Action 101: Anatomy of a Campaign

A resource for planning and carrying out strategic campaigns

We live in dire times. As the pace of social and ecological collapse accelerates, movements for justice need the best available tools. This is the first in a series of resources I am publishing here on action, organizing, tactics, and strategy. For more on this topic, subscribe to get the rest of the posts in this series, and check out prior posts in the “training and resources” category.

If you’re new here, welcome to Biocentric, a newsletter about sustainability, overshoot, greenwashing, and resistance. It’s written by me, Max Wilbert, the co-author of Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It and co-founder of Protect Thacker Pass.

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The importance of strategic planning

“Any resistance organization needs to take moments to reflect, self-evaluate and re-affirm it’s strategic goals and priorities because it exists in an asymmetrical situation where the most efficient utilization of its limited resources is critical.

Identifying, prioritizing and sequencing strategic objectives is critical because it’s so easy to get distracted and misled as the chaotic work of the conflict begins. All actions and efforts need to fulfill the strategic goal or decisively support those particular actions. ‘Stay on target.’”

— Sakej Ward

Campaigns for environmental and social justice require strategic planning, tactical acumen, logistical excellence, and the social skills to bring together, motivate, and retain teams of people in the face of intense stress and constantly-shifting challenges. I won’t pretend to have mastered this process, but I have studied it intensively over the last two decades and honed these theories through practical organizing.

This post builds on that experience. It is meant as a resource to help community organizers, activists, direct actionists, and revolutionaries to build the theoretical understanding that underlies our work.

Clarity in understanding the high-level structure and function of effective movements can help us align our day-to-day work with immediate tactical goals, mid-level campaign strategy, and overall grand strategy.

Level 1: Grand Strategy

Grand strategy is our overall movement strategy.

It’s the big picture analysis that tells us what our goals are (the sweeping social and ecological changes we need to see in the world), what stands in the way (the forces that protect the status quo), our own abilities and resources (what we can collectively bring to bear on the problem), the environmental factors (the historical forces, cultural momentums, and other elements outside of our control that are influencing the likely course of future events), and what is to be done given these understandings (the broad outline for what our movements should focus on doing, why, and in what priority or synthesis).

As a friend once said to me, “Large-scale campaigns which succeed typically begin with people who literally sit down for days or weeks before diving in, to figure out things like the pillars of support of their adversary, potential allies, leverage points, strategy in moving people from Belief A to Belief B, and so on.” In short, strategy is the art of turning what we have into what we need to get what we want.

Grand strategy is a level on which our movements rarely operate. There are only a few thinkers who regularly inhabit this level (one is Roger Hallam, who I interviewed here. Roger and I differ on some of our strategic conclusions, but share many overlaps. Another example of thinking at the level of grand strategy is this organization).

I’m guessing most of you reading this don’t have a sense of grand strategy. Don’t feel bad. There are good reasons for this: we’re not taught to do this, and it takes time to develop this way of thinking. Emotionally, grappling with grand strategy in our current context often results in difficult conclusions. The topic of grand strategy for our movements is beyond the scope of this piece, but if you’re interested in some writing on that topic, please let me know in the comments.

Level 2: Campaign Coordination

Beneath grand strategy is the level of campaign coordination. For the most part, this doesn’t exist in ecological movements today. Our campaigns are disparate, autonomous, and reactive, rather than being part of an interlinked and deliberately-built strategic plan.

This — which is in part a result of the left’s general rejection of leadership and inability to work in effective coalitions in this era of purity politics — is a major reason why the environmental movement has been primarly a defensive struggle (an ongoing retreat) for the last 50 years.

Level 3a: Campaign Strategy

Beneath campaign coordination are two wings, which are ideally both mutually supporting and deeply intertwined. One of these wings is campaign strategy, which consists of a multiplicity of actions of different sorts, all aimed at advancing the movement towards campaign goals. The specific tactics to be used vary widely depending on the context, but could include actions such as blockades, strikes, protests, sabotage, and much more.

Strategy is also an art of defining what you will not do. As one resistance strategist wrote:

“Perhaps the most important role of strategy is a negative one — to avoid anything, no matter how attractive it may seem at the time, that would hinder achieving the goal, or divert resources away from the goal. Every action taken by the resistance movement must be viewed in the light of the overall strategy. Does it further that strategy? Does it bring the goal nearer? Does it in any way create problems that will make achieving the goal more difficult?”

It is easy to become overly focused on tactics. But as Sun Tzu wrote, “Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

Level 3b: Campaign Support

The second wing is campaign support, which takes care of all the logistical matters to support the actions being taken and the entire organizational apparatus. As the diagram shows, this includes communications and outreach, education and training, recruitment, fundraising, logistical supplies, intelligence gathering, and more.

The importance of this cannot be overstated. It is a military maxim that "Amateurs talk tactics, dilettantes talk strategy, professionals talk logistics." In other words, strategy and tactics are often relatively easy to plan from a desk or a couch. Logistics is where the rubber meets the road. It is where plans become reality.

Every element in this diagram is essential. Without logistical support, action flounders or cannot be sustained. Without campaign strategy, campaign support cannot allocate resources or train people for effective and needed actions. And without grand strategy, energy is wasted and movements are easily sidetracked into ineffective pathways.

Conclusion

A few additional notes. First, this diagram is conceptual. Reality rarely matches up with the clear divisions depicted here. But that doesn’t mean the diagram is useless. In fact, it underscores its importance. In the face chaotic realities, conceptual tools like this help us to reflect on and alter our efforts. As Dwight Eisenhower, who led the largest organizational effort in history as the Allied Supreme Commander during World War Two, once said, “plans are worthless but planning is indispensable”.

Second, it’s important to note that this general structure can be applied no matter what your politics or methods are. This is essentially what Project 2025 has done with the Trump Administration: starting with a grand strategy, the far-right has gradually built power over decades by conducting education and culture-buiding activities leading to the formation of relationships, organizations, institutions, and coalitions; has used ideological and media outlets as well as think-tanks to create a semblance of strategic unity and campaign coordination; and has engaged in relentless action supported by robust logistical backing in order to establish a mafia state.

They have had, in other words, an excellent grand strategy backed up by brilliantly executed campaign coordination, action, and logistical support (of course, it helps when you have billionaires and can hire veritable armies of the most brilliant people on the planet to develop and execute strategy).

At a conceptual level, this is also no different than the strategic approach used during the Civil Rights Movement, or the strategies used by clandestine intelligence agencies or military armies to support coups, regime change, and invasions. Strategy is strategy, regardless of our goals and morals.

When I talk about a resistance, I am talking about an organized political resistance. I’m not just talking about something that comes and something that goes. I’m not talking about a feeling. I’m not talking about having in your heart the way things should be and going through a regular day having good, decent, wonderful ideas in your heart.

I’m talking about when you put your body and your mind on the line and you commit yourself to years of struggle in order to change the society in which you live… A political resistance goes on day and night, under cover and over ground, where people can see it and people can’t. It is passed from generation to generation. It is taught. It is encouraged. It is celebrated. It is smart. It is savvy. It is committed. And someday it will win. It will win.

— Andrea Dworkin

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