Politics & Power Quote by John Abizaid

Abizaid’s line is soldier-speak stripped to its hard mechanics: politics is not the antidote to violence; it’s a generator of it. The key move is the blunt causality chain - “political activities” produce “friction,” and friction, in turn, invites “additional violence.” It’s not a moral lament. It’s a forecast delivered in the calm register of someone who has watched well-meaning transitions ignite old scores.

The intent is managerial and preemptive. He’s preparing an audience - likely civilians hungry for the idea that ballots replace bullets overnight - for the uglier middle phase of state-building. “Will create” is the tell: certainty, not conjecture. He’s legitimizing turbulence as an expected byproduct of change, which can serve two purposes at once: tamp down unrealistic expectations and inoculate leadership against accusations that the strategy is failing the moment violence spikes.

“Friction” does heavy rhetorical work. It’s a classic military term (Clausewitz lurks in the background) that makes chaos sound technical, almost impersonal: not sectarian hatred or revenge, but operational drag. That word choice cools the temperature, translating political grievance into something planners can model and absorb. The subtext is that democracy, governance, elections, new institutions - all the “activities” - reorder power. Power reorders loyalty. Loyalty reorders targets.

Contextually, this reads like the post-invasion Iraq/Afghanistan era, when coalition leaders had to sell a paradox: building politics could briefly make the battlefield worse. Abizaid isn’t endorsing violence; he’s warning that the road to legitimacy runs through a contested, combustible transition where every new rule creates someone newly excluded.