The Art of Waging Peace

By Paul Chappell, 2013

Notes made by Russ Faure-Brac

The Basic Building Blocks of Peace

• First line of defense: Maximize respect (The Infinite Shield) [Waging Peace]
  • It prevents escalation.
  • Be aware of social customs
  • Universal respect
    • Listen – This plants a seed of change.  The more seeds we plant, the larger the potential harvest
    • Speak to their potential – Talk to them as if they are a good person.  Stimulate their integrity, reason, compassion and conscience.
    • Don’t be hypocritical – Lead by example.  Being a dishonest person can lead to anger and disrespect.
• When this fails, go to the second line of defense
• Second line of defense: Calm people down (The Sword that Heals) [Waging Peace]
  • Be calm
  • Listen and be respectful (empathize with people)
  • Show care and concern (speak with sincerity)
  • Third line of defense: Deflection
    • Use social norms [Deters Hostile Behavior]
    • Use laws [Deters Hostile Behavior]
    • Outsmart violence – Lying should not be used unless in the rare situation to protect someone in imminent physical danger and Respect and Calming seem unlikely to work [Uses Deception]
    • Fourth line of defense: Violence (The Perilous Arrow) [Uses Deception and Violence (which should never be used in a social movement)]
      • Personal self-defense
      • Police Force

Other Topics

• Definition of world peace: the end of politically organized violence between countries
• The deceptive beauty of war
  • The curse of empire – Every single empire in history has collapsed, often due to military overexpansion
  • The sword of truth
    • Waging peace is helping others, even if the problem doesn’t affect us
    • To hide the truth, restrict people’s ability to express and hear new ideas and use propaganda.
    • Confront opponents where they are weakest, not where they are strongest (use moral authority) Peace Principle #3 – Use moral rather than physical force
    • All governments work hard to monopolize the use of violence
    • Nonviolent revolutions are less likely to replace a repressive regime with another equally repressive regime.
    • Persuasion and strategic thinking
      • Frame a new idea in their current world view
      • Reference democratic ideals such as liberty and justice
      • Reference highly respected military veterans
      • Reference Christian ideals
      • Question and think critically – “I don’t agree with every opinion expressed by MacArthur or Gandhi.”
      • The Occupy Movement should frame the issue as a struggle for fairness, justice and democracy, rather than a struggle against corporations and the rich.
      • Every movement must interact with four kinds of people:
        • Unaware of the issue and its importance
        • Against the issue
        • For the issue who are apathetic
        • For the issue who want to do something
• There are four strategies that can be used sequentially with the four kinds of people
  • Raise awareness
  • Persuade
  • Motivate
  • Empower
• The Grand Strategy (spiritual vision of hope, meaning, purpose, belonging and transcendence)
  • Strategy (intention)
    • Tactic (action)
    • Protecting our country and planet
      • There is a large overlap in the worldview of conservatives and liberals
      • One of the best things one can do in war is make the other side angry
      • It is extremely dangerous to underestimate your opponent.  Osama bin Laden lured us onto foreign soil and caused us to waste enormous amounts of money on overseas wars.
      • The greatest threat to American security is the hypocrisy of many politicians, e.g., supporting dictatorships.  I don’t address this.  Politicians should be honest (we’re going to war because of oil)
      • Others see the American people as kind and generous but our government doing many horrible things around the world.  That’s because most Americans don’t know what their government is doing.
      • Americans are not benefitting economically from war.  American foreign policy has less to do with providing cheap oil for the American people and more to do with giving powerful corporations control of Middle Eastern oil in order to maximize their profits.
      • By transforming to a peace economy, millions of people will keep their jobs.  Money previously spent on high-tech weapons can be diverted to humanitarian aid, disaster relief, NASA programs to make rockets to explore other planets, develop clean forms of energy and other technological innovations.  Peace Program #9 – Defense Industry Conversion
      • With climate change causing rising sea levels, population migrations, increasing droughts, famines and natural disasters, we need to work as a global family to help those in need.  That can be a role for the US military, the only organization in the world that can deploy tens of thousands of physically fit, mentally tough, well-trained people to any spot on the globe in a matter of days.  Peace Program #2 – Global Marshall Plan
      • The greatest threat to human survival is the “perfect storm” of climate change, nuclear armed nations and political leaders who serve and support the war system.

Four Steps to Create a More Effective National Security Strategy

1. Develop a foreign policy based on respect (The Infinite Shield)  – maximize respect

Americans should force our politicians to end their hypocrisy and fully embrace American ideals such as democracy, freedom and justice.  End the paternalistic way American politicians deal with other countries.  Lead by example.

1. Wage peace not war (The Sword that Heals) – calm people down and heal the underlying problems that cause conflicts.

One of the best ways to protect the American people is to help people around the world, addressing poverty, hopelessness and lack of opportunity.  Imagine if the US had the reputation that when a humanitarian crisis or natural disaster happens, the Americans arrive, genuinely help others without expecting anything in return, improve the local infrastructure and leave.  If a group of people in a foreign country then tried to recruit their fellow countrymen to attack us, many of their own people would say, “Are your crazy?  The Americans selflessly came and helped us.  Why would you want to hurt them?”  Program #2 –  GMP

Don’t rely on expensive military bases around the world (Program #5 – Close military bases) or use high-tech weapons (Program #6 – Phase out nuclear weapons) so that we can reduce the defense budget (Program #8 – Reduce defense spending).

1. Strengthen international laws against dictatorships and corrupt governments (Deflection) – Deter hostile behavior

Use freedom of speech to spread new ideas that transform how people think.  The modern era has a more connected international system, greater global consensus about human rights and more sophisticated technological tools that enable waging peace to work even against a dictatorship.

1. Increase international police work (The Perilous Arrow) – violence

Al Qaeda is more like a transnational criminal organization than a monolithic government, which you cannot defeat by invading and occupying a country.  Treating terrorism as a criminal act frees up the military to do more humanitarian aid and natural disaster relief missions.  Never underestimate the military’s ability to adapt and overcome.