Political resistance weakens an oppressor by dispersing its military force.

Evidence

The oppressed nation will therefore initially oppose the dominant military force with a force which is only “politico-military”, that is to say a form of political action which has the virtue of provoking repercussions of a military character in the sense: 1. that it has the capacity to destroy the war potential of the dominant nation from within; 2. that it compels the dominant military force to thin out and disperse itself over a large territory, thus nullifying a great part of its war potential. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 765

Categorization

• DEFINE: The definition of politico-military force is made concrete here: action that disperses and internally erodes the enemy’s war capacity.
• XREF: connects to: The Uganda example shows a low-capacity nondemocratic regime crushing challengers by military force. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 387