An Alternative System is Already Developing
Beginning in 1816 with the creation of the first citizen-based organizations working to end war, a string of revolutionary developments has occurred.
Beginning in 1816 with the creation of the first citizen-based organizations working to end war, a string of revolutionary developments has occurred.
There are many modern instances of the successful use of nonviolence.
(This is section 17 of the World Beyond War white paper A Global Security System: An Alternative to War. Continue to preceding | following section.)
(This is section 18 of the World Beyond War white paper A Global Security System: An Alternative to War. Continue to preceding | following section.)
“Conflicts typical of the contemporary world cannot be resolved at gunpoint. They require not a recalibration of military tools and strategies but a far-reaching commitment to demilitarization.”
A first step toward demilitarizing security could be non-provocative defense, which is to reconceive and re-configure training, logistics, doctrine, and weaponry so that a nation’s military is seen by its neighbors to be unsuitable for offense but clearly able to mount a credible defense of its borders.
Civilian-based defense deploys a powerful coercive force that does not require military action.
Withdrawing to an authentic defense of a nation’s borders is a key part of demilitarizing security, thus weakening the ability of the War System to create global insecurity.