“The Prospect for a Nonviolent Model of National Security,” On the Eve of the 21st Century: Perspectives of Russian and American Philosophers, eds. William Gay and T.A. Alekseeva (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994): 119-134.

 

 

The Prospect for a Nonviolent Model of National Security

 

William Gay

 

The End of the Cold War and the Continuation of Militarism

Despite the fact that only a few hundred nuclear weapons are needed to destroy a nation, throughout the latter half of the twentieth century the United States and the Soviet Union pursued a nuclear arms race that was economically costly and morally suspect.[1]  Why were both countries willing to accept these burdens and the risk of total devastation?  How is it that at the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the United States had over 12,000 strategic nuclear warheads and the Soviet Union had over 10,400?  And what will become of all of these weapons, along with the much larger stockpiles of tactical nuclear weapons?

To answer these questions, as well as to understand both our past and perhaps our future, one must recognize that following World War II nuclear deterrence emerged as the largely undisputed approach to national security.  Even the dramatic developments at the close of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s have yet to lead to much revision in approaches to national security.  So far, the ending of the Cold War has not ended reliance on both nuclear and conventional weapons.  Are there any prospects that we can move beyond nuclear deterrence and perhaps even beyond war?  At best, the evidence is mixed.

At the present time, there are some encouraging signs that we could move at least beyond nuclear deterrence.  As a result of the INF and START treaties, the United States and former Soviet Union (now Russia) reached the first agreements that will actually reduce the size of their nuclear arsenals.  So far, it appears that the newly independent republics will continue steps at reducing nuclear stockpiles and the risk of nuclear war.  In fact, since the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Republic of Kazahkstan permanently closed what had been the primary Soviet nuclear testing site at Semipalitinsk and the Republic of Russia announced a twelve-month moratorium on nuclear testing at what had been the other Soviet nuclear testing site at Novaya Zemlya in northern Russia.  Moreover, despite subsequent civil disorder and even warfare, the initial nonviolent resistance to governments in Eastern Europe and to the coup in the Soviet Union were surprisingly successful.  It is encouraging to see that at least in some cases nonmilitary approaches to dramatic social change can and do occur.

At the same time, there is also clear evidence that the United States is taking a leading role in continuing reliance on nuclear deterrence and war.  In relation to nuclear weapons, even with the cuts of the START treaty the United States will still have a formidable arsenal, and, in relation to conventional war, the United States initiated some hot wars in Central American and the Middle East.[2]  Now, in light of the rapid and devastating war against Iraq, militarists may turn to a conventional arms race as a replacement for the nuclear arms race.  Moreover, along with the demise of Soviet power, there has been a rise in regional violence among the former republics and in Eastern Europe, especially in the former Yugoslavia.  The recent successes of nonviolent approaches to social change now seem to be taking a backseat to the long established and increasingly lethal military approach to conflict resolution.

As this century and millennium come to a close and in light of the positive, as well as negative, developments of the last decade, a reconsideration of approaches to national security is very much in order.  Even if we assume the nation state will be with us for quite some time, we do not have to continue to link it to the capacity to wage war.[3]  Just as Cady has called for a shift from warism to pacifism,[4] I want to advocate a transition from military defense to civilian defense.  Whereas a military defense relies on the threat and use of large-scale violence, a civilian defense would rely on nonviolent techniques.  While systems of military defense are products of warism, a system of civilian defense could be the approach to national security under pacifism.  To make my argument, I will analyze both systems.

In comparing and contrasting military and civilian defense, I may give the impression that they are mutually exclusive.  Such is not my intent.  They are not incompatible and may even be complementary, at least during the transition from warism to pacifism.  Especially before civilian defense is fully developed or when facing invading armies set only on destruction, military defense may be needed to protect national security.  Conversely, when use of military defense would destroy more than it protects, availability of civilian defense would offer a needed alternative.  Pragmatically, serious consideration of civilian defense probably would require some kind of mix.  Several writers, in fact, advocate a defense system that includes both, whether permanently or only initially.[5]  However, from my perspective, ultimate termination of military defense and exclusive reliance on civilian defense or a functional equivalent remains the ideal.

Before I turn to my analysis, I need to indicate more precisely what I mean by pacifism and by civilian defense.  Generally, pacifists are viewed as political idealists because of their rejection of war on moral grounds.  This position is regarded as idealistic within a culture that takes war for granted.  Most cultures do not believe that it is possible to end war; hence, unpleasant as war is, the realist prepares for war.  Pacifists call these assumptions into question.  They believe that international agreements can be binding without the threat of large-scale violence and that if such agreements are broken, there are nonviolent ways to respond.

Alternatives to war have been around about as long as warism.  From Lao-Tzu to Martin Luther King, Jr., religious and social leaders around the world have developed - and even practiced - nonviolent forms of conflict resolution.[6]  In fact, much of the basic research necessary for understanding how to move beyond war has been done.[7]  One way to organize the vast array of proposals for moving beyond war is to organize them under the themes of:  1) nonviolence and civil disobedience, 2) international law and world government, and 3) civilian defense.[8]

Success in any of these three approaches might be sufficient for moving beyond war.  I recognize that civilian defense is regarded by many as, practically, the most remote of the three approaches.  Nevertheless, even if that is the case and a reasonable argument can be made for it, then the entire range of pacifist positions may appear as more realistic.  Although I will give a systematic and detailed account of civilian defense in the next section, I will make a few observations regarding it here since it is the least familiar among these three approaches to moving beyond war.  Civilian defense goes by several names, for example, civilian-based defense and civilian resistance.[9]  In brief, civilian defense includes a prior pledge and subsequent performance by citizens of organized nonviolent resistance toward an aggressor nation.[10]  Since a potential invader knows in advance that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to control the sociopolitical life of that nation, a system of civilian defense functions like a system of military defense, except that it is nonviolent.  While some advocates of civilian defense claim that it has the moral advantage that it can be used only defensively, I will show that such a characterization is no more accurate than that which states that a nation’s military forces are only for defense.  The greatest advantage of civilian defense, as I will present it, is that, like any credible system of defense, it does not forsake the moral obligation to defend the innocent.  Yet civilian defense, unlike virtually all systems of nuclear defense and most systems of conventional defense, if it has to be used, can avoid large-scale destruction of human life and the environment.  In other words, I will argue that from a pragmatic and moral perspective, civilian defense should be taken very seriously because it seems as good as nuclear or conventional military defense as a deterrent and is morally superior to both.

In the section that follows, I will note three requirements of a national defense and will compare both military defense (in its nuclear and conventional versions) and civilian defense as approaches to national defense.  I will also address the phenomenon of international offense (otherwise known as war), and I will relate to it what I will term “military offense” and “civilian offense.”  My assumption throughout is that the time is ripe for a consideration of nonviolent approaches to national security.  However, all I seek to demonstrate here is that, theoretically, civilian defense can match military defense point by point.

 

Military versus Civilian Defense

Most nations use the term “defense” to refer to their approach to national security.  Most nations also plan for “offensive” operations in a variety of contexts.  However, my point here is not to focus on this obvious fact;[11] instead, I will compare a military defense with a civilian defense.  Typically, any model of national defense will have three components.  First, since nations say their departments of defense are for defense rather than offense, a national defense includes a theory of deterrence.  Second, because deterrence may fail for a variety of reasons, a national defense also includes a plan of action should the defensive system have to be used.  Third, both the theory of deterrence and plan of action involve some type of strategy, which usually is made public both domestically and internationally.

A theory of deterrence is not a bad idea.  After all, a model of national security that always involved being at war would be rather taxing, both literally and metaphorically.  In light of various critiques of nuclear deterrence, one might invalidly and incorrectly infer that any national defense that aims at deterrence is immoral.  Nuclear deterrence may be immoral, and, possibly, any type of military deterrence may be immoral; but deterrence per se is neither moral nor immoral.  At any rate, whether considered abstractly or in its nuclear and conventional forms, a coherent concept of deterrence can be articulated, although whether and, if so, to what degree these efforts are successful varies from author to author.[12]  In brief, the truth-value of the statement “a nation has a right to seek to deter aggression against it” cannot be determined by abstract reflection alone.  Neither militarists nor pacifists should use such a premise in order to shorten their arguments.  (Obviously, the temptation would be for the militarist to say the statement correctly defines the terms and is unquestionably true and for the pacifist to say it is a bad definition and is patently false.)

The statement “a nation has a right to seek to deter aggression against it” is contingent.  Some forms of deterrence are moral and some are immoral.  The argument I will make is that while in principle deterrence is justifiable, in fact military defense is often if not always immoral and civilian defense, at least in some of its forms, is moral.  Since to many people, especially the Realpolitiker, moral arguments are irrelevant, I will argue as well that military defense is also often ineffective and civilian defense in many cases can be effective.

A theory of deterrence that is not coupled with a plan of action would be insufficient, unless one knew that this particular form of deterrence could not fail.  Again in this case, we do not have the luxury of certainty about the success of any system of deterrence (including military defense).  For this reason, nations have both the personnel and equipment needed to act in case deterrence fails (i.e., in case they are attacked).  A plan of action, too, may be moral or immoral.  Leaving aside the frequent and legitimate philosophical question of whether it can be moral to plan or to threaten to do that which it would be immoral in practice to do,[13] plans of actions can be assessed on the basis of either deontic or consequentialist analysis of the morality of their implementation.  From my perspective, plans of action associated with military defense are frequently, if not always, immoral, while plans of action associated with civilian defense are generally, though not necessarily, moral.  Likewise, remembering the Realpolitiker, I note that the former many times is ineffective and the latter can in many circumstances be effective.

Concerning the type of strategy, I make pretty much the same kind of points.  Strategy itself is not necessarily either justified or unjustified, effective or ineffective.  I will argue that the strategy of civilian defense has much to be said for it both morally and practically and that the strategy of military defense is suspect on both counts.

Finally, I realize that by distinguishing both morality and immorality, on the one hand, and effective and ineffective, on the other, there are four types of national defense.  I assume that a system of national defense that is both moral and effective would be optimal.  Presumably, an immoral and ineffective system does not have much going for it.  So, the rub would be in the case that one had to choose between a moral but ineffective system and an immoral but effective system.  Some readers might infer that I will argue that if it turns out to be the case that civilian defense is moral but ineffective and military defense is effective but immoral that I will recommend civilian defense, and they are correct in their inference; but, such a recommendation is not what I will be arguing.  Instead, I simply want to show that civilian defense deserves serious consideration, since in many cases it could be effective.  In this regard, I want to note that consideration of civilian defense is not occurring only among theorists.  In addition, a few governments, that of Lithuania in particular, are beginning to assess its relevance, especially since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.[14]

 

Theory of Deterrence in Military versus Civilian Defense

The approach of military defense to the theory of deterrence is to maintain a standing military organization.  Especially in the twentieth century, with the acceleration of the use of ever more sophisticated and destructive technologies and with what Quincy Wright calls the totalitarianization of war,[15] a standing military organization is very capital intensive.[16]  From an economic point of view, this expense counts against modern military defenses.  Even if deterrence does not fail, the cost of an arms race can destroy a nation.  Of course, beyond the high level of capital investment is the even higher level of threatened violence.  A military theory of deterrence is based on the belief that a credible threat of unacceptably high violence against any aggressor will deter attack.  Morally, it is appropriate to assess such threats.  Even if one feels such a threat can be justified for defense, the question should also be faced of whether nonviolent threats could have been made.  If there are credible, nonviolent threats, especially if they could be effective, then reliance on deterrence by military defense should be challenged.  From a consequentialist perspective, the propriety of such challenges increases as the threatened level of destruction increases.  To the credit of many writers, including quite a few philosophers, this is exactly what happened in the 1980s as more people reflected on the awesome destructive power of the nuclear arsenals of the United States and the USSR.[17]

To some people, it comes as a surprise to learn that civilian defense also relies on a theory of deterrence.  By contrast with military defense, a civilian defense relies upon trained citizen resisters instead of a standing military organization.  Such a civilian defense system is labor intensive.  It relies more on people, and lots of them, than on equipment.  From an economic point of view, such a system provides more jobs and does not have the problem that its material keeps evolving as occurs with military technologies.  Granted, people have to be replaced, but that happens naturally.  Moreover, the next generation of people is just as good as the last, which, as any general will tell congressional or Kremlin leaders, is not the case between generations of weapons systems.  More to the point, however, is the fact that a civilian defense also relies on a threat.  In this case, a potential aggressor is threatened with massive noncooperation.  Such noncooperation would be nonviolent, so the moral burden of justifying potential mass destruction of human life does not have to be faced.  Moreover, as most of us know from interpersonal experience, the threat of noncooperation can be quite effective.  We do not as readily turn to one who has pledged assiduous noncooperation.

The morality and effectiveness of any particular military or civilian defense system needs to be considered on a case-by-case basis.  But the two can be compared.  The more time and attention one pays to the development of such systems, the more likely it is that they can be made effective.  It may be easier to make such systems effective than to make them moral.  But, since I have established what I set out to do, showing that both military and civilian defense systems can include a theory of deterrence, I will not try to make the theoretical, let alone empirical, case that civilian defense will be more moral and effective.

 

Plan of Action in Military versus Civilian Defense

We are all too familiar with the plan of action of a military defense in the case that deterrence fails, in which military strikes are made against the enemy.[18]  (Note that this plan can work for the initiation of conflict just as it can for the retaliation to aggression.)  For this plan to be put into action, the troops and equipment of the military system are mobilized.  Interestingly, throughout the history of warfare, troops have comprised the minority of the population in countries--both in times of war and times of peace.  Some analysts see job specialization in the art (some think science) of war as efficient.  They may be right, but making defense the responsibility of only a small portion of a nation’s population can result in the majority of citizens being able to avoid a close scrutiny of defense policy and thinking that they are not responsible for the international actions undertaken by the military.  The issue of responsibility is quite serious from the moral point of view because the weapons used in military strikes precipitate large-scale violence.  In the twentieth century, the weapons used--whether nuclear or conventional--are increasingly ones that violate principles of just war.  Specifically, though an attack may be termed as one against a “counterforce” target (that is, one aimed at military personnel and equipment), the results also spill over to “countervalue” targets (that is, the population and industry of a nation).[19]  When such “collateral damage” is high, the principle of discrimination is violated.  And when the level of destruction undercuts the infrastructure of a nation (as occurred in the U.S. war against Iraq), the principle of proportionality is violated.

Civilian defense also has a plan of action.  For this plan to be effective, it has to involve the training of citizens prior to aggression against the nation.  In this regard, civilian defense is like military defense.  However, there are two important differences.  On the one hand, as should be obvious, the training is in terms of techniques of nonviolent civilian resistance, instead of in techniques of violent military aggression.[20]  On the other hand, an effective civilian defense would involve training the majority of the citizens of the nation.  When a nation claims that its freedom or security requires “eternal vigilance,” most people think in terms of the responsibilities of the military.  Civilian defense distributes this responsibility across the entire population of mature citizens in the nation.  This component may make civilian defense as undesired by citizens as it is by the military.  The latter might be out of a job, but the former would have a rather formidable job.  Despite these differences, the most significant feature of civilian defense as a plan of action, however, is the fact that it avoids annihilation if deterrence fails.  Nuclear deterrence as a “mutual suicide pact” has always been psychologically and morally distasteful.  Moreover, military plans of action frequently have entailed the loss of human life and, generally, on a large scale when implemented.  While civilian defense as a deterrent may fail to prevent an attack on the nation (a situation also true for nuclear and conventional deterrence), it does not respond in kind.  The response does not add to the carnage; instead, it strikes back with behaviors likewise designed to frustrate the aggressor in achieving its objectives.

At the level of the plan of action, the contrast between military strikes and civilian resistance is quite clear.  Military strikes and civilian resistance are at opposite poles in relation to the levels of violence they precipitate.  Military strikes assume violence, often on a large scale, whereas civilian defense seeks to minimize violence.  However, the issue is to assess the relative effectiveness and propriety of each.  If the same result can be obtained without violence as with violence, civilian defense has a lot going for it in relation to propriety for anyone with a humanitarian disposition.  The assessment is potentially closest to shifting in the other direction when, at the same time, the violence of military strikes decreases and their effectiveness increases, while the effectiveness of civilian defense decreases and the violence against civilian defenders increases.

 

Type of Strategy in Military versus Civilian Defense

The type of strategy in a system of defense is distinct from the plan of action.  The question concerns the objective of a nation in the deployment of its defensive forces.  Under most systems of military defense, the strategy is to win.[21]  In other words, the military works with a theory of victory.  In the case of international conflict, the aim is never to lay down one’s arms.[22]  Once a military action has started, the strategy is to continue to deploy troops and weapons until victory is achieved or all resources are exhausted.  A theory of victory, then, entails a value judgment that a nation should accept annihilation of its military, and perhaps even of its population, before submitting to conquest.  And, if conquest cannot be prevented, then guerrilla attacks against usurper troops should be attempted.  In other words, the response to violence should be more and more violence.

Under a system of civilian defense, it is admitted openly that an aggressor may succeed in invading one’s nation.  However, instead of following a theory of victory that claims that one’s nation is prepared to accept annihilation in the exchange of military strikes, civilian defense relies on the practice of nondefeat.  For the civilian defender, if one’s nation is occupied, that is only the beginning of the struggle.  The promise of nonviolent noncooperation is put into practice.  Nonviolent noncooperation may not be any more successful than guerrilla attacks subsequent to occupation.  While both, from a humanitarian point of view, are preferable to annihilation, civilian defense has as a distinctive feature that it does not operate from Manichean assumptions that reduce the enemy to an irredeemably evil adversary.  For the civilian defender, the enemy always remains human, that is, someone with whom communication and agreement may always be possible.[23]  So, under occupation, at the same time that civilian defenders practice noncooperation they also, in various ways, reach out to usurper troops, seeking to recognize the enemy as human and to encourage the enemy to respond in like manner.

As in the case of theory of deterrence and plan of action, whether a particular type of strategy will be effective is contingent.  Military strikes aim for victory.  Sometimes victory is obtained, as occurred for the Allies during World War II.  Sometimes it is not obtained, as occurred for the United States in the Vietnam War.  The same is the case for civilian defense.  But there is an important difference in assumptions, again, between military and civilian defense that places them at opposite poles.  Civilian defense is the most open to the enemy, and military defense is the most closed.  While the civilian defenders seek dialogue with their adversary and are often willing to compromise, nations at war with one another are often the most suspicious of any communiques from each other and, insofar as they pursue victory, are altogether unwilling to consider a negotiated settlement.  The demand for unconditional surrender by the enemy is the hallmark of the militarist approach.  Even when it succeeds, it is typically at the cost of much more death and destruction that otherwise would be required.  In this regard, an unchecked pursuit of victory can result in the violation of the principle of right intention, even if all the other criteria of just-war theory are satisfied.[24]

 

Excursus:  The Offensive Use of Defense Systems

Almost everyone realizes that systems for military defense are often used for offensive purposes.  A surprise to many is the fact that civilian defense can also be used offensively.  Since both are systems of defense, they have large numbers of people who are trained in specific techniques of forceful “persuasion.”  The obvious difference is that military offenses require violent acts, whereas civilian defenses rely on nonviolent acts.  Military offenses can range from small-scale strikes (which may or may not introduce any troops into the nation being struck) to full-scale invasion and occupation.  Civilian offenses can range from various forms of intervention against a nation (such as occurs under protest within a nation by representatives of another nation) to the introduction of sufficiently large numbers of civilian defenders to disrupt the ability of the government to control the nation.[25]  Technically, the difference is that a military offense seeks to depose of the government by bringing to bear on it violent force introduced from the outside, while civilian defense seeks to delegitimate the government by cultivating nonviolent noncooperation from the inside.

In the case of military and civilian offense, we have actions that violate the sovereignty of another nation.  Some advocates of peace through international law or peace through a federation of nations would reject either of these types of offensive action because they involve an unsolicited intervention into the internal affairs of another nation.[26]  From a moral point of view, intervention may be justified, if certain principles of human rights and social justice are held higher than the autonomy of the state.  From a practical point of view, it is important that a civilian defense can be used offensively (i.e., to intervene).  Otherwise, advocates of military defense would have a basis for arguing the insufficiency of civilian defense in a world in which governments continue to do great harm to their own peoples.  If we need the capabilities of the military to deal with situations calling for offensive action, then it may simply be more efficient to have a standing military organization and not even bother with a civilian defense that would have only limited application.  Since civilian defense can be used for such offensive actions, the relative effectiveness and propriety of each remains.  So, in offensive situations, as well as defensive situations, civilian defense can stand alongside military defense as one of the approaches to national and international security that deserves to be taken seriously.

 

Between Silence and Violence

As the United States and Russia move into the twenty-first century, they are in a position to reconsider not only their political and economic postures within the global community,[27] but also their approaches to national and international security.  If the demise of the Soviet Union has ended a rivalry that can permit us to enter into an era of peace, the United States, the Commonwealth of Independent States, and all other nations need to consider what peace-making really means.  The imposition of a nation’s or group of nations’ will on their own and other country’s peoples is one approach.  However, that approach is what the United States used to refer to as Soviet suppression of its own people and expansionist actions beyond its borders and is what the Soviets used to refer to as American exploitation of its own people and colonial and imperialistic actions beyond its borders.

Even to this day, a standing military organization is seen by many as necessary for an effective deterrent against attack against one’s nation and for an effective instrument for the correction of injustices around the world.  One of the lessons of the twentieth century may be that the superpowers were correct in refusing to remain silent about what they took to be injustices in other nations.  To remain silent, to refuse to intervene, is tacitly to sanction injustice.  Such noninterference is one of the major shortcomings of the approach to peace within world federalism.  However, the use of large-scale violent intervention--war--also is one of the major shortcomings of the use of military defense and offense for the pursuit of national security and global justice.  War itself, even if waged to eradicate an injustice, involves injustice, since the innocent are virtually never entirely spared and because war and destruction go hand in hand.[28]  So, it may seem that we are caught between the horns of a dilemma.  Nevertheless, I would argue that, in the face of injustice, silence is violence, but not all interventions against injustice are violent.

The global community needs an approach to national security and global justice that lies between silence and violence.  When we recognize that diplomacy properly functions within this continuum, we may begin to see as well that civilian defense and offense, much more than military defense and offense, is complementary to this orientation.  Diplomacy is by design both vocal and nonviolent.  Many times it serves as an instrument by means of which one nation may seek to correct the injustice in another nation, though, of course, its purposes are much broader than its capacity to foster greater international justice.  Civilian defense carries further the pursuit of justice and freedom, but it stops short of war.  Clausewitz termed war “politics by other means.”[29]  Perhaps civilian defense should be understood as “politics by the same means.”

Understanding peace making as situated between silence and violence, we can delineate the continuum on which both civilian defense and military defense are located.[30]  The following table places what Garver terms covert (institutional) violence and overt (institutional) violence at the extremes and locates nonviolent forms of talk and action between them.[31]  In addition, a particular approach (or lack thereof) to injustice and a range of examples are correlated with each of these types of violent or nonviolent action.

 

Peace Making as Located Between Silence and Violence

 

Type of Justice

or Violence

Covert

Institutional

Violence

Justified or

Nonviolent

Talk

Justified or

Nonviolent

Action

Overt

Institutional

Violence

Approach to

Injustice

Silence

Diplomacy

Civilian

Defense

Military

Defense

Range of

Examples

Racism

Sexism

Classism

Discussion

Negotiation

Arbitration

Protest

Noncooperation

Intervention

State terrorism

Civil war

Global war

 

This table is meant to be suggestive, not exhaustive.  Many more columns would be needed to fill it out, and numerous other examples would need to be considered.  In fact, much of the best peace research on nonviolent conflict resolution operates in the area between silence and diplomacy and between diplomacy and civilian defense.  The argument can also be made that, practically, if we are ever to get to a world beyond war, we need to begin on the domestic and interpersonal level and work our way up.  My analysis does not challenge this view.  Instead, I have simply shown how, logically, moving down the continuum away from war, civilian defense could serve as the nonviolent complement to diplomacy when, otherwise, the only resort would be to physical confrontation.  If we are to move beyond war or insofar as we truly want to make any turn to war the “last resort,” we need to envision something like civilian defense.  Perhaps efforts at the lower end of the scale will make the difference, and, especially if they do, as we move into the next century, the United States, Russia, and many more countries may start applying these lessons at the level of their pursuits of national security and global justice.  Insofar as the United States, Russia, or any other nation puts into practice a nonviolent security system, then civilian defense, by whatever name it is called, will cease being a dream of the political idealist and may increasingly become the taken-for-granted approach of the political realist.

 

Notes


[1]     Cf. William Gay and Michael Pearson, The Nuclear Arms Race (Chicago:  American Library Association, 1987), esp., Ch. 6 on “Military and Socioeconomic Consequences of the Arms Race” and Ch. 8 on “Alternative Futures:  War, Weapons, and National Security,” pp. 113-55 and 199-218.

[2]     For a critical treatment of these developments, cf. William C. Gay, “War in Panama and Peace in Europe” and Joseph C. Kunkel and Bruce M. Taylor, “‘Operation Just Cause’ In Panama--Was It Just?” Concerned Philosophers for Peace Newsletter 10, no.1 (Spring 1990), pp. 1-2 and 5-9, respectively; and “Special Issue on the War against Iraq” of Concerned Philosophers for Peace Newsletter 11, no.1 (Spring 1991), ed. William C. Gay, with articles by Douglas Lackey, James Sterba, Duane Cady, Anselm Min, Laura Duhan [Kaplan], Robert Lichtenbert, Maureen Kelley and David Ulbrich.

[3]     Cf. my essay “Militarism in the Modern State and World Government:  The Limits of Peace through Strength in the Nuclear Age” in In the Eye of the Storm:  Philosophers Reflect on Militarism and Regional Conflicts, eds. Laurence Bove and Laura Duhan Kaplan (Amsterdam, the Netherlands:  Rodopi Press, forthcoming in 1993).

[4]     Duane Cady, From Warism to Pacifism:  A Moral Continuum (Philadelphia:  Temple University Press, 1990).

[5]     Cf. Johan Galtung, There Are Alternatives:  Four Roads to Peace and Security (Nottingham, England:  Russell, 1984 and distributed in the United States by Dufour Editions, Chester, Pa), esp. p. 173 and Gene Sharp, Social Power and Political Freedom (Boston:  Porter Sargent, 1980), esp. pp.195-261.

[6]     Cf. Peter Mayer, ed., The Pacifist Conscience (New York:  Holt, 1968) and Arthur Weinberg and Lila Weinberg, eds., Instead of Violence:  Writings by the Great Advocates of Peace and Nonviolence throughout History (New York:  Grossman, 1963).

[7]     Cf. Robert Woito, To End War:  A New Approach to International Conflict (New York:  Pilgrim Press, 1982).

[8]     Cf. Gay and Pearson, The Nuclear Arms Race, pp. 209-12

[9]     For a succinct discussion of the pros and cons of civilian defense, see Ronald J. Glossop, Confronting War:  An Examination of Humanity’s Most Pressing Problem, 2nd ed. (Jefferson, N.C.:  McFarland & Company, 1987), pp. 249-52.

[10]    Cf. Anders Boserup and Andrew Mack, War without Weapons (London:  Frances Pinter, 1974); Norman Freund, Nonviolent National Defense:  A Philosophical Inquiry into Applied Nonviolence (Lanham, Md.:  University Press of America, 1989); Adam Roberts, ed., Civilian Resistance as a National Defence (Baltimore:  Penguin, 1969); and Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Boston:  Sargent, 1973), and Gene Sharp with the assistance of Bruce Jenkins, Civilian-Based Defense:  A Post-Military Weapons System (Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 1990).

[11]    I discuss the offensive nature of defensive systems in the opening section of my essay, “Star Wars and The Language of Defense” in Just War, Nonviolence and Nuclear Deterrence:  Philosophers on War and Peace, eds. Duane Cady and Richard Werner (Wakefield, N.H.:  Longwood Academic, 1991), pp. 245-64.

[12]    For an abstract discussion, see Gregory Kavka, “Critique of Pure Defense,” Journal of Philosophy 83 no.11 (1986), pp. 625-33; for a standard consideration of nuclear deterrence, see Glenn Snyder, Deterrence and Defense:  Toward a Theory of National Security (Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 1961); for a recent treatment of conventional deterrence, see John J. Mearsheimer, Conventional Deterrence (Ithaca:  Cornell University Press, 1983); and for a treatment of civilian defense as a deterrent, see William B. Vogele, “Deterrence by Civilian Defense,” Peace and Change 18, no.1 (January 1993), pp. 26-49.

[13]    For an interesting example of such reasoning as applied to nuclear deterrence, see Rose Mary Volbrecht, “Nuclear Deterrence:  Moral Dilemmas and Risks,” Philosophy and Social Criticism 10, nos.3/4 (Winter 1984), pp. 133-41.

[14]    Cf. Stephen Kinzer, “Defense Minister with a Nonviolent Strategy,”Nonviolent Sanctions:  News from the Albert Einstein Institution 3, no.2 (Fall 1991), pp. 1, 2, and 7, and Roger S. Powers, “Baltic Defense Officials Consider Relevance of Civilian-Based Defense at Vilnius Conference,” Nonviolent Sanctions:  News from the Albert Einstein Institution 3, no.4/4, no.1 (Spring/Summer 1992), pp. 1-2.

[15]    Quincy Wright, A Study of War, abr. by Louise Leonard Wright (Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1964), pp. 64-70.  By totalitarianization of war, Wright refers to the period since 1914 in which all phases of nation life (political, industrial, psychological) are organized for total war that eliminates the distinction between military and civilian operations during war.

[16]    Cf, Seymour Melman, Pentagon Capitalism:  The Political Economy of War (New York:  McGraw-Hill, 1970).

[17]    For an overview of this literature that includes an extensive annotated bibliography, see William C. Gay and Ronald E. Santoni, “Philosophy and the Contemporary Faces of Genocide:  Multiple Genocide and Nuclear Destruction” in Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review, ed. Israel W. Charny (London:  Mansell Publishing Limited, l988), pp. l72-90.

[18]    In relation to the plan of action for the possible uses of nuclear weapons, one of the most detailed and intriguing accounts can be found in Peter Pringle and William Arkin, SIOP:  The Secret U.S. Plan for Nuclear War (New York:  Norton, 1983).

[19]    For a discussion of this issue in relation to nuclear weapons, see Robert C. Aldridge, Counterforce Syndrome:  A Guide to U.S. Nuclear Weapons and Strategic Doctrine (Washington, D.C.:  Institute for Policy Studies, 1981).

[20]    For a discussion of the moral advantage of nonviolent resistance, see R. Paul Churchill, “Nonviolent Resistance as the Moral Equivalent of War,” in In the Interest of Peace:  A Spectrum of Philosophical Views, eds. Kenneth H. Klein and Joseph C. Kunkel (Wakefield, N.H.:  Longwood Academic, 1990), pp. 61-70.

[21]    For the classic argument of this view in relation to nuclear weapons, see Colin Gray and Keith Payne, “Victory Is Possible,” Foreign Policy 39 (Summer 1980), pp. 14-27.

[22]    One of the few writers within strategic studies who has dared to question the uncompromising pursuit of victory is Paul Kecskemeti and the result of his book was a congressional ban on funding studies that considered the option of surrender.  See Paul Kecskemeti, Strategic Surrender:  The Politics of Victory and Defeat (Stanford:  Stanford University Press, 1958) and James E. King, “Strategic Surrender:  The Senate Debate and the Book,” World Politics 11 (1959), pp. 418-29.

[23]    Cf. H.J.N. Horsburgh, “The Distinctiveness of Satyagraha,” Philosophy East and West 19 no.2 (1969), pp. 171-80.

[24]    On the topic of right intention, see esp. Joseph C. Kunkel, “Right Intention, Deterrence, and Nuclear Alternatives,” Philosophy and Social Criticism 10, nos.3/4 (Winter 1984), pp.143-55.

[25]    Cf.Beverly Woodward, “Nonviolent Struggle, Nonviolent Defense, and Nonviolent Peacemaking,” Peace and Change 7, no.4 (Fall 1981), pp. 62-63.

[26]    For the classic statement of this view, see Immanuel Kant, “Perpetual Peace:  A Philosophical Sketch,” in Hans Reiss, ed., Kant’s Political Writings (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1970).

[27]    I have addressed these topics in my essay “Market and State:  Some Philosophical Aspects”, in The Contemporary Civilized Market, ed. A.M. Alekseev (Moscow:  Economy, forthcoming in 1993).  The book is untranslated into English, but the original English version of my essay is available from me.

[28]    Glossop, Confronting War, esp. pp. 10-12.

[29]Carl von Clausewitz, On War, eds. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 1976).

[30]    Cf. Cady, From Warism to Pacifism, p.88, where he suggests that Sharp’s categorization of nonviolent actions that lie between arbitration and violent confrontation represents a “spectrum” within his pacifist “continuum.”

[31]    Newton Garver, “What Violence Is,” The Nation 209 (June 24, 1968), pp. 817-22.