Brian Martin - Technology for Nonviolent Struggle

Fred Emery (personal communication) provided this convenient encapsulation of bureaucracy.

Cynthia Enloe, Does Khaki Become You? The Militarisation of Women’s Lives (London: Pluto, 1983); Cynthia Enloe, The Morning After: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Betty Reardon, Sexism and the War System (New York: Teachers College Press, 1985); Jeanne Vickers, Women and War (London: Zed Books, 1993). On challenging this situation, see Birgit Brock-Utne, Educating for Peace: A Feminist Perspective (New York: Pergamon, 1985).

I thank Ellen Elster for suggesting these points.

Brian Martin, Uprooting War (London: Freedom Press, 1984). It is possible to go further and argue that science and technology have always been linked with warfare and that this connection is integral in western societies. See, for example, Jacques Grinevald, “The greening of Europe,” Bulletin of Peace Proposals , Vol. 22, No. 1, 1991, pp. 41-47. I thank Mary Cawte for finding this reference.

Models are always simplifications of the object or situation modelled, and hence inaccurate and incomplete to a greater or lesser degree. Simple models usually are easier to understand and work with. The question is, which simplications should be made? See Brian Martin, Information Liberation (London: Freedom Press, 1998), chapter 8.

Robots and other automatic devices do operate themselves to some extent, and this may be a future emphasis in warfare. But this only moves the discussion back to the design of weapons. Robots do not design themselves — at least not yet.

This is a narrow definition of nonviolence. Some activists and scholars prefer a broader definition, such as the Gandhian conception of nonviolence as a way of life and a principled method of challenging oppression and building a self-reliant and self-governing society. See Robert J. Burrowes, The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996).

Jeffrey H. Goldstein, Aggression and Crimes of Violence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975); Ashley Montagu, The Nature of Human Aggression (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976).

Alfie Kohn, No Contest: The Case Against Competition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986).

David Cortright and Max Watts, Left Face: Soldier Unions and Resistance Movements in Modern Armies (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1991).

Dave Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (Boston: Little, Brown, 1995).

Robert B. Edgerton, Mau Mau: An African Crucible (New York: Free Press, 1989).

This comparison of India and Kenya was made by Robert J. Burrowes, The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996), p. 239.

Terrorism as normally defined refers only to small nonstate actors. Arguably, terrorism on a far larger scale is carried out by governments. See for example Edward S. Herman, The RealTerror Network: Terrorism in Fact and Propaganda (Boston: South End Press, 1982).

Souad R. Dajani, Eyes Without Country: Searching for a Palestinian Strategy of Liberation (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994); Andrew Rigby, Living the Intifada (London: Zed Books, 1991).

Numerous examples are given in Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973), the classic source in the field. See also Jacques Semelin, Unarmed against Hitler: Civilian Resistance in Europe, 1939-1943 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993).

Anders Boserup and Andrew Mack, War Without Weapons: Non-violence in National Defence (London: Frances Pinter, 1974); Burrowes, op. cit.; Theodor Ebert, Gewaltfreier Aufstand: Alternative zum Bürgerkrieg [Nonviolent Insurrection: Alternative to Civil War] (Freiburg: Rombach, 1968); Gustaaf Geeraerts (editor), Possibilities of Civilian Defence in Western Europe (Amsterdam: Swets and Zeitlinger, 1977); Stephen King-Hall, Defence in the Nuclear Age (London: Victor Gollancz, 1958); Bradford Lyttle, National Defense Thru Nonviolent Resistance (Chicago, IL: Shahn-ti Sena, 1958); Brian Martin, Social Defence, Social Change (London: Freedom Press, 1993); Michael Randle, Civil Resistance (London: Fontana, 1994); Adam Roberts (editor), The Strategy of Civilian Defence: Non-violent Resistance to Aggression (London: Faber and Faber, 1967); Gene Sharp, Making Europe Unconquerable: The Potential of Civilian-based Deterrence and Defense (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1985); Gene Sharp with the assistance of Bruce Jenkins, Civilian-Based Defense: A Post-Military Weapons System (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990); Franklin Zahn, Alternative to the Pentagon: Nonviolent Methods of Defending a Nation (Nyack, NY: Fellowship Publications, 1996).

Gene Sharp is the most prominent advocate of this perspective.

Nonviolence can also be more effective than violence for those who do have armies. Many of the points below apply.

Stephen Zunes, “Unarmed insurrections against authoritarian governments in the Third World: a new kind of revolution,” Third World Quarterly , Vol. 15, No. 3, 1994, pp. 403-426.

Some pacifists oppose social defence because it perpetuates the idea of the enemy. They believe instead that the goal should be a cooperative society. Supporters of social defence accept that it is impossible (or even undesirable) to eliminate conflict and argue instead that the goal should be to wage conflict using nonviolent rather than violent methods.

Pierre Dubois, Sabotage in Industry (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979). For numerous examples see Martin Sprouse with Lydia Ely (eds.), Sabotage in the American Workplace: Anecdotes of Dissatisfaction, Mischief and Revenge (San Francisco: Pressure Drop Press, 1992).

The most notable are David F. Noble, Progress without People: In Defense of Luddism (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1993) and the radical environmental group Earth First!, for which key books are Dave Foreman and Bill Haywood (eds.), Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching (Tucson, AZ: Ned Ludd Books, 1988, second edition) and Earth First! Direct Action Manual (Eugene, OR: DAM Collective, 1997). See also The Black Cat Sabotage Handbook (Eugene, OR: Graybill, n.d.) and the magazine Processed World .

See for example Per Herngren, Path of Resistance: The Practice of Civil Disobedience (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1993); Liane Ellison Norman, Hammer of Justice: Molly Rush and the Plowshares Eight (Pittsburgh: PPI Books, 1989). I thank Andreas Speck for helpful comments concerning sabotage.