Civillan-based Defense as a Peace Strategy by Gene Sharp

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Very often when we look a t a specific aspect of l i f e o r society, w e f a i l to examine Instead, our a t tent ion i s often at t racted to

That is true of many of us w h o are concerned

carefully, o r even to notice, the obvious. characteristics which are more obscure o r unusual, o r which d i f fe r only in d e t a i l from others. about the dangers of war and of military systems.

Rarely do we focus on the obvious.

What are the obvious characteristics of military systems which we ignore? F i r s t , military systems may be intended to deter attack o r to repel it and f igh t a war. not only do v i r tua l ly a l l governments amass the strongest military capacities they can, b u t in that e f for t they by and large are supported by most of the populations of t h e i r countries.

Second,

I f any of you have, as I have previously, passed out l e a f l e t s o r used other means to advocate uni la teral dismantling of the mil i tary system, you know how many converts you got by the end of the day! I f you do th i s for a year o r two, o r f ive o r ten years -- some peo- ple have been doing it for some decades -- you s t i l l won't need very many extra hands to count the number of converts you have won to the idea of abolishing the mil i tary system.

Yet many peace people ignore that , to ta l ly ignore it. We say, "Those people don't real ly understand the issues." O r , "Some other problem prevents the i r seeing the t ruth." Or, "They've a l l been brainwashed." O r , " I t ' s some kind of conspiracy tha t prevents peo- ple from agreeing with us.1T

People can sometimes recognize that these weapons are ev i l , that they can destroy humanity, that they harm our economy, tha t they change people's personalities, but those same people s t i l l want them. We ignore that . It is obvious, yet we ignore it.

They still insist that the mil i tary weapons are necessary.

Remnants of the idea that somehow, somewhere, there i s going t o be a mass, popular, peaceful uprising to throw out the war system are s t i l l around. Some people think that such a r is ing w i l l be on the basis of individual conversions to pacifism, and others think that some massive c i v i l disobedience campaign o r antinuclear struggle is going t o sweep around the world. We ignore the fact that neither has ever happened. history when it looked l i k e a mass r i s ing against war might happen, i t f izzled out. was t rue a t the outbreak of the F i r s t World War and again in the 1950s and early 1960~3, when nuclear weapons and intercontinental rocketry were sti l l so new tha t w e could he shocked by them. We did then get c i v i l disobedience, demonstrations, and massive r a l l i e s and marches in different par ts of the world. the war system. succeeded, as I and many of you hoped, i s past. that i s incapable of being shocked by anything in terms of military weaponry. par t of rea l i ty , par t of existence, l i k e t rees and rocks.

Every time i n This

But they didn't l a s t . They didn't throw out They didn ' t even come close. The time when that conceivably might have

llow a whole new generation has grown up

And we ignore that . It is jus t

We have t r i e d a l l kinds of approaches t o get t ing r i d of war. None of them have done i t . Not one. There i s n ' t even one that looks l i k e it can come close t o achieving that objective, even in the next f i f t y years. We ignore that .

Yet, we who want to end war st i l l keep doing the same things we have been doing year

Copyright @ 1981 by Gene Sharp.

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a f t e r year and decade a f t e r decade. war continues. But v i r t u a l l y a l l of them ignore obvlous f a c t s .

I t i s j u s t possible t h a t the problem of war i s more simple than we have thought,

We a l l have our f avor i t e explanations a s t o why

not more complicated. g ive you a va r i e ty of answers which eventually b o i l down t o the statement, "We need them." " I f we a r e well enough prepared, we won't be a t tacked , and nobody w i l l g e t k i l l ed t1 -- deterrence theory. Or, " I f we a r e a t tacked , we can defend ourselves." We r e a l l y never deal with those arguments when we come up with our peace proposals.

I f you ask people why they hold on t o m i l i t a r y means, they w i l l

The t i t l e of t he Colgate/COPRED conference -- Conference on Alterna t ive In t e rna t iona l Secur i ty Systems -- suggests an attempt t o come t o g r ips with t h a t s i t ua t ion . The t i t l e marks a t l e a s t a beginning of some recognition t h a t some kind of an a l t e r n a t i v e t o the m i l i t a r y system may be des i rab le or necessary.

I f you ask what war is, people w i l l tel l you it is many d i f f e r e n t th ings : sp i racy of t he c a p i t a l i s t c l a s s , t h e too l of t h e i r p a r t i c u l a r d e v i l , t h e consequence of a l l inhumanity, or t he r e s u l t of so-called aggressiveness -- which we blame on the innocent animals who do not behave as we do. We do not f i g h t because we have weapons. had it a l l backwards.

a con-

But, bas i ca l ly , war is a system of f igh t ing . We have weapons because we f igh t ! We have

People believe t h a t there a r e some i ssues on which they ought no t -- morally, humanly, o r ; i o l i t i ce l ly - - to compromise. You a l l have such i s sues yourselves. There a r e some issues on which you w i l l no t give i n . a r e , but it i s when they a r i s e t h a t most people have believed t h a t they have t o have means of f igh t ing -- which a r e assumed by them automatically t o mean violence. a na t iona l and in te rna t iona l s ca l e i s simply t h e organized expression of a means of f igh t ing using the supposedly bes t ava i lab le weapons and t h e most e f f e c t i v e system of organization and command t h a t people could come up with.

Human beings d i f f e r on what those i s sues

War on

We of t en ignore another very obvious thing: t h e world is an except iona l ly danger- ous p lace , and it has been so f o r centur ies . Whole cont inents have been a t tacked , as well as countries. Look a t the expansion of Europe outs ide o f t h a t continent, and what it has done t o the rest of the world. Even legit imated governments a r e o f t en attacked by t h e i r own m i l i t a r y forces . One ideo- l o g i c a l p o l i t i c a l par ty or another a t tacks the soc ie ty and the p o l i t i c a l system, i n t e n t on s e t t i n g i tself up as t h e saviour of t he soc ie ty -- which means occupying t h e pos i t i on o f d i c t a t o r of t he S ta t e . Whole peoples ge t attacked. Remember t h e Holocaust? Remem- ber what happened t o the Native Americans? The Armenians? Many o the r peoples? People have had t h e i r land, t h e i r r iches , even t h e i r cu l tu re and language s t o l e n from them. We pass it o f f a s l tpast h i s tory ." The gold of t h e Incas and t h e Aztecs was taken back t o Europe. People were s to l en from t h e i r homes i n Africa, and brought t o the United S t a t e s and o ther places a s s laves . In o the r words, t he world has been and i s a dangerous place! about t he h is tory of t h e i r own people, t h e i r own p a r t o f t h e world, know t h i s . know the re were occasions when t h e i r people should have been ab le t o f i g h t more e f fec- t i v e l y than they d id .

Countries ge t attacked, with ghas t ly consequences.

The r iches of India were taken back t o England. Those who know anything

They

People a l so h o w tha t t he way t h e world i s moving, it is l i k e l y t o become dangerous, f i l l e d with more c o n f l i c t s , not fewer. It i s u t t e r nonsense t h a t we a r e on the way t o harmony. we have not ye t reaped the f u l l whirlwind.

With a l l the v io l en t he r i t age of t he pas t t h ree cen tu r i e s and more,

In t h i s s i t u a t i o n t o advocate disarmament and the abandonment or d r a s t i c reduction Now t h a t does g& of defense and f igh t ing capacity is, t o most people, u t t e r l y insane.

mean t h a t what peace people say about t he e v i l of war i s not t rue . I t does no t mean

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that the military means are good means of fighting. not gross dangers from modern weaponry, dangers which are going to get infinitely worse. Eowever, the widespread fear and reluctance to disarm military means and violence are the only means of fighting in which they have confidence. To ask people to give those up, without first having an alternative means of fighting, Is to ask people to agree to be helpless in the face of a dangerous world. standable, therefore, that every single major proposal to abolish war that has been presented to the world has failed. It is today utterly predictable that every such proposal going around now is likely to fail also. Is not particularly effective or even noble.

It does not mean that there are

mean that to most people

It is uuder-

To run rapidly in the wrong direction

The problem is not to eliminate conflict from the world -- which, first of all, we cannot do and, secondly, probably we ought not to do. understand each other better; the more you understand some people the more grounds you have to despise them. In the 1930s if we had understood Hitler and the Naais better it probably would have started the war earlier -- which many people think would have been a good idea. The problem is not polishing our halo, unless we're very eager to get to heaven in a hurry irrespective of what we do here on earth. is how to get rid of the war system. This does not even imply that we have first to solve all of the world's problems and achieve total justice o r freedom. rid of the war system soon, there won't be time later in which to achieve and refine justice and freedom.

The problem is not to get to

The problem, instead,

If we don't get

Let us go back to the simple obvious fact that in a dangerous world people believe that they have to have some means of fighting. the fact that there exists another means of fighting, without military weapons. That other means is usually not very prominent in our history books, but it exists widely. Apart from all the other characteristics of human beings, we can be stubborn. There are many cases in which masses of ordinary people have fought by collective stubbornness, by nonviolent protest, massive noncooperation -- social boycotts, economic boycotts, strikes and political noncooperationr-and by nonviolent intervention of various types. These include: German strikes and political noncooperation to the 1920 Kapp Putsch against the Weimar Republic; German government-sponsored noncooperatlon 1923 to the French and Belgian occupation; major aspects of the Dutch anti-Nazi resis- tance, including several large strikes, 1940-1945; major aspects of the Danish resis- tance to the German occupation, including the 1944 Copenhagen general strike, 1940-1945; major parts of the Norwegian resistance to the Quisling regime and the occupation, 1940-1945; and the Czechoslovak resistance to the Soviet invasion and occupation, 1968- 1969.

They do. But almost everybody ignores

in the Ruhr in

The Czechoslovak resistance ultimately failed, but it held off full Soviet control for eight months -- from August t o April -- which would have been utterly impossible by military means. Czechoslovak officials, not defeated resistance) a power potential even greater than military means.

This suggests even in final defeat (as a result of capitulation by

In addition to such cases as these, other resistance movements and revolutions against internal oppression and dictatorships are relevant. These include major as- pects of these cases: the 1980-1981 Polish workers' movement for an independent trade union and democratization; the 1944 revolutions in El Salvador and Guatemala against established military dictatorships; the 1978-1979 revolution against the Shah in Iran; the 1905-1906 and February 1917 revolutions in Imperial Russia; the 1953 East German Rising; the Polish movements of 1956, 1970-1971, and 1976; the 1956-1957 Hungarian Revolution; the 1963 Buddhist campaign agaFnst the Ngo Dinh Diem regime in South Vietnam; the 1953 strike movement at Vorkuta and other prison camps in the Soviet Union; and diverse other cases.

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These alternative nonviolent means of fighting have sometimes won significant victories. This i s because of another obvious fact: a l l hierarchical systems, a l l governments, the power of a l l rulers no matter how tyrannical, depend on the cooper- ation of the people and of the ins t i tu t ions of the society they would control. out such cooperation the sources of power needed by such e l i t e s and rulers are not available. nonviolent struggle, analyzed in my The Pol i t ics of Nonviolent Action.1

With-

That is the po l i t i ca l basis of the technique of They are then powerless.

That alternative technique of fighting can be deliberately adapted to the problem of how to provide deterrence and defense in a highly dangerous world by other than m i l i - tary means. takeovers and foreign invasions and occupations. the refinement of nonviolent struggle and adaptation of i t to the needs of national defense, with preparations and training of the population to wage i t , have been made f o r several decades. i n recent years.

Improvised nonviolent struggle has already been used against internal Recommendations and explorations for

These have become more sophisticated and been taken more seriously

This policy i s now called "civilian-based defense." It is a policy intended to deter and defeat foreign mili tary invasions, occupations, and internal usurpations. The l a s t includes coups d '6 ta t -- with o r without foreign instigation and aid. rence and defense are to be accomplished by c iv i l ian forms of struggle -- soc ia l , economic, po l i t i ca l , and psychological. These a re to be used t o wage widespread non- cooperation and to offer massive public defiance. desired objectives, and also to make impossible the consolidation of foreign rule, a puppet regime, o r a government of usurpers. This noncooperation and defiance is also combined with other forms of action intended to subvert the loyalty of the attacker 's troops and functionaries and to promote the i r unre l iab i l i ty in carrying out orders and repression, and even to secure the i r mutiny.

Deter-

The aim is t o deny the attacker h i s

Civilian-based defense measures are designed t o be applied by the general popu- lation, the particular groups most affected by the attacker 's objectives and actions, and by the ins t i tu t ions of the society. attacker 's aims -- whether they a re economic, ideological, po l i t i ca l , o r other.

Civilian-based defense i s meant to be waged, on the basis of advance preparations, planning, and training, by the population and members of ins t i tu t ions of the society. Preparations and training would be based upon the findings of basic research in to these types of resistance and into the systems of the potential attackers, and upon intensive problem-solving research. The l a t t e r needs t o focus on ways t o improve the effective- ness of such resistance, to meet obstacles, and to solve problems in i t s application, especially against ruthless regimes. Understanding of the requirements fo r effective- ness of these forms of struggle and of the ways t o aggravate weaknesses of the a t tacker ' s system and reg e a re the foundation for developing successful s t ra teg ies of civil ian-

Which of these a re most involved varies with the

based defense. iP Such a system cannot be substituted overnight as a permanent replacement for the

It would be intmduced i n i t i a l l y as a back-up system of defense f o r mili tary system. use when the mili tary system was deemed inappropriate o r had fa i led -- as when military resistance was obviously suicidal or had been crushed by invading armies, o r perhaps a coup d'gtat had occurred. The civilian-based defense component could then be gradually expanded fo r additional si tuations. which people come to fee l helpless, but a process of %-armament, changing over to a new defense system, a new weapons system, step by step replacing the mili tary system.

This would not be a process of m-armament in

Despite the fac t tha t t h i s idea has had very l i t t l e development, it i s taken seriously in a variety of c i rc les . European countries, particularly in Sweden and the Netherlands. Transarmament to

There a re even the nibblings of governmental in te res t i n a few

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civilian-based defense is an idea which can be expanded and developed. We ought, f i r s t , to know a l o t mre about it ourselves. We ought to examine our various existing approa- ches to peace and see how they compare with th i s one.

With t h i s policy it i s not necessary t o polarize the country into those who are for it and against it. are witnessing against the e v i l i n the world, from a l l the other people they see as poor, deluded dupes of the present military system o r establishment. everybody interested in peace and also those interested in defense could agree to start investigation and exploration of t h i s policy. In many places people a re willing to say, "Let's s t a r t implementing it on a small scale, adding t h i s alongside our present military policy." It i s not. It i s a way of s ta r t ing t o s h i f t t o a nonmilitary posture. After a l l , the a l ternat ive i s not t o abolish the mil i tary system completely overnight. This introduction of a civilian-based defense component i s j u s t the beginning of a change- over. I f civilian-based defense becomes, and i s recognized t o be, a t l e a s t as effec- t ive as mil i tary means -- which doesn't have to be a l l that effective, i f you look a t them seriously -- people can agree to gradual expansion of th i s c iv i l ian component u n t i l they are able to replace the mil i tary system completely because the new system is more effective.

We need not separate those who believe they are pure and holy, and

Instead, v i r tua l ly

That might seem t o some persons t o be a moral compromise.

That i s not going t o happen.

With t h i s policy it is not necessary t o s t a r t with a l l of the countries of the world simultaneously. This has a great advantage. You can s t a r t with a few, o r even only one, because i f civilian-based defense can be made t o be a viable subst i tute defense system t o ward off dangers t o the society and to protect i t , then the new policy has to be strong enough that each individual country can apply it on i t s own. then spread t o more and more countries. defense, the defense e f for t f a l l s back onto human inst i tut ions and individual people -- not massive technological weapons -- bringing control of the i r relationships with the world and control of defense back down t o people. progressively taken that control away from people, especially from the time of the F i r s t World War.

The policy can Within the countries adopting civilian-based

Developments in military technology have

Civilian-based defense i s a way of restoring it.

There w i l l be social, economic, and p o l i t i c a l corol lar ies of civilian-based defense, i n terms of humanizing society, decentralizing control, and empowering people. But i t is unnecessary, and even undesirable, t o t r y t o convince people of the vir tues of some t o t a l utopia before one begins to tackle the problem of war. The thing to do is to figure out immediate steps that can be taken to solve i t , one a f t e r another, and to develop a grand s t ra tegic program to explore the possibi l i ty that we could eliminate the war system in country a f t e r country. become saints and not because our societ ies had become utopias.

We could do t h i s , but not because we had

We can transarm and eliminate the war system when we find that i n facing an exceptionally dangerous world, f i l l e d with conflicts, we have developed another power capacity with which we can deal effect ively with those dangers.

NOTES

1. Gene Sharp, The Pol i t ics of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent Publisher, 1973).

2. Civilian-based defense has also been cal led civi l ian defense, social defense, non- military defense, and nonviolent defense. Boserup and Andrew Mack, War Without Weapons (New York: Schocken, 1975); Adam Roberts, ed., Civilian Resistance as a National Defense (Harrisburg: Stackpole, 1968); Gene Sharp, "Civilian-based Defense: A New Deterrence and Defense Policy" i n Yoshikazu Sakamoto and J. Saxe-Fernandez, eds., Strategic Doctrines and Their

For discussions of t h i s policy see Anders

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Alternatives (Paris : United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organi- zation, forthcoming 1981 o r 1982) ; Gene Sharp, ltNational Defense Without Armaments, in E lorin Nonviolent Alternatives (Boston: Porter Sargent Publisher, 19701, pp.- of Nonviolent Action (Eoston: Porter Sargent Publisher, 1973); Gene Sharp, "'The Political Equivalent of War' -- Civilian-based Defensett in Social Power and Political Freedom (Boston: 1980), pp. 195-261; Gene Sharp, "Candhi's Defense Policy," and "Gandhi as a National Defense Strategist" in Candhi as a Political Strategist, with Essays on Ethics and Politics (Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, 1979), pp. 131-198; and Gene Sharp, "Making the Abolition of War a Realistic Goal" (pamphlet, 16 pp.) Winner of the Ira D. and Miriam G. Wallach Awards Competition, 1979-1980. (New York: Institute for World Order, 1981).

For a discussion of research areas on civilian-based defense, see Gene Sharp, "Research Areas on Nonviolent Alternatives," in Exploring Nonviolent Alternatives, pp. 73-113; and Gene Sharp, "Research Areas on the Nature, Problems and Potentlali- ties of Civilian Defence" in S. C. BiswaS, ed., Gandhi: Theory and Practice, Social Impact and Contemporary Relevance: tute of Advanced Studies, 19691, pp. 393-413.

Porter Sargent Publishers,

Proceedings of a Conference (Simla: Indian Insti-

CORRECTIONS

Vol. VII, No. 1/2 (Winter 1981):

In the article by Dr. Peter Brock, "Gandhi's Nonviolence and His War Service," page 73, lines 11-14 should have read as follows:

He still supported India's membership in the Empire, but he came increas- ingly to doubt that a new relationship of equality between India and its present rulers could come about without the pressure of satyagrahe and nonviolent struggle .

Vol. VII, No. 3 (Spring 1981):

The article "Peace Research: the members of the Executive Council of CLAIP (Consejo Latinoamericano de Investigacion para la Paz). impression that the translators were the authors, for which error the editors apologize.

A Latin American Perspective" was written by

The format of the issue inadvertently gave the