Over the Top-Coalition Campaigning in the Canadian Tobacco Wars: Executive Summary of a 14 Page Case Study from Canada on Networks and Coalition Building

Abstract

Our experience in Canada, as in other countries, can quite fairly be compared to warfare. In many respects the art of war and the art of tobacco control are similar. The truth is that historically most Canadian health and medical groups had been conscientious objectors, or at worst deserters, in the face of tobacco industry aggression. History’s great military strategists such as Sun Tzu, Clausewitz and Jomini have all stressed certain principles such as concentrating force on decisive areas. This is also an underlying rationale for health coalitions. A key theory is the importance of occupying the enemy’s territory. Influencing cabinet ministers and senior public servants, historically a domain of tobacco executives, is now territory more familiar to Candian health groups. One appropriate schema useful in analyzing the operation of our coalition is the “nine principles of war of the United States Army”. After summarizing each priciple, I will give illustrations from our coalition campaigns.