Sun Tzu:

In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good.

...

Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.

Thus the highest form of generalship is to balk [disrupt, stymie, stifle] the enemy's plans; the next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy's forces; the next in order is to attack the enemy's army in the field; and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities.

...

Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory: (1) He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight. (2) He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces. (3) He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks. (4) He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared. (5) He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.

To give at least some credit to Clausewitz:

War is the continuation of politics by other means.

Non violence is an aim, an ideal, a category of strategies.

Not the whole of strategy.

The overall situation is what dictates the means at hand, the potentially viable strategies.

Unnecessary violence is always sub-optimal.

... It will be up to you, as a strategist, to determine what constitutes unnecessary, in what overall situation.