, DRINK!). This is a *super* common theme of all sorts of asymmetric contests: get the big conventional force to overreact and use its massive violence to spread your message. 6/13
In that context, the fact that this shield wall, unlike historical shield walls, *cannot advance* makes its defensive nature instantly understandable to most observers. It reinforces the contrast between the aggressive, violence-initiating police and the defensive... 7/13
...violence-receiving protesters, while at the same time allowing the protest to engage in what is essentially 'force protection' - keeping its people on the streets, out of jail, and out of a hospital, where they can continue to pursue the protest's agenda. 8/13
Of course on the flip-side, the police could defeat this entire strategy by *not engaging in violence* - if they showed forbearance and restraint, the protests would fail, either because nothing would happen or because protesting hot-heads would initiate... 9/13
...confrontations which might or might not be tactical successes, but would damage the movement's strategy. Thus as with war, discipline and cohesion here matter the most - not to do violence, but to *restrain* your violence to make the violence of the opponent clear. 10/13
What we've seen so far with the protests in the wake of George Floyd's murder is that both 'sides' - the police and the protesters - initially had discipline and cohesion problems, which created a confused and unclear situation for many observers. 11/13
But subsequently, the protesters showed increasingly *more* discipline than police in restraining their own violence. Consequently, they are winning, with huge polling shifts in recent months on a number of related issues. 12/13
It remains to be seen if those victories will be consolidated into meaningful police reform. There's a real uphill battle on that issue in the political arena, of course. But for now, it's not hard to see which side has the strategic initiative. end/13
Addendum: Police should also note: the protest's center of gravity *is police violence.* Reducing violence at protests/in general with better, more careful policing is the best way to reduce the strength of the protests. Police reform is the best way for the *police* to win too.
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