I'm not afraid to reveal my ignorance - Although political assassination has clearly been a common occurrence throughout history, can anyone tell me why it isn't as common as it seems like it should be?
When I look at the huge array of people in history who
1) Had enormous power
2) Made decisions that cost people their own power, peace, freedom and/or lives
3) Consequently made many enemies
4) Didn't benefit from modern security measures
5) Were surrounded by a constant churn of people
6) And yet did NOT end up stabbed, shot, ambushed or poisoned
I just scratch my head in honest, ignorant confusion.
A steady stream of assassins just seems way cheaper and much more direct than war.
What gives?
Because people aren't in power just because of who they are as an individual, but because of the entire apparatus of power that is behind them: the state, the military, the social connections, and the other societal power centres that support them on one or more issues. Assassinating an individual eliminates none of these things, and may merely make the situation worse for the assassin's supporters. At a broader level, I would argue that violence in general is only an effective tool once those using violent means have already put all of the above in place. Before that, it just leads to failed insurgencies, guerrilla war, and endless civil conflict.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;857527I'm not afraid to reveal my ignorance - Although political assassination has clearly been a common occurrence throughout history, can anyone tell me why it isn't as common as it seems like it should be?
When I look at the huge array of people in history who
1) Had enormous power
2) Made decisions that cost people their own power, peace, freedom and/or lives
3) Consequently made many enemies
4) Didn't benefit from modern security measures
5) Were surrounded by a constant churn of people
6) And yet did NOT end up stabbed, shot, ambushed or poisoned
I just scratch my head in honest, ignorant confusion.
A steady stream of assassins just seems way cheaper and much more direct than war.
What gives?
It is probably going to be hard to give a single answer here since we are talking all of history. I guess my first question is how many assassinations would you expect there to be?
There have been periods in history where assassinations happened one after the other and one of the things that goes hand in hand with this is instability (Year of the Four Emperors for Example). An assassination is a big deal and has consequences. They can lead to turmoil and civil wars. So they are not cost free. In some instances they may be an alternative to war, in others they could basically ensure war occurs. Plenty of conflicts have been triggered by an assassination. Also I suspect the more stable the system, the less impact the assassination would have on things (but that is just thinking out loud).
As to why they haven't happened all the time, I don't know. Its true they didn't have modern security measures in the past, but modern security measures are in part a response to modern technology. Their security measures were dealing with things like spears, daggers and cross bows, not the plethora of long range precision weapons you have today. These people were well guarded and they were capable of putting together information networks to help weed out conspiracies. A lot of the assassinations that did succeed required the corporation of the folks who were protecting the leader in the first place. I think well over ten Roman Emperors were assassinated by their own guards.
Macchiavelli talks about this a bit in Discourses. He mentions a few factors. One is quite simply that on approaching a person of status, you may hesitate - you see them there in all their robed and crowned glory, and lose your nerve.
He mentions some mercenary captain who'd taken a city in Italy, the Pope and his unarmed retinue came up to the gates to meet him and demand his surrender - and the guy handed himself over. Macchiavelli asks, it wasn't that the guy was religious, quite the contrary - why is it that a guy who had slept with his own sister and broken sworn oaths of loyalty would not simply run his sword through the Pope? In that specific example he says men do not know how to be either wholly good or wholly evil, but it's also true that the guy there in his robes with all his retinue is an impressive sight.
As well, most killers want at least moral support. So they talk to others and conspire, and wait for the perfect moment to come along - which gives time for the conspiracy to be discovered.
Plus they're usually idealists of some kind which fucks things up. Once Commodus was walking into the arena and down a narrow tunnel, the assassin stepped out and said, "the Senate sends you this!" and stepped forward to stab - and the guards stopped him. If he'd saved his speech for after he had stabbed the guy, he would have got him.
As well there are the other factors people have mentioned, like how useful will it actually be. Kill Stalin and you get Beria, kill Hitler and get Himmler, kill Cromwell and get his son - so then you decide you have to kill like 50 guys, this requires a much bigger conspiracy, and then we get back to being caught.
And so on.
I agree with what Kyle says. But there is also:
1. Most people are unskilled buffoons, doubly so with weapons. They can try but will probably just blow it. Most know this which keep the rate of trying down.
2. Fear of death and/or torture. You may be caught. Being caught usually means hours or days or weeks of [fill in your worst nightmare] torture. And not just for you, maybe your family too. If a guy is willing to kill his brother to get the throne what will he do to your extended family if he captures you?
3. Money. During battles knights and other royalty were preferably captured so they could be ransomed. Military matters are always expensive. Any way to defray the costs...
4. Opportunity. You may want to kill a guy, you may have the skill. But getting close is the problem. Walls and guards do have a purpose.
I admit I've wondered this too from time to time. When is some North Korean general going to get the nerve to gun down Kim and his family? Hasn't happened yet. As Kyle pointed out, to really get change you would have to kill a wider array of people, like The Godfather's "night of the long knives." And that just increases the number of conspirators and the chance of a leak and getting caught.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;857527I'm not afraid to reveal my ignorance - Although political assassination has clearly been a common occurrence throughout history, can anyone tell me why it isn't as common as it seems like it should be?
Legitimacy
Adhering to ;aw, custom, and tradition confer legitimacy which is a powerful advantage and a practical advantage as less resources are needed to keep the populace in line.
One classic example of this was the consolidation of power by Augustus Caesar. He did everything he could to make it appear that he was restoring the Republic while behind the scenes he was stacking the deck in his favor. The reason for this was that while he had the power he wanted to make sure he had the appearance of legitimacy to help keep things together and not ignite another round of civil war. It worked pretty well until the Crisis of the Third Century.
Quote from: Bobloblah;857529Because people aren't in power just because of who they are as an individual, but because of the entire apparatus of power that is behind them: the state, the military, the social connections, and the other societal power centres that support them on one or more issues.
I think that if the would be assassin is from that system and doesn't mean to tear it down... then assassination becomes a lesser option because it subverts the system, accuses it of being insufficient. Threatens any safety it would have afforded the would-be assassin and his friends/family.
So like others have said... that leaves true revolutionaries, ideologues and nutjobs.
Not exactly on point but I've always been suspicious of the Hollywood depictions of villainous organizations... Nazis, Mafia, whoever... bumping their members off so casually... as if any organization could operate in that sort of atmosphere.
I think fear. Chances are good the assassin is going to get caught. And in most of history, that meant being tortured very nastily first.
Why doesnt it happen more often?
As was noted by a poster above.
It often doesnt solve anything. A general or second may step in. Or they may just elect someone else. Or the person in power is a figurehead and the actual power is spread out.
And may make things worse. If you assasinate a popular leader then that may incite the public or the governing bodies to retaliate if they can figure out who did it. And often it is readily apparent who was the likely cuplrit.
Assasinating someone of importance in a way that doesnt implicate your country is harder too. You need professionals and these do not grow on trees.
But in general it doesnt happen as often as it rarely has an impact of destabalizing a country. You might get some confusion for a little bit and exploit it. But more likely the death puts everyone on alert.
Even when the assasination is from within. It tends to need planning otherwise its likely to fall apart disasterously.
Quote from: Omega;857547It often doesnt solve anything. A general or second may step in. Or they may just elect someone else. Or the person in power is a figurehead and the actual power is spread out.
That's what I always used to tell my friends who would rail against the president and talk about how someone should kill him... as if that would really have any effect on the real powers that put him there.
I trying to think of any examples where a political figure was assassinated by its own supporters in order to garner sympathy and bolster support...
As its still the centennary, kudos to the Serbs for making their assassinations truly count!
If you read up on the Srajevo attempts and how Gavrilo Princip managed to do it, you will find many of the above themes.
Quite aside from the cogent points others have raised, I've a few:
* Most people aren't murderers. This is a key bit: a great many people who'd have no problem shooting a rifle at the other guys in wartime just won't walk up to someone with a pistol and blow his brains out.
* Simple, reliable, easily deployable, readily concealable and readily obtainable firearms are products of the last 150 years. Before then, the malfunction rate of handguns were high, and their firing speed poor.
* Err ... this isn't all that rare. A tenth of the US Presidents have been assassinated, and serious attempts have been made against nine. Of the last eleven Russian czars, six of them were assassinated. Three of India's first seven Prime Ministers were assassinated. Three Presidents of the French Third Republic were assassinated.
I am surprised it isn't used more often in the modern world, especially in the Internet/Bureaucracy Age where an assassination would spread panic in the 24/7 news cycle and the chain of succession would involve partisan bickering and tremendous uncertainty and speculation about the new leader.
I suspect modern surveillance tech in the First World (and even Second World) makes assassination very difficult so the kind of assassins capable of such kills would need support systems from an established nation's military and thus, the assassination would be a declaration of war.
Well, the issue with surveillance isn't killing the person, it's getting away afterwards. The assassin at least wants to be alive long enough to see the ensuing Great Revolution or confused chaos or whatever.
Plus as was noted, most people aren't murderers.
In Ye Olden Days, class cannot be underestimated. When your entire upbringing and culture is based around the right to rule and Divine favour, then doing away with, even with a tyrant, can be viewed as an attack on God's will itself, and will find few people willing to support your attempt. Even if you do it and replace them with yourself or someone more amenable to you, people could quite rightly view the new appointment as illegitimate.
The unforeseen consequences are another factor. You might never actually know what will happen if the assassination goes as planned. At the very least you will have made a life-long enemy of the target's faction/family/nation.
The Tamil Tigers, a Sri Lankan seperatist organization, had had some support from India in their struggle against the government. But they killed former president of India Rajiv Ghandi in 1991 for being one of the opponents of Indian support for their organiation. This ensured that the Indians would never again take the Tigers' side. When, many years later, the formerly very successful Tigers were at the edge of being wiped out by the Sri Lankan military they appealed to the Indians to negotiate a truce with the government, which could have allowed them to continue to exist as a political movement. The Indians, who might have stepped in on the side of the Tigers as they had done before the assassination, just smiled and said "Oh, nothing we can do, sorry 'bout that". That was over twenty years later, but the Indian government still held a grudge.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;857527A steady stream of assassins just seems way cheaper and much more direct than war.
Others have pointed out several factors, but here's an important one:
Most wars are NOT started because you want to kill the other king. Most wars are started because:
- you want their land
- you want your own land back
- they've just declared that a part of your country is now a brand new, independent nation, and the movement is so popular that a new leader would arise every time you killed the current one
- you want to kill a few hundred thousand/million of their citizens and the entire ruling family because they're the wrong religion / branch of Christianity
- you want to kill a few hundred thousand of their soldiers and wreck their economy, because otherwise they'll grow unstoppably strong in ten years and invade you
- they collectively decided to stop paying taxes and/or tribute to you
- you want to sink their ships so they can no longer keep sinking YOUR ships when you transport stuff from/to your overseas colonies
- your economy is in dire straits and the only way to save it from total collapse is to turn to War Economy, which in turn needs an actual war to pay off
- they've just invaded a third country and will clearly invade you once they're done there, so you're better of fighting this war now when their attention is still split
- your people hate their people and are clamoring for war, and if you won't give them that war they'll replace you with someone else who will
None of these problems can be solved by assassinating one single guy.
Killing a human is easy.
Killing a protected world leader is more difficult.
Killing a protected world leader and living or getting away is practically impossible.
Most people aren't killers.
Killing one guy won't solve anything.
Killing one guy might make it worse.
Really that leaves as successful assassins...
1.) The ideologues driven to the point of martyrdom
2.) Nutjobs who get lucky
3.) Killers of extreme skill and technical proficiency who can communicate effectively with the people who would hire them without being uncovered.
BTW, thanks for flagging us all in an FBI database. :D
Byzantine Emperors were regularly assassinated., in fact it was an occupational hazard.
Many kings employed food testers, to prevent them being poisoned, guards to prevent killers homing in on them and forbade the drawing of weapons near the king. That had a tendency to stop killers going after the kings.
But, other leaders were probably not brave or stupid enough to do the killing themselves. Instead, they would hire other people to do it. Once a king-slayer always a king-slayer and they would not be welcome at court afterwards, in case they had acquired a taste for it. Also, killing a king or queen is generally considered treason and is often a capital offence.
Another problem was that there were fewer anonymous partisans in those days (and where there were, there was more assassination). Without modern communication, you did most of your political radicalization by talking with people. Cities and towns were smaller, and more tangential people knew that you were out at the alehouses or coffeeshops (depending on era) talking smack about the archduke/viscount/cardinal. Regardless of your sucess or how much it changes, it's likely everyone is going to darn well know who was behind the assassination.
Quote from: CRKrueger;857638BTW, thanks for flagging us all in an FBI database. :D
Shit, didn't think about that. In my defense, I was clearly talking about history and fictional scenarios.
As well as all the other factors, don't forget the martyr effect. Killing MLK didn't reverse civil rights - it redoubled people's determination to see his dream happen and made more moderate opponents reappraise which side they were on. Killing JFK didn't reverse any of his policies except for LBJ being more hawkish on Vietnam - not a result Lee Harvey Oswald seems to have been going for. Killing Lincoln enshrined him as one of the greatest presidents. Killing Julius Caesar saw his hand-picked heir complete the process of subverting the Republic and deified Julius in the process. Killing Christ...
You get the picture. Assassinate someone and you run the risk of making their message even more powerful than it was when they were alive.
Quote from: Warthur;858017You get the picture. Assassinate someone and you run the risk of making their message even more powerful than it was when they were alive.
And the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin effectively ended the Peace Process in Israel/Palestine.
It all depends on the particular situation.
Quote from: soltakss;858064And the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin effectively ended the Peace Process in Israel/Palestine.
It all depends on the particular situation.
It really does, but the crucial thing is that it's incredibly difficult to know which way public opinion will jump until the act is done. That fact alone must give people pause for thought a lot of the time.
Quote from: Battle Mad Ronin;857623The unforeseen consequences are another factor. You might never actually know what will happen if the assassination goes as planned. At the very least you will have made a life-long enemy of the target's faction/family/nation.
The Tamil Tigers, a Sri Lankan seperatist organization, had had some support from India in their struggle against the government. But they killed former president of India Rajiv Ghandi in 1991 for being one of the opponents of Indian support for their organiation. This ensured that the Indians would never again take the Tigers' side. When, many years later, the formerly very successful Tigers were at the edge of being wiped out by the Sri Lankan military they appealed to the Indians to negotiate a truce with the government, which could have allowed them to continue to exist as a political movement. The Indians, who might have stepped in on the side of the Tigers as they had done before the assassination, just smiled and said "Oh, nothing we can do, sorry 'bout that". That was over twenty years later, but the Indian government still held a grudge.
Rajiv was assassinated for his role in sending Indian peacekeepers into Sri Lanka who committed numerous atrocities apon the Tamil civilian population. However, the rest of your point stands and it proved a disastrous move in the long run.
Quote from: Warthur;858017As well as all the other factors, don't forget the martyr effect. Killing MLK didn't reverse civil rights - it redoubled people's determination to see his dream happen and made more moderate opponents reappraise which side they were on. Killing JFK didn't reverse any of his policies except for LBJ being more hawkish on Vietnam - not a result Lee Harvey Oswald seems to have been going for. Killing Lincoln enshrined him as one of the greatest presidents. Killing Julius Caesar saw his hand-picked heir complete the process of subverting the Republic and deified Julius in the process. Killing Christ...
You get the picture. Assassinate someone and you run the risk of making their message even more powerful than it was when they were alive.
The history of politics -- never mind the mindset of those who contemplate assassinations -- isn't overloaded with people who consider the long term ramifications of knee-jerk fanaticism before firing with all barrels.
I give you, as Exhibit A, the 2016 US Republican presidential candidates.
Quote from: Ravenswing;858173The history of politics -- never mind the mindset of those who contemplate assassinations -- isn't overloaded with people who consider the long term ramifications of knee-jerk fanaticism before firing with all barrels.
I give you, as Exhibit A, the 2016 US Republican presidential candidates.
Yeah... let's not discuss assassinations and current political candidates in the same thread.
It depends on a situation where one man is really the lynchpin (of whatever you want to undu: tyranny, peace, whatever).
Quote from: RPGPundit;858863It depends on a situation where one man is really the lynchpin (of whatever you want to undu: tyranny, peace, whatever).
I wouldn't say that's the case at all. It's whether the assassin
thinks the target is the lynchpin of pretty much anything at all, and as much as anything else whether the target is easy to reach.
Why is this Question in the RPG section?
Does the answer alter a campaign or game session you are planning?
- Ed C.
Quote from: Koltar;859233Why is this Question in the RPG section?
Does the answer alter a campaign or game session you are planning?
I'm trying to improve my ability to create and run fantasy worlds. Many settings feature realms rife with assassination and I'm exploring the limits of such a thing.
Then there's always the "Sharks and Lawyers" theory - professional courtesy.
That applies to why nation-states typically don't pursue a policy of assassination, rather than disgruntled individuals/sects/whatever, but it could make for an interesting "wild card" in a campaign setting to have a nation that embarks on a campaign of attempted assassination of high-level leadership of a rival nation.
I think there have been piles of assassinations, and that now, as then, they are "believable accidents". Car crashes, heart attacks (from poison), :low blood sugars" from insulin (injected into the toe or a mole), "fast acting cancers" etc.
The media is so OWNED by the elite that when they go after each other, it's not allowed to be in the news.
Historically - we get to read about which ruler did what AFTER they were in power. Chronicallers rarely wrote much about how many of their brothers and uncles they killed to become the ruler.
Quote from: One Horse Town;857579In Ye Olden Days, class cannot be underestimated. When your entire upbringing and culture is based around the right to rule and Divine favour, then doing away with, even with a tyrant, can be viewed as an attack on God's will itself, and will find few people willing to support your attempt. Even if you do it and replace them with yourself or someone more amenable to you, people could quite rightly view the new appointment as illegitimate.
On the contrary - in Byzantium if you were assassinated then clearly you didn't have God's favor, and the new Emperor did.
In the modern era, there's the issue of retaliation. If one head of state decides to have another whacked, there's a good chance the victim's successors will respond in kind. It's too easy nowadays to discover who did the deed and why, and it's easier still for a determined assassination ring to bump off those responsible.
Historically most assassinations of politicians have not been state run. They are performed by crazy individuals or by small groups of the disaffected.
Quote from: Iron_Rain;859404I think there have been piles of assassinations, and that now, as then, they are "believable accidents". Car crashes, heart attacks (from poison), :low blood sugars" from insulin (injected into the toe or a mole), "fast acting cancers" etc.
The media is so OWNED by the elite that when they go after each other, it's not allowed to be in the news.
Historically - we get to read about which ruler did what AFTER they were in power. Chronicallers rarely wrote much about how many of their brothers and uncles they killed to become the ruler.
This. There's so much that we take for granted, and so much we will never know. So frankly, it could be the number one way of dealing with 'problems', and there's no way we could ever find out. Or it could be the least useful.
At the end of the day, it really depends on the society you're trying to create, how much access to information they have, how developed the spy/assassination network is.Which are all things you can hand wave anyway.
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;859247I'm trying to improve my ability to create and run fantasy worlds. Many settings feature realms rife with assassination and I'm exploring the limits of such a thing.
I wouldn't say most TSR/WOTC settings are particularly overflowing with assassination attempts. But they are there to some degree.
In AD&D at least, and to some degree 3-5e, political assassination comes across as a near futile endeavour when the victims relatives or cronies can probably pay for a raise dead at the nearest allied temple. Or DIY.
Something else to consider with political assassination is the probable presence of counter-assassins a-la 007.