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THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES, volume 4, number 2, June 1981
© Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1981
Reformatted in HTML by Gene Keyes, cc 2007-09-17

Paper first presented at Annual Meeting of the Canadian Political Science Association, Montreal, 1980-06-05

p.125

Strategic Non-Violent Defense:

The Construct of an Option

Gene Keyes*

The existence of any weapon which fully jeopardizes a whole society necessitates the readiness for defense by the whole society.

— Brig. Gen. S. L. A. Marshall, 1947 (emphasis in original) # l
Probably the more that governments come to realize their incapacity for effective military defense, the more they will begin to take non-violent civilian defense seriously.

— Sir B. H. Liddell Hart, 1964 # 2

Introduction

If a nation disarms, can it wage strategic non-violent defense against a ruthless foe? There is no complete precedent, but Denmark's struggle against Nazi German occupation 1940-1945 is one of the nearest tactical facsimiles. When Hitler's bombers swept over Copenhagen on 9 April, 1940, their menacing leaflets specifically warned against 'passive resistance':
… it is expected that … the people and all municipalities will evidence their good will by avoiding either passive or active resistance. Such resistance will be useless and will be broken by all means in our power … # 3
It was not useless; it was not broken. The Danish success in holding the Nazis at bay refutes critics who say that against Hitler or Stalin non-violent action 'obviously fails'. # 4 However, this paper cites Denmark only in passing. Its main purpose is to present a construct for non-violent defense, both as a step toward a general strategic doctrine of unarmed resistance in future situations, and as a contrast for 'primitive' tactical examples in the past. From the construct in turn the paper proposes a theory centering on the respective morale of a defending Polity, and an invading Foe-Polity. Meanwhile, this assertion is the keynote: The fast track to failure in non-violent defense is to use tactics without strategy, strategy without principle, and principle without tenacity. The slow track to success is more problematic.

* This paper is adapted from my 1978 doctoral dissertation at York University, Toronto, entitled Strategic Nonviolent Defense in Theory; Denmark in Practice. Aid and discomfort were provided by David V. J. Bell (chairman), Roddick Byers, and Theodore Olson. John Gellner, Edgar Dosman, and Mulford Q. Sibley were helpful at other stages of the committee process as were my parents, Scott and Charlotte Keyes. With thanks, I absolve them all on any question of style or substance herein.


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The option

The idea of non-violent national defense was suggested as far back as 1852 by Elihu Burritt (USA, 1810-1879), # 5 and in 1915 by Bertrand Russell (UK, 1872-1970). # 6 The idea reappeared in 1931 as a minor corollary to the work of M. K. Gandhi (India, 1869-1948) , # 7 and a few pacifist thinkers, notably A. J. Muste (USA, 1895-1967), # 8 and Cecil Hinshaw (USA). # 9

Then in 1957, Sir Stephen King-Hall (UK. 1893-1966) — retired naval commander, former MP, and political-military commentator — brought the notion of non-violent defense into the realm of strategic debate by urging it upon the UK, NATO, and the US, in lieu of nuclear weapons. # 10 Despite many refinements by more recent writers, the strategy of non-violent defense — also called civil resistance, civilian-based defense, non-violent common defense, etc. — remains in escrow. Along with non-violent action in general, it is often dismissed as merely a local technique for democratic environments and 'civilized' opponents.

Since the late 1950s, Gene Sharp (USA) has attacked this cliché, and theorized in detail about the dynamics and methods of non-violent action for dismembering totalitarian power structures. # 11 With knowledge and preparation, civilian resistance could be made a prudent defense in depth against imposition of alien government. Other analysts who have advanced the study of civilian non-violent resistance to aggression include Adam Roberts (UK), # 12 Theodor Ebert (FRG), # 13 lohan Galtung (Norway), # 14 plus Anders Boserup and Andrew Mack (Denmark/UK). # 15

Prior to them, # 16 the confluence of pacifist and Gandhian thinking had gradually generated a moral case for non-violent defense. # 17 Yet except for occasional hints, pamphlets, and exhortations, it had not really buttressed the idea with any detailed study of precedents, problems, or prospects. A new chapter began in April 1957. King-Hall was aghast that the White Paper on defense had explicitly renounced any defense of the British Isles, confirming that all its eggs and all Britons were in the nuclear retaliation basket.

At this point, King-Hall re-emphasized the political nature of the struggle with the Communist world. He called for a Royal Commission study on the potentiality of a civilian non-violent defense posture for Britain (with its allies if possible), and the abandonment of all its nuclear weapons as useless, along with most of its conventional forces. His proposal first appeared in his own weekly newsletter, and later as a lecture at the Royal United Service Institution in October 1957. # 18 His book Defence in the Nuclear Age was published in March 1958 in England where it stirred up a lively flurry of reviews, but was unable to break what King-Hall called the 'thought barrier'. # 19

In this same period, Henry Kissinger gained fame for discerning the 'nuances' of 'limited nuclear war'. # 20 Morton Kaplan pressed the admittedly 'bizarre' idea of 'limited nuclear retaliation', # 21 And Herman Kahn's celebrated lectures on thermonuclear war urged people to 'think about the unthinkable'. # 22 Yet for King-Hall to scorn nuclear weapons altogether in favor of non-violent defense was a little too unthinkable. Nowadays one searches almost in vain through the bookshelves of orthodox strategy for any mention whatsoever of


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King-HaIl's attempt to open up an alternative defense method for discussion. And even some of the most caustic opponents of nuclear strategy have themselves not troubled to explore the path King-Hall indicated of a remobilization for non-violent defense.

Such critiques as those by Anatol Rapoport, or Philip Green, are well-taken, but beg the question: if not nuclear deterrence, what? # 23 Given Kaplan's apologia for nuclear assault (along with his conventional trigger-happiness), # 24 and Green's trenchant puncturing of deterrence presumptions, one might think that if they debated 'strategic thinking and its moral implications', I would naturally favor Green. Yes and no. I found Kaplan voicing a value judgement which is basic to this paper:
I am not really in disagreement that there is something immoral in holding the threat of death over someone else to produce a political result. Even though I agree in principle that every life is infinitely valuable, psychologically I find the idea of mass destruction of human beings particularly horrible. # 25
Green voices an assumption which is likewise basic herein:
Enemies or at least opponents always exist in political affairs — that is a condition the reality of which should be denied by no one. # 26
But I was startled at Green's deplorable abdication of responsibility:
[Social scientists] should give no policy advice, but should rather point out, publicly, the shortcomings of policies …  # 27
The other fatal weakness in Green's argument is its toleration of minimum deterrence. Jimmy Carter's rhetorical wish for 'zero nuclear weapons' is more acceptable, and should be a nation's operative policy as a function of the 'readiness for defense by the whole society' which S. L. A. Marshall spoke of in another context.# 28 It is the non-violent national defense option which is largely overlooked by orthodox strategic analysts.

Times do change, though. In 1964, Alastair Buchan wrote the introduction to Civilian Defence, the first 'strategic' pamphlet of its kind after King-HalI. # 29 In 1967, B. H. Liddell Hart and Thomas G. Schelling each contributed hedging but positive articles to The Strategy of Civilian Defence, the first book of its kind after King-Hall. # 30 In 1973, Gene Sharp's magnum opus The Politics of Nonviolent Action was published. with an introduction by Schelling; it has been favorably reviewed by military journals among others. # 3l In 1976, Brigadier General Edward B. Atkeson published a somewhat negative analysis of 'civilian-based defense' in the Military Review. # 32 And in the December 1977 American Political Science Review, Glenn Paige criticized his own 1968 book, The Korean Decision, for failing to take into account non-violent policy alternatives; he mentioned that
An extraordinarily versatile combination of political, economic, social, cultural, and communications means might be employed to prevent, resist, limit, and defuse armed aggression … # 33

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Such nods to non-violent defense are quite the exception, and the exponents themselves are largely a part-time group: who wants to subsidize their research? In America as in Canada; in England as in Denmark: the interest remains almost nil. Undaunted, Gene Sharp has been the dean of the defenders by virtue of relentless scholarship. His formidable book elaborates 198 distinct methods of non-violent action, as well as the step-by-step dynamics involved. # 34 Its central focus is the 'voluntary servitude' concept of political power, first suggested in 1550 by the young French philosopher Etienne de la Boetie (1530-1563). # 35 Sharp's theorem is that political power rests on obedience, that obedience is not inevitable, and that the strategic task of sustained non-violent action is to deprive would-be or actual dictatorships of the consent which makes them possible.


The construct

Non-violent defense analysts such as Sharp have had the same problem as their nuclear counterparts: no full-blown precedent exists for either planned, controlled H-bomb war or planned, controlled non-violent defense. To date there has never been a feedback situation where an endangered polity has seized upon a body of tradition and doctrine and non-violent strategy to adapt for its own conditions, while producing improvements in doctrine for its own or another conflict. Czechoslovakians in 1968 may have come closer to that stage than any of their forebears; but, as in all comparable cases, improvisation was the prime reality.

Every historic instance of 'non-violent defense' (so-called by me or others) has been a social re-invention; an embryonic flutter compared to centuries of militaristic know-how. # 36 For the invaded community, there was little or no theory to speak of; only a need to do something, somehow. An aroused populace that could not readily find guns began defying the aggressor by other means. Without doctrine, planning, and strategy, the efforts were bound to be worn down by the aggressor, and/or upstaged by more explosive forms of resistance.

Still, attempts were made, and noted. But in most of the writing on nonviolence and civilian resistance, such cases have been treated cursorily, or as relatively unstructured narratives. If non-violent defense theory is to become more reinforced by realities, it is important that parallel case studies be made of these various efforts, such as that of Denmark. It is to this end that the following 'construct' is offered. It tries to accomodate alike fortuitous past occurrences and calculated future exigencies of non-violent defense. It tries to be an isomorphic pattern for viewing military threats, in widely varied circumstances, yesterday or tomorrow. And by its very slant, its first-things-first predisposition, it imparts an order of thinking about world politics and strategy in general.

It is a measure rather than a model; a construct rather than a theory. It can be used to describe or evaluate a past or future situation; not to explain or predict one. It is a diagram, a sorting out of the subjects and predicates and priorities of non-violent defense (or any other kind): exactly who does what to


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whom, where and how and why. Thus, the construct serves both as a checklist for a case history, and a normative sequence for considering war and politics.

A simple schematic follows:
[original diagram as a jpeg:]
Diagram

[diagram reprised in HTML, if jpeg not available:]
NON-VIOLENT COMMON DEFENSE: THE CONSTRUCT OF A STRATEGY

POLITY*
< - - - - - - - - - - - -
FOE-POLITY*
       \

 /
 \

/    
    \

/          
             \  

           /
\  

        /
>
STRATEGY*
   >



(
 
1)
            Particulars

(
 
2)
        Parties
*- - -
(

3)
Principles

(

4)
        Purposes

(

5)
             Policies

(

6)
                 Programs


Thus, the construct has three sectors: Polity, Foe-Polity, and Strategy. Each can be viewed through the same diffraction grating, a '6-P ' mnemonic. Its categories are indented that way to accentuate the primacy of Principles in the construct for all three sectors. Particulars and Parties are conceptually subordinate, but must precede and incarnate the argument. Likewise, Purposes, Policies. and Programs are successively subordinate. # 37 Yet they are so semi-autonomous in political affairs as to warrant separate enumeration.

Definitions:

A Polity will tend to be a nation-state, but could also be a city-state, a non-state nation. a region, an alliance, the UN, a world government, or the like.

A Foe-Polity is any of the above, and one that threatens, invades, oroccupies another Polity.

Strategy has been well-defined by J. C. Wylie as 'a purpose together with a system of measures for its accomplishment'. # 38

In the construct, we assume that the Strategy of non-violent common defense is one among the unarmed policies employed — perhaps unwittingly, preferably with diligence — by an endangered Polity to ward off the armed embrace of a Foe-Polity. As for the '6-P ' set:

Particulars specify what and where and when: the situation, the locale, the context.

The word Parties will be used not only in its political, but also its legal, social, and personal sense. It will include discussion of the protagonists, organizations, and personalities of a given contest.

Principles is so nucleic a word and so critical to the construct that it will


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embody five of six definitions taken verbatim from The American Heritage Dictionary:
I. A basic truth, law, or assumption … 2.a. A rule or standard, especially of good behavior … b. Moral or ethical standards or judgments' collectively … 3. A fixed or predetermined policy or mode of action … 4. A basic, or essential quality or element determining intrinsic nature or characteristic behavior … 6. A basic source.
(We omit '5. A rule or law concerning the functioning of natural or mechanical processes … '. Willful rather than natural principles are implied in the construct.)

As used here, Purposes refer mainly to the intent of foreign policy, not domestic politics. I also propose to sort out gradations among purposes in this manner (read up or down):

Long-range:
Goals
10 — 100 years
Medium-range:
 Objects
   1 — 10 years
Short-range:
 Objectives
1 day — 1 year

(In this hierarchy, 'aim' could be synonymous with objective. 'Ends' could be synonymous with goals, but I would rather not use the former because there are really never any ends to anything, only new beginnings.) # 39

A definition for Policies is essentially the same as that quoted above for Strategy, except that the latter has military connotations; the former, civilian. The two are braided together in the construct in the sense that among the policies chosen by a Polity can be the Strategy of non-violent common defense. This Strategy in turn carries a number of alternate policy possibilities.

Finally, Programs are the detailed implementation on a day to day or year to year basis of a given policy: what tactics are to strategy.

Were non-violent defense a Polity's considered Strategy, the programs and tactics would be carefully calculated. But when — as always, so far — we find merely adventitious passive resistance in lieu of strategic non-violent defense, there is no 'program' as such. A case history must dub one in. # 40 The same events could just as well be labeled 'improvisation' or 'narrative'. However, 'program' is the term used here, because the construct is bi-directional, looking forward as well as backward. It will consolidate the chance circumstances of a case into the semblance of a 'program', the better to notice conditions and details which a real program would have to take into account. Like any animal, vegetable, or weapon, non-violent defense must be bred into existence from very primitive ancestors.


Purposes — Political

While there are many causes for which a state goes to war, its fundamental object can be epitomized as that of ensuring the continuance of its policy …

— B. H. Liddell Hart, 1954  # 41

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The minimum war aim of any general plan provided for non-violent defence must be the removal of the invaders and the return to the normal state of a free democratic society.

— Theodor Ebert, 1964 # 42
Military strategists often seem more aware of purpose as such than their civilian leaders and counterparts. Thus, John M. Collins, Director of Military Strategy Studies at the US National War College, opened his 1973 book by saying 'A clear sense of purpose must underlie all meaningful plans. programs, and actions. That is an elemental idea, but it is often unappreciated or ignored.' # 43 Collins further noted that 'no interests or objectives were formally recorded by the Executive Branch during either the Kennedy or Johnson administrations.' # 44 He then mentioned what seems to me an astonishing state of affairs: 'Critical U.S. national security interests and objectives are still not identified … in unclassified print, but … can be deduced rather easily … ' # 45 So, when Brigadier General Edward B. Atkeson, Deputy Commandant of the US Army War College, essayed a critique in 1976 of non-violent defense theory, he first had to posit his own list of 'US security interests', because 'nowhere in official government literature does a comprehensive and succinct statement of US security interests exist'. # 46 Non-violent common defense, on the contrary, would certainly entail open purposes openly arrived at, with a decent respect for human rights and for the opinions of humankind.

As will be shown, the purposes of a Polity and its Strategy must differ. Meanwhile, for the sake of argument, I would like to moot three idealized goals for any contemporary Polity, in seven words apiece:
1. General and Complete Disarmament plus Ideological Competition.
2. Rapid Economic Success for Everyone on Earth.
3. World Community, National Integrity, and Personal Security.
'National integrity' is what I want to emphasize here. I have not named 'survival' as an overriding goal, as would Nicolas Spykman or Henry Kissinger or John M. Collins or the Institute for Strategic Studies, to take just a few. There are a number of reasons for not doing so.
(a) No Strategy — nuclear, conventional, or non-violent — can guarantee personal or national survival.
(b) It is a badly anachronistic word: 'survival' in the context of nuclear strategy deserves a horselaugh; even a nuclear strategist must qualify the word to death.
(c) 'Survival' lends itself to any means from surrender to massacre.
(d) In common usage, 'survival' often carries a 'me-first' or 'us-first' connotation in which particular elites, groups, or sub-groups take priority over general survival of the general world polity.
(e) In short, to seek 'survival' is to take the dead-end path through the maze: the Polity which saves its life will lose it.
Nonetheless, national survival as an irremovable political instinct cannot be


THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES   p.132

ignored; what does one tell an Israeli? A Palestinian? A Basque? An Armenian?

I suggest that all the valuable connotations of the word 'survival' are preserved in the phrase 'national integrity'. As defined here, national integrity is first of all the humane-principled basis of a linguistic or historic polity, preferably endowed with a sovereign territorial commonwealth. It is the morale of the polity which preserves its principles, while reserving its commonwealth in case of usurpation. Everyone knows that principles are all that can survive anyway. People and nations are perishable, as are civilizations and planets; not principles. But principles can be lost or stolen, and therefore must be defended to the death by the polity which nurtures them, and was nurtured by them.

This definition omits the fetishes of 'territorial integrity', yet includes the political ideals for which a people may offer their lives. It includes the political aspirations of oppressed nationalities, but omits the excuses for terror and mass murder which have infested the words 'national security' and 'survival'. # 47


Purposes — Strategic

The non-violent defense literature is sometimes relatively vague about enunciated goals in the broadest political sense, though more to the point when it comes to strategic objectives. This is especially so in the book of Anders Boserup and Andrew Mack. # 48 (Indeed, they claimed that the literature has lacked any strategic analysis at all, and amounts to a stockpile of pressure tactics.) # 49 Interpreting Clausewitz, they rigidly distinguish 'aim' from 'purpose', stressing that the (military) aim of each side in war is always to win, whereas the (political) purpose is variable. # 50 Non-violent defense strategy ought to follow suit, they insist.

At first glance, this seems to fly in the face of Clausewitz's famous political-military equation; but as Boserup and Mack say, displacement of purpose by aim is the 'leading idea' in Clausewitzian strategy. (It has also tended, as Liddell Hart noted, to make 'policy the slave of strategy — and bad strategy at that.)' # 51 Sharp, Roberts, and Ebert, unlike Boserup and Mack, are influenced by the anti-Clausewitzian dicta of Liddell Hart, notably his first and second maxims, 'Adjust your ends to your means', and 'Keep your object always in mind … ' # 52 And of course they are also influenced by the Gandhian tenet that 'means and ends are convertible terms'. # 53

I partly agree with Boserup and Mack, if we distinguish the peacetime from the wartime purposes of Strategy. Let the peacetime goal of both a Polity and its Strategy include, for example, general and complete disarmament. But if a Foe-Polity intrudes militarily, then the wartime goal of the Strategy must change. It becomes the departure of that foe. We want the foe to go in peace — but go — as a friend. Meanwhile, the goals of the Polity — such as the three headlined above — remain constant.


The center of gravity

Therefore, to specify the objectives, objects, and goals of non-violent common


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defense Strategy is a much more delicate and difficult choice than it first appears. 'Aims' and 'objects' abound in the literature, especially since KingHall asked the perfect question, 'what are we trying to defend and against whom and against what are we trying to defend IT'?' # 54 (Emphasis in the original.) He defined the object of war as 'to change the enemy's mind'; and the object of defense as 'a way of life', an 'IDEA', 'the freedom of the individual': 'This is the IT' . # 55

Most of the modern defenders, especially Arne Naess, followed suit. # 56 There the matter lay until Boserup and Mack attacked that formulation by emphasizing how classic strategic theory a la Clausewitz dictates defense only of a 'center of gravity'. # 57 This they defined as the unity of the resistance; nothing else matters as much.# 58 Find the strategy and the center of gravity first, they say; do not go around making inventories of "'things thought worth defending" '. # 59 Moreover, how the defense chooses its center of gravity influences how the offense must choose its center of gravity and means of attack. The offense must always mold itself after the defense — one of the reasons why, in Clausewitzian theory, the defense is always in a superior position to the offense.

This is a thoughtful argument, but giving unity the keys to the kingdom does tend to risk everything on a single fragile factor.# 60 As Adam Roberts said in apparent counterpoint, making a 'fetish' of unity 'means that the chain of resistance is no stronger than its weakest link'. # 61 Also, it lends credence to one of the more sophisticated arguments against non-violent defense, first raised by Liddell Hart as early as 1937. He used almost the same words in 1958, when, in his semi-concurring review of King-Hall's book, he demurred: 'The effectiveness of non-violent resistance is undermined if even a small proportion of the community play into the opponent's hand — through weakness, selfinterest, or pugnacity.' # 62 This paper will address that problem later.

In any event, I suggest that the center of gravity might better be identified for the aggressor and defender alike — as morale. Let unity be impaired if it comes to that. But let the parties bearing the burden of defense carryon with morale unshaken, and national integrity will remain intact. If unity frays, let it be; I would not admit defeat. But if morale collapses, all is over: for us if it's our morale; for them if it's theirs.


Objective, Object, Goal: Dislocation, Demoralization Departure

Strategy is a sign of human imperfection. We have to presume a lot less than unanimity, a lot less than perfect coordination, a lot less than unselfish sacrifice, and a lot less than unflinching diligence. A Polity will have some of all that, but never enough — just like any field commander or statesman or society. So, Strategy, given its non-violent means and its imperfect people, has a big and roundabout job to do in securing its goal of the Foe-Polity's departure. (Luckily, the Foe-Polity is also imperfect.)

I spoke of goals as being achieved in ten to one hundred years. They need not come so slowly, but protracted struggle is no monopoly of the Chinese or Vietnamese. Reality being the convoluted thing it is, we could imagine other


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interim purposes before the goal of the foe's departure is attained. They can be listed in terms of the time-span chart given earlier. Obviously the durations are not so precise as shown, and they may overlap besides:

Objective (1 day - l year):
Dislocation
Object (1 - 10 years):
Demoralization
Goal (10 - 100 years):
Departure
      
These purposes also coincide with what J.C. Wylie calls 'cumulative' rather than 'sequential' strategy. # 63 'Sequential' entails going from one clearcut locus or victory to the next. 'Cumulative' is a process of eroding the foe in ways that are not so distinctive —  as in guerrilla or naval warfare — but are decisive in the long run.

It is not distorting Liddell Hart to select some of his thoughts on strategic purposes, given that he had shown a cautious interest in non-violent defense near the end of his life: # 64
The key idea is 'strategic operation' rather than 'battle' . . . # 65

… dislocation is the aim of strategy … # 66

A strategist should think in terms of paralysing, not of killing. # 67
Building on these, plus earlier epigraphs (p. 130-31 above), I now offer a definition for the wartime Purposes of Strategy (non-violent common defense):
The use by a Polity of non-violent strategic operations to dislocate and then demoralize an invading Foe-Polity so as to impel the aggressor's departure, and thereby to ensure continuance of the Polity's national integrity and other policy goals.

Morale and demoralization


If morale is a Polity's center of gravity, it follows that a key object for strategic non-violent offensive is to demoralize the Foe-Polity. As Richard Gregg wrote in 1934,
non-violent resistance 'reduces the utility of armaments as instruments of policy', … partly … by disintegrating the morale of the opponents, - the morale of troops, of commanders, of civil authorities and of their home civilian populations. # 68
Furthermore, Gregg seized upon Napoleon's dictum that '"In war, the moral is to the physical as three is to one."' # 69 And Gregg cited the emphasis on moral factors by both Clausewitz and his commentators. Clausewitz himself identified them as follows: 'the talents of the commander, the military virtue of the army, its national feeling'. # 70 (Emphasis in original.)

Let us broaden these factors to encompass the Polity itself and its morale: In Clausewitz's lexicon, 'military virtue' is something like esprit de corps plus extreme endurance. Whether in his usage, or Burritt's, # 71 or Gregg's, or mine, the quality suggested is tensile strength — of character; of purpose; of spirit proven by ordeal. It is the principle of tenacity.


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Discoursing on morale in 1947, however, Brigadier General S. L. A. Marshall seemed to subordinate it to firepower:
… the equation, said by Napoleon and repeated by Foch: 'In war the moral is to the material as three to one [,]' … is a truth only as it is related to the state and possibilities of fire. Among fighting men morale endures only so long as the chance remains that ultimately their weapons will deal greater death or fear of death to the enemy. When that chance dies, morale dies, and defeat occurs. # 72
'Fire' is Marshall's cure-all. But is it 'fire' or 'morale' which is the critical factor in war? I say 'morale', and Marshall himself clinches the argument: 'What happens,' he asks, 'when an army loses faith in its cause?'

In this question, and its answer, can be found the essential object of non-violent common defense strategy:
What happens when an army loses faith in its cause? It is in fact defeated and wholly submissive to the enemy. Its will is defeated. If it can expect to receive quarter, the last reason for resistance has disappeared. # 73
Ergo, one of the cardinal purposes of strategic non-violent defense is demoralization of the invading force and of the parent Foe-Polity. It need not be done by fire.

(1 hesitate to mention the Vietnam war. But who can deny, whether they applaud or decry the fact, that the American polity lost faith in its cause? Who can deny that demoralization defeated the French and then the American interventions and the South Vietnamese regimes? We know that fire was not decisive, because we know who had far and away the most firepower. That the Army of the Republic of Vietnam had lost faith in its cause was an open secret all the way through the war. And consider the Shah with his multi-billion dollar war machine, demoralized and toppled by largely non-violent demonstrations. Who had the firepower? Who had the morale? Which was decisive?)


Notes on the Danish resistance
For the ultimate question is always this: What do we do if the passive resistance ends by really getting on an adversary's nerves and he takes up the struggle against it with brutal strong-arm methods? Are we then resolved to offer further resistance? If so, we must for better or worse invite the gravest, bloodiest persecutions.

— Adolf Hitler, 1926 # 74
We should not forget that [Denmark's] fate will be decided not by the war in the outside world but by the extent to which we are able to maintain truth, justice, and freedom by being ready to pay the price.

    — Hal Koch, 1942 # 75
Our form of heroism is a cheerful defiance with the least possible show.

    — Poul Nørlund, 1946 # 76


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In 1938, Commander Stephen King-Hall forecast the inevitable German seizure of Denmark, and told Danes at a private dinner in Copenhagen, , "While nobody expects you to resist physically, we expect you to give the best example of passive resistance the world has seen." ' # 77 In the ensuing five-year occupation Denmark did produce some of the best examples of passive resistance the world has seen. But it gained perhaps greater repute for its physical resistance, including some of the nicest sabotage of the entire War. The non-violent case history must be disentangled. What was called 'passive resistance' there often connoted one of those inferior wartime substitutes one had to make do with, until Britain could increase its airdrops of 'real' weapons, and cigarettes. Danish historians and leaders in the struggle have tended to regard 'passive resistance' as only a springboard, something one went 'from', to 'active resistance'.

However, using Gene Sharp's terminology, let us emphasize that this was a history of non-violent action; otherwise 'passive resistance' can be a misnomer as debilitating as 'non-resistance'. # 78 We do not gainsay the military feats of the Danish struggle. What my study did contend was that non-violent action comprised many forms and degrees of 'active resistance' in Denmark — not passive.

To summarize: # 79

On 9 April, 1940, Germany invaded Denmark; the government conditionally surrendered. The King and a democratic unity Cabinet remained on Danish soil. A facade of sovereignty and free government was permitted during the first three and a half years. Despite numerous extortions, German pressure to Nazify the Cabinet and to take over the economy was successfully rebuffed. Likewise fended off were all German efforts to impose anti-Semitism. (King Christian X did not actually wear a yellow star, but the legend is true to his character.) By August 1943 a build-up of strikes and British-aided sabotage prompted the Germans to oust the government and rule through Danish civil servants and SS terrorism.

Although Denmark was ostensibly cooperating with Germany throughout the occupation, authoritative responsibility for defending Danish democracy against Nazi encroachment was assumed by two bodies in competitive succession. The Council of Nine was an all-party parliamentary group backstopping a sometimes compromised Cabinet; it led the 'indirect' resistance from July 1940 on. The Freedom Council was a seven-man coordinating committee which led the 'direct' resistance from September 1943 on, becoming a quasi-government.

Though organizing sabotage and aiming to make Denmark a belligerent, the Freedom Council also helped guide two major episodes of spontaneous nonviolent action by the public: the rescue of most Danish Jews by spiriting 8,000 of them to Sweden in October 1943; and a nine-day General Strike in Copenhagen which gained temporary German concessions in July 1944.

On 5 May, 1945, German forces in Denmark surrendered, and a Danish Cabinet was reinstated, with leadership drawn from both the Council of Nine and the Freedom Council.


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Selected aspects: Denmark in practice

During his 1938 conversation with the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Danish Army, King-Hall told him that
the technique of two or three million passive resisters had never been studied, that a Staff College should be set up to train saboteurs and that the whole Danish nation should be trained to fight in this way. # 80
He took up the problem of consequences as follows:
If, I added, the Germans come, you will have to be prepared to have 50,000 casualties, shot in batches over a period, but you would make it necessary for the enemy to keep 500,000 troops in Denmark and that would be a great victory at a cheap price. Furthermore, the Germans would find that it is impossible to go on shooting people, provided your will to resist by passive resistance was proof against the terror. # 81
For almost any other victim of World War II, 50,000 dead would have been an underestimate of Nazi accomplishment; but here his guess was sixteen times too high. In round figures we could summarize by saying that almost 3,200 people died in the war as it affected Denmark, or almost one in 1,000 of the population. Of the 3,200, perhaps one in 100 died as a result of essentially nonviolent resistance, or one in 100,000 of the population. # 82 This is not intended to prove how safe non-violent action is, but to note, rather, that in this particular case, the brunt of World War II fell on Russia, Poland, and Jews.

I have already indicated that 'survival' cannot be the goal of strategic nonviolent defense — or of any military endeavor. It might be the reward. All we can say is that for the future, it is reasonable to assume that non-violent defense risks fewer lives and principles than a polity which is a user, or partner, of nuclear threats.

Had there been the more concerted non-violent defense advocated by KingHall in 1938, his casualty estimate for Denmark would likely have been too low. But that is a particular case. The reality was multiplex.

Denmark had some notable assets, such as democratic national character and solidarity; a steadfast monarch; and the Nordic blood beloved by Himmler. It had some notable liabilities such as puniness; geographic exposure; unpreparedness; and defeatism. Lacking a true military puissance, it fashioned a sabotage campaign 'second to none'. Lacking a true non-violent strategy, it fashioned an ad hoc array of non-violent actions ranging from the cold shoulder to a victorious general strike; from bureaucratic inertia to outright defiance of Nazi demands; from the underground press to the unparalleled rescue of most Danish Jews. As Demaree Bess wrote in 1945, in the Saturday Evening Post,
The fact remains that this little nation, whose army was defeated and disarmed in one day in 1940, succeeded in waging a remarkably effective war against Germany, with very few military weapons. And, at the same time, the Danes preserved their democratic society in as pure a form .as anything outside of Switzerland or Sweden. # 83


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Still, we cannot establish the strategy of non-violent common defense by planning on a re-run of World War II in Scandinavia. The modified theory given below arises not from the Danish resistance, but from the construct, with Denmark as its intial test case.

As mounted on the construct, the case of Denmark may be arranged so as to dispose its particulars briefly: its geopolitical predicament (Sweden's iron ore. the Baltic cul-de-sac, etc.); its historical struggle with Germany over Siesvig; its abused World War I neutrality; its military-diplomatic weakness in the face of Hitler's expansionism; its enviable domestic commonweal; and its retention of nominal political independence after the April 1940 occupation.

Next, Denmark in the construct can exhibit the complexity of the ascending-alternating-and-sequential levels of political confrontation with the German invaders — the variform parties involved, from the King to the Dane in the street. In noting two antithetical yet complementary foci of leadership — the Council of Nine, and the Freedom Council — the construct showed that 'unity' was not the essential strategic criterion Boserup and Mack aver it to be. The construct also abstracted from Denmark two additional theoretical protagonists for a defending polity: one is a 'sacrificial goat' or Uncle Tom to provide the form but not the substance of capitulationism. The other is what I dubbed a 'residium' (etymology: presidium, and residuum) meaning: a sequence of authoritative executive bodies which retain or assume complete governmental legitimacy when part or all of the nominal pre-invasion government is under duress, is suppressed, or eliminated.

Seen in the construct, Denmark confirmed that principles were the germ and the hull of its national integrity. Indeed, in terms of purposes, the construct showed that Denmark is virtually the classic of an invaded polity whose national integrity is the subject of common defense.

The subject — not the object! The object is the demoralization of the foe-polity. And the reciprocal of the object is the preservation of national morale, which among other things will be a function of the polity's principles to begin with (besides organization, leadership, tenacity, and so forth.) While the construct's evocation of Denmark did not dwell at length on either its principles or its wartime morale as such, these two are what close the circuit of the construct and serve as the filament which illuminates both Denmark in practice and strategic non-violent defense in theory.

While denying that Danish leadership enacted any strategic policies of non-violent defense, the construct nevertheless ascribed to it three newly-denominated variants of non-violent action at a policy level: 'direct and indirect resistance', 'semi-resistance', and 'normalism'. These policies were all conducive to some degree to either the safekeeping or the manifestation of Danish morale.

(As for demoralization of the Germans: due to the 'static' of World War II and the conventional-violence phases of resistance in Denmark, the construct could not tune a clear picture showing to what degree Danish non-violent tactics demoralized the occupiers, except inferentially: the corrosive effect of the cold shoulder; scattered reports of mutiny and defection; and the fraternization which subverted a group of Luxembourg conscripts. Just as


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important is the twin effect which Richard Gregg calls 're-moralization'. # 84 Here it was visible as the sapping of the Nazis' own will to capture Denmark's 8,000 Jews. Danish national integrity had fostered a half-heartedness among the German administrators, who let themselves bungle the pogrom, while the Danes carried out the rescue.)

'Semi-resistance' — an unpredictable mixture of compliance and defiance — I had likened to near-beer, or to a product that is 20 per cent butter, 80 per cent margarine. 'Direct resistance' denotes action bluntly at odds with the invader's policy; human grit in the invader's war machine. 'Indirect resistance' suggests morale-building or patriotic ostentation not quite interfering with the invader. It also embraces various types of 'normalism'; action by duly constituted authorities which goes against the grain of a usurping force, yet is not intolerably defiant. As Liddell Hart put it,
Apparent acquiescence that conceals, and is combined with, a strategy of non-compliance is much more baffling to the occupying power . . . the Danes, particularly, practised it on a wide scale and in a co-ordinated way. The Germans found it more frustrating than any other form of resistance — as they frankly admitted in post-war discussion [with me]. # 85
Thus, compared to the direct kind, indirect resistance was much more low-keyed, and much more pervasive.

The policies in turn were inferred from the divers events and efforts which the construct cumulated into programs. regardless of whether they were 'planned that way'. A key programmatic instance of 'normalism' was the Danish preservation of its currency against occupation scrip and against the German attempt to supplant the krone with the mark. A key programmatic instance of 'semi-resistance' was the intelligence gathering for the Allies by Danish army officers. Both of these efforts illustrate gaps in existing non-violent defense doctrine. A key instance of 'indirect' resistance was the set of civic-consciousness programs led by Dansk Samling, and the Union of Danish Youth. Another was the alsang, or mass patriotic sing-alongs. And, of course, the two landmark battles of mass, 'direct' resistance — active, non-violent resistance — were the rescue of the Jews, and the Copenhagen General Strike.

The general relevance of this combination of direct and indirect resistance is that it may enable non-violent defense doctrine to address what may be the major conundrum held against the strategy.


The weak majority

'What of the "Weak Majority"? is a poser Gandhi himself grappled with in August 1940, and conceded that he was 'sailing on uncharted waters.' # 86 A certain Professor Timur had written Gandhi that
' … The experiment which you want to make of defending India against foreign aggression without the use of arms would be the boldest moral experiment of all times … A few strongwilled members of the conquered nation may refuse to own allegiance to the conquerers, but the large

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majority always submits and adopts servile manners to preserve its existence … It is the weak majority which needs protection )' # 87
This is the poser Liddell Hart raised even earlier (p. 133 above). And this is the poser implied by Ivo D. Duchacek's mordant observation about post-1968 Czechoslovakia:
The all-permeating party control over jobs and privileges — and therefore over life itself — is based on a devastatingly simple assumption that among mortal men, on the whole, heroes and martyrs have always been less numerous than bons vivants — especially in the proximity of the Soviet superpower. # 88
In other words. we are faced with an inexorable bell-shaped curve for an occupied populace which might show 5 per cent heroism, 90 per cent disgruntled adjustment, and 5 per cent treason (worse yet, 2-96-2, or 1-98-1). We have an explicit fear that a non-violent defense policy can be cracked, not so much by the bang of a firing squad as by the whimper of a self-seeking public. (If this fear is correct, then nuclear weapons are the supreme symbol of national cowardice, a polity's supreme confession of non-confidence in itself and its citizenry.)

Yet as far as non-violent defense strategy need be concerned, that bell-shaped curve is merely one of the givens, one of the particulars, an environmental constraint: an immensely difficult constraint, but not prohibitively so. Thus it will be the task of non-violent defense analysts to estimate and allow for the degree of public pliability vis-a-vis an invader, as well as to factor in the allowable limits of compliance, semi-resistance, and indirect resistance. All of these will compose the bulk of the common defense, the 'inert ingredients' of the medicine. As well, the non-violent defense planners will also prescribe the more exciting dosages of direct resistance, which will be a much smaller percentage, but the 'active ingredients' of the medicine. (A familiar compound in guerrilla warfare.) The important thing will be to 'shake well', because direct and indirect resistance should not become too separated. Average citizens should not be shamed for making only indirect gestures (e.g., alsangs), nor should they fail to be challenged to go all out at critical moments (as in the Copenhagen General Strike).


Strategic non-violent defense in theory
Pity the theory which sets itself in opposition to mental and moral forces!

    — Clausewitz, 1827 # 89
Apart from certain variants and new details for policies and programs, does the construct yield a theory of strategic non-violent defense when it screens the Danish resistance — a theory not bound by the peculiarities of the Danish case, nor limited to reiterating the 6-P's?

Emerging from the parallax of the construct, and the Danish case history, the factor of morale jumps to a higher prominence than it had in either by


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itself. Despite my earlier emphasis on morale as the center of gravity for the Polity and Foe- Polity alike, I had perhaps not sufficiently heralded the significance of that concept - at least not to the extent this paper is now stressing as a critical realignment of strategic non-violent defense theory.

Wylie calls the choice and control of the center of gravity 'the fundamental key to the conduct of warfare'. # 90 And I had already raised the argument of morale forming that center of gravity. I hereby raise the same argument, to another power. Morale at the center of gravity will be the theory adumbrated by the construct, not just an adjunct to it.

We are not discussing morale itself; only its place in strategic non-violent defense theory. Of course, 'morale' is just the verbal tip of an iceberg. Let S. L, A. Marshall's definition be indicative; and as before, let his additional remarks be broadened from 'army' to 'society'. He calls morale '"the body of thought of a person or persons as to whether it disposes the thinker to high endeavor or toward failure"' and goes on to say:
Morale is the thinking of an army. It is the whole complex body of an army's thought: The way it feels about the soil and the people from which it springs. The way it feels about their cause and their politics as compared with other causes and other politics. The way it feels about its friends and allies, as well as its enemies. About its commanders and goldbricks. About food and shelter. Duty and leisure. Payday and sex. Militarism and civilianism. Freedom and slavery. Work and want. Weapons and comradeship. Bunk fatigue and drill. Discipline and disorder. Life and death. God and the devil. # 91
I will try to encapsulate below a modified theory of strategic non-violent defense. In its immediate formulation, it is patterned, not after Sharp, Roberts, or Ebert, but after Boserup and Mack, and J. C. Wylie; ultimately after Clausewitz. # 92

Thus, according to Boserup and Mack, a strategic theory must be descriptive, suggesting the '"laws of motion" of war'; and prescriptive, enabling a strategist to overview an entire struggle, choose and control its center of gravity, and evaluate tactics only according to their usefulness in maintaining one's own center of gravity while undoing the foe's. # 93 This is essentially the same course laid by Rear Admiral Wylie:
a general theory of strategy should be some development of the following fundamental theme: The primary aim of the strategist in the conduct of war is some selected degree of control of the enemy for the strategist's own purpose; this is achieved by control of the pattern of the war; and this control of the pattern of war is had by manipulation of the center of gravity of war to the advantage of the strategist and the disadvantage of the opponent. # 94
So, a modified theory of strategic non-violent defense — descriptive, prescriptive, predictive — is offered as follows:
In war the center of gravity is morale; the side which loses it first loses

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the war. A defending polity whose strategy is non-violent common defense must ensure that its morale is strong to begin with and essentiially unshaken in the course of a struggle against an invading foe-polity whose aim perforce is to subdue the defenders' morale. All tactics must relate first to preserving the polity's own morale; and then to reducing the foe-polity's morale, sufficient for the eventual departure of the foe-polity.
This morale-centric theory ought to be applicable to a wide variety of cases, non-violent or otherwise. Vietnam and Iran were noted above. And, to cite one other. example, Finland: militarily, it lost the Winter War against Russia by March 1940, but was able to sue for peace with morale unshattered, and keep its democratic government, despite Stalin's earlier onslaught, complete with puppet-government-in-waiting. # 95 Technically, Russia could have annexed Finland in 1940, but among other factors, Stalin knew that the Finns had not been demoralized, whereas the Red Army and the Soviet Union had been during their inept aggression. As Max Jakobson said, 'Finland was defeated. But she was not conquered.' # 96

The theory can also readily accomodate the existing literature on non-violent defense. For one thing, to locate morale in the zenith of strategic non-violent defense doctrine is scarcely a new suggestion. Gregg. and King-Hall, respectively, had just about said as much in 1934 and 1957. # 97 Furthermore, demoralization of a foe is widely discussed in the literature. Yet a polity's own morale, though by no means lacking consideration, is rather more implicit by comparison; more subsidiary in tone; more in the category of 'yes, we need that too'. However, at the center of gravity, morale becomes the sine qua non of strategic non-violent defense.

For another thing, morale has at its own nucleus a moral argument, which is where Gandhian strategic non-violence began in the first place. It is in the concept of morale that the pragmatic and the moral interpretations of non-violent defense converge and co-exist; where the militarist Clausewitz and the pacifist Burritt stand shoulder to shoulder.

(The linkage of morale and morality is a theme I have developed in draft manuscripts, but not the present work. That I do not overestimate the moral component, however, is indicated by my choice of the Marshall definition. Meanwhile, the 'basic value judgment' inhering strategic non-violent defense was stated in the passage by Morton Kaplan. Nonetheless, Kaplan and most orthodox strategists — and some latter-day non-violent strategists — have tried to tiptoe past the moral argument with only a pro-forma recognition. J. C. Wylie called 'strategic morality' an 'incidental stumbling block'. # 98 My theory hypothesizes, per contra, that morale — with its moral nucleus — is not just an 'incidental stumbling block', but the very grounds of the defense effort, as well as the reef on which a foe-polity goes aground.)

If this theory re-orients the literature somewhat, does it modify the construct whence it came? Though it does not supplant principles as the pith and pinnacle of the construct, morale may be regarded as the sum and substance of the principles and the purposes, the policies and the programs: of the Polity; of the Strategy. All of which could be used to equate morale with two other words: grand strategy.


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One further point. It ought to go without saying that this preferment of morale as the strategic imperative is no practical or theoretic panacea; quite the opposite. As the 'weak majority' discussion showed, the maintenance of morale by an unarmed polity is hardly a minor question. Indeed, our theory makes it the question. Our theory states a very severe and challenging problem, not its answer. It states that a foe-polity must aim its blow to smash the morale of the defending polity, there being no armed forces to destroy. If morale holds, national integrity holds. And then comes the counter-assault on the morale of the attacker.

The theory states the problem. But it is only the nerves of some polity, as yet unprepared, which will determine whether strategic non-violent defense can transcend the pages of theory and the stages of blind experience, and enter the realm of praxis: the mutual aid of theory and practice.


Conclusions

Recalling again that the Danish experience, like the few comparable ones, was a pre-natal and pre-conscious and pre-strategic instance of quote non-violent defense unquote, we may review some of the strategy implications for non-violent common defense doctrine from this particular case arrayed in the construct. We will circuit the 6-P's from the apex. Neither rigid hypotheses nor aphoristic coda, these are some of the clues and themes I found the most salient:

Principles
(1)
The morale and the principles of a polity are the guardians of one another, and the substance of national integrity.

Principles and purposes
(2)
Preservation of national morale is the grand strategy of non-violent common defense.

Purposes
(3)
Mutiny is the jugular vein of the invader, and a commensurately dangerous target for the non-violent offensive; disaffection and malingering meanwhile can be stimulated at less risk all around.
(4)
'Adjust your ends to fit your means'; a lot can still be done.

Policies
(5)
'Normalism' can be a basic policy of strategy for confounding the foe without throwing down the gauntlet, and for maximizing long-term public participation in a graduated non-violent defense effort.
(6)
The same for 'semi-resistance', a perhaps 20 / 80 duality of defiance and compliance, functioning not as a contradiction but as a composite.

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(7)
The same for 'indirect resistance', those milder forms capable of reinforcing public morale and patriotism.
(8)
There is a time and place for 'direct resistance', ranging from the cold shoulder (every minute) and the underground press (every day) to a set-piece general strike (once or twice per war).

Programs
(9)
Contingencies for emission of legitimate currency must be attended to.
(10)
The scope and focus of intelligence must be determined.

Parties
(11)
A plenitude of quietly competent self-starters is preferable to one heroic leader.
(12)
A government-in-exile is a sign of weakness and a power vacuum in flagrante; a government that stays and faces the music will be in a stronger position, whether for legalistic haggling, daily normalism, or in extremis martyrdom.
(13)
Two or more complementary / competitive nodes of central political leadership are not necessarily bad for the defense effort; if a polity's morale and principles are strong, plural unity can improve rather than hinder the resistance.
(14)
Leadership must be expendable, including a 'sacrificial goat' who may compromise himself but not the polity which eventually repudiates him.
(15)
A 'residium' of legitimate political authority must be latent or kinetic in a number of contingent forms.

Particulars
 (16)
Let the polity strive for self-reliance, while paying due regard to the map, to friends and neighbors, and to the power realities.

Particulars and principles
 (17)
Particulars are the form, but principles are the essence, of national integrity.
(18)
Last, but not least, the Danish experience once again # 99 confirms that 'the non-violent enterprise' against Nazis or their like does not 'obviously fail' .# 100

(No kindly breed of Nazis were running Denmark. Of the German triumvirate there, Plenipotentiary Werner Best had been the administrative organizer of the entire Gestapo, and he was a 'moderate' compared to Hanneken of the Wehrmacht and Pancke of the SS.)


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Envoi
Now, as I am going to die, I wonder if I have been able to ignite a small flame in someone, a flame which will outlive me, and yet I am calm in the knowledge that nature is rich … the dream for you all, young and old, must be to create an ideal of human decency … That is the great gift our country hungers for …

     — Kim Malthe-Brunn, 21, a day before he was executed by the Gestapo on 5 April, 1945.  # 101
I would like to return to the preconception with which this paper began: that the fast track to failure in non-violent defense is to use tactics without strategy, strategy without principle, and principle without tenacity.

Non-violent tactics there were aplenty in Denmark. Of strategy there was little or none, simply because the concept did not exist, except for King-Hall's bright idea in 1938; Gandhi's exhortations; a few other inklings. Principle was Denmark's strongest suit: democratic principle and a strong trait of moderation, in lieu of Gandhian non-violence. Tenacity is to be found in ample measure among the various Danish leadership groupings. So Denmark was well endowed with at least three of the four considerations above, as well as the national integrity and invincible morale which are the foundations of strategic non-violent defense. In this imperfect world, Denmark waged an imperfect yet exemplary kamp uden vaaben (war without weapons); at the same time cooperating perhaps more than necessary with German bloodsuckers and British firebrands alike.

But Denmark adds two more desiderata to our listing: laughter; and decency. As for the former, Ebbe Neergaard wrote that Nazi ideology had made little headway, partly due to the Danes' 'peaceable sarcastic mentality, entirely unimpressed by anything pompous'. # 102 Poul Nørlund said that 'The German chains were broken by Danish laughter' . # 103 And as for the latter (with apologies to General MacArthur): there is no substitute for decency. In Denmark, common ordinary decency became the stuff of non-violent common defense.


A postscript and a parting shot: strategic studies and strategic non-violent defense

Murphy's Law, # 104 ipse dixit, should be the definitive warning against any strategy involving the mere possession of nuclear weapons, much less their use. But this bit of lore has yet to be fully appreciated by orthodox defense analysts. In a 1975 conventional-wisdom introduction to strategic studies, John Baylis makes the dubious confession that his group believes 'with luck and good judgement, military power can be effectively managed … ' # 105 Luck and good judgement are two volatile commodities which it is highly irresponsible to count on indefinitely in a nuclear-armed world. # 106 Baylis concedes it is 'optimistic' to hold such an opinion, and consoles himself only by presuming it more optimistic 'to believe that, by sustained effort, the capacity for organized


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violence can be abolished'. # 107 Thus, as in virtually all other books of that type, there is not the slightest mention of King-Hall and his pioneering effort to break the thought barrier, to make non-violent defense a realistic substitute for nuclear roulette.

One need not be optimistic, and I am not, about the prospects for abolishing reliance on organized violence. But that is no excuse to shrink from the attempt; no excuse to shirk the intellectual effort required to explore the problems and possibilities of strategic non-violent defense; and no excuse to count fatalistically on 'luck' to vindicate nuclear strategy of any stripe. Nuclear deterrence will succeed — Baylis, et aI., will be right — 5 times out of 6, perhaps even 5,999 out of 6,000. And then?

Meanwhile, as noted, non-violent defense analysis receives at best a wink and a nod from mainstream strategic writers. It has also been something of a foster child in the fairly new field of peace research. Even here it gets lost in the shuffle, given the over-inclusiveness which plagues this discipline. But is non-violent common defense really a peace study? Or a strategic study? Or both? Or what? Two comments by Adam Roberts are apposite. He cautioned peace researchers that
It is obvious that to propose a policy of civilian defense is to advocate a form of conflict — and one which can be both unpleasant and costly. It is therefore not a peace proposal except in the very broad sense. . . # 108
Yet under the aegis of the Swedish Defense Research Institute he likewise cautioned:
Unless there is a clear theoretical conception of the role of civil resistance, it will all too easily be regarded as a mere adjunct of military defence: as something which can be thrown in for good measure on top of existing military preparations. # 109
Finally, we note that Boserup and Mack insist they have already demonstrated non-violent defense to be 'a strategy in the classical, Clausewitzian sense'. # 110 As they see it, the strategy 'may run into any number of problems of actual implementation … but theoretically it belongs on a par with all other Clausewitzian strategies'". # 111

In other words, non-violent common defense belongs to strategic studies, but the paternity suit is still pending.



NOTES

1. ^  
S. L. A. Marshall, Men Against Fire (New York: Morrow, 1947; Apollo, 1961 ed.), 20.
2. ^   
B. H. Liddell Hart, 'Lessons from Resistance Movements — Guerilla and Non-violent', in Adam Roberts, ed., Civilian Resistance as a National Defense: Non-violent Action Against Aggression (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole, 1968), 210. Rev. ed. of paper given at Oxford Civilian Defence Study Conference, Sept. 1964.
3. ^
Raphael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 1944). 377.
4. ^
Manus I. Midlarsky, [Review of War Without Weapons: Non-violence in National Defense by Anders Boserup and Andrew Mack], American Political Science Review 81/4 (Dec. 1977) 1739.
 

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5. ^
Elihu Burritt, 'Passive Resistance', in Burritt, Thoughts and Things at Home and Abroad (Boston: Philips, Sampson, 1854), 269-86. Reprinted in Staughton Lynd, ed., Non-violence in America: A Documentary History (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966), 93-108.
6. ^
Bertrand Russell, 'War and Non-Resistance', Atlantic Monthly (Aug. 1915), 266-74. Reprinted in Russell, Justice in War Time (Chicago and London: Open Court, 1916), 38-57. (The word 'non-resistance' is no longer used by advocates of non-violent resistance —GK.)
7. ^
Mohandas K. Gandhi, Nonviolence in Peace & War, 2 v. (Ahmedabad: Navajivan, 1942, 1949).
8. ^
AJ. Muste, How To Deal With a Dictator (Nyack, N.Y.: Fellowship, 1954).
9. ^
Cecil Hinshaw, 'An Adequate and Moral Program of National Defense', The Peacemaker, supplement (5 Mar. 1950). Rev. ed., Nonviolent Resistance: A Nation's Way to Peace (Wallingford, Pa.: Pendle Hill Pamphlet #88. Mar. 1956).
10. ^
Stephen King-Hall, Defense in the Nuclear Age (Nyack, N.Y.: Fellowship, 1959; orig. London: Gollancz. 1958). See also n. 18 below.
11. ^
Gene Sharp. The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973).
12. ^
Adam Roberts, 'Civil Resistance as a Technique in International Relations', in The Yearbook of World Affairs (London: Stevens, 1970), 25-39; Total Defence and Civil Resistance: Problems of Sweden's Security Policy and The Technique of Civil Resistance (both mimeo from Stockholm: Research Institute of Swedish National Defense, 1972 and 1976). See also n. 2 above.
13. ^
Theodor Ebert, trans. Hilda Morris and George Joffee, 'Freedom on the Offensive: Strategy and Tactics of Nonviolent Resistance to a Communist Invasion' (Oxford: Civilian Defence Study Conference, mimeo, Sept. 1964). Published as several chapters in Civilian Defence: An Introduction, edited by T. K. Mahadevan, Adam Roberts, and Gene Sharp (New Delhi: Gandhi Peace Foundation, 1967), 150-211. Ebert has also written numerous articles and books in German; see listing by Herbert M. Kritzer, 'Nonviolent National Defense: Concepts and Implications', Peace Research Reviews (April 1974).
14. ^
John Galtung. 'On the Strategy of Non-military Defence', in Galtung. Peace. War and Defence: Essays in Peace Research, v. 2 (Copenhagen: Christian Eijlers, 1976), 378-426, 466-71.
15. ^
Anders Boserup and Andrew Mack, War Without Weapons: Non-violence in National Defence (London: Pinter, 1974; New York: Schocken, 1975).
16. ^
For brevity we need a word that will characterize 'theorists and proponents of non-violent resistance to a hostile aggressor'. Let us co-opt the term 'defender'. In an earlier day we could have said 'pacifist', but not all defenders (as defined here) are pacifists, and not all pacifists are defenders.
17. ^
One such landmark was the Quaker pamphlet Speak Truth to Power, published in 1955 by the American Friends Service Committee.
18. ^
Stephen King-Hall, 'Reflections on Defence', King-Hall News-Letter #1083 (24 April 1957). Reprinted in David Boulton, ed., Voices from the Crowd: Against the H-Bomb (London: Peter Owen, 1964). 27-35. Lecture: 'The Alternative to the Nuclear Deterrent: Nonviolent Resistance', Journal of the Royal United Service Institution (Feb. 1958), 4-20.
19. ^
N. 10 above. Gene Sharp prepared a 23-page synopsis of the reviews, 'Britain Considers Her Weapons: A Record of a Debate', Gandhi Marg (April 1959). In 1959, the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation published an American edition of King-Hall's book, with an arm's-length introduction by Edward R. Murrow. Otherwise, after some initial enthusiasm, many, perhaps most, pacifists remained as cautious of the King-Hall approach as his more skeptical brethren in the strategic mainstream.
20. ^
Henry A. Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1958; orig. 1957).


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21. ^
Morton A. Kaplan, The Strategy of Limited Retaliation (Princeton University, Center of International Studies, Policy Memorandum No. 19 (April 1959), 2.
22. ^
Herman Kahn, Thinking About The Unthinkable (New York: Avon, n.d. 1966; Orig. 1962).
23. ^
Anatol Rapoport, Strategy and Conscience (New York: Harper, 1964); Philip Green, Deadly Logic: The Theory of Nuclear Deterrence (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1966). Reprint (New York: Schocken, 1967).
24. ^
On 29 January, 1980, appearing on the Phil Donahue TV show, Kaplan proposed, inter alia, a blockade of Cuba. Donahue: ' … you really are ready to go in with guns blazing, it sounds to me.' Kaplan: 'You better believe it.' (Donahue Transcript 01290, Cincinnati: Multimedia Program Productions), 5.
25. ^
Morton A. Kaplan [and Philip Green] et al., Strategic Thinking and its Moral Implications (University of Chicago Center for Policy Study, 1973), 33.
26. ^
Ibid., 62.
27. ^
Ibid., 67.
28. ^
See n. 1 above, and epigraph, p. 125 above.
29. ^
Civilian Defence, by Adam Roberts et al. Peace News (London: Mar. 1964).
30. ^
See n. 2 above. Liddell Hart's sotto voce endorsement of non-violent defense comes as a 7-page addendum (205-11) to what is otherwise 'Guerilla War', ch. 23 in his book Strategy (n. 41 below), re-published that same year, 1967, but omitting the non-violent resistance commentary given in part at Oxford, 1964. Neither book mentions the overlap / omission.
31. ^
See n. 11 above. Reviews excerpted in publisher's brochures.
32. ^
Edward B. Atkeson, 'The Relevance of Civilian-based Defense to US Security Interests', Military Review (May, June 1976),24-32 and 45-55.
33. ^
Glenn D. Paige, 'On Values and Science: The Korean Decision Reconsidered', American Political Science Review, 71/4 (Dec. 1977), 1609.
34. ^
Gene Sharp; see n. 11 above.
35. ^
Etienne de la Boetie, trans. Harry Kurz, The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude, co-titled The Politics of Obedience (Montreal: Black Rose; and New York: Free Life, 1975; Orig. 1550 and 1942). Another edition contains the original French facing the 1735 English translation, and is co-titled The Will to Bondage, ed. Wm. Flygare (Colorado Springs: Ralph Myles Publisher, 1974).
36. ^
Another seven are: 1. Finland vs. Russia, 1898-1905; 2. Germany vs. France and Belgium. 1923; 3. Norway vs. Germany, 1940-45; 4. The Netherlands vs. Germany, 1940-45; 5. Germany (GDR) vs. Russia, 1953; 6. Hungary vs. Russia, 1956; and 7. Czechoslovakia vs. Russia, 1968-69. See April Carter, David Hoggett, and Adam Roberts, eds., Non-violent Action: A Selected Bibliography, rev. ed. (London: Housmans, 1970); and Gene Sharp, Exploring Nonviolent Alternatives (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1970). 133-59.
37. ^
The cue is from Eugene McCarthy, who has stressed the proper relation of 'philosophy, policy, and program" and inveighed against the tendency of programs to shape the other two. See his article 'Out of Phase', Newsweek, 'My Turn', (16 April 1973), 14-15.
38. ^
J. C. Wylie, Military Strategy: A General Theory of Power Control (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1967), 13.
39. ^
For other perspectives on purpose, see B. H. Liddell Hart, Strategy (n. 41 below), 227-29, 338-339, 344, 351; John M. Collins, Grand Strategy (n. 43 below), 1-7, 24-25, 73-75); The American Heritage Dictionary's discussion of all similar words under 'intention'; and Aldous Huxley, Ends and Means (New York: Harper, 1937).
40. ^
By no means is this to mythologize a purposefulness that never was (e.g., 'the masses arose and overthrew the tyrant'). Rather, it is to suppose that many important deeds were done by people who 'knew and knew not that they knew' (e.g., that they were using or inventing certain non-violent defense tactics). It is the business of case studies to draw such conclusions.
 

THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES   p.149

41. ^
B. H. Liddell Hart, Strategy, 2nd rev. ed. (New York: Praeger, 1967) 227. Orig. Strategy: The Indirect Approach (1954).
42. ^
Theodor Ebert, n. 13 above, 155.
43. ^
John M. Collins, Grand Strategy: Principles and Practices (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1973), 1. A spot-check of official and unofficial American foreign policy writing tends to bear this out; indexes are strangely barren of the words 'aim', 'goal', 'object', or 'purpose'. The discourse leans toward policy, and process, and — that synonym for license — 'interest'. For example, the Nixon-Kissinger 1970 State of the World Message dwelt upon four process-oriented topics, namely, the National Security Council, Partnership, Strength, and Negotiation; but the only items resembling goals per se were to 'support our interests' (emphasis in the original; noun and possessive pronoun unspecified), and 'durable peace' (defined at hortatory length from a July 1969 toast Nixon made in India in praise of — Mahatma Gandhi). NYT (19 Feb. 1970), 17-25.
44. ^
Ibid., 73.
45. ^
Ibid., 73-4.
Deduced! Among other things, Collins felt obliged to deduce that 'U.S. national security policy still is defensive … ' (p. 75). More recently my astonishment was compounded when Zbigniew Brzezinski briefed PRC leaders on top-secret 'U.S. security goals'. The Peking leadership, not the American citizenry! NYT (28 May 1978), 1. Whereas a February 1980 speech by President Carter to the American Legion, entitled 'National Security Goals', was mood music unrelated to that title. (U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, Current Policy No. 139, 19 Feb. 1980).
46. ^
Atkeson, n. 32 above, 30.
47. ^
As these two terms indicate, no word is tamper-proof; perhaps there should be an expiry date of the phrase 'national integrity'.
48. ^
Boserup and Mack, n. 15 above.
49. ^
Ibid., 148.
50. ^
Ibid., 151-52.
51. ^
Liddell Hart, n. 41 above, 356.
52. ^
Ibid., 348.
53. ^
Joan Bondurant, Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1958), 34.
54. ^
King-Hall, n. 10 above, 39-40.
55. ^
Ibid., 23, 38, 40, 56.
56. ^
Arne Naess, 'Non-Military Defense', in Quincy Wright, William M. Evan, and Morton Deutsch, eds., Preventing World War III: Some Proposals (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962) 123-25. Also, 'What does Civilian Defence Intend to Defend?' (Oxford: Civilian Defence Study Conference, mimeo, Sept. 1964).
57. ^
Boserup and Mack, n. 15 above, 163. Cf. Wylie, n. 38 above, 90-91.
58. ^
Boserup and Mack, no. 15 above, 163.
59. ^
Ibid., 158.
60. ^
Nuclear deterrence risks all on a chief-of-state's mental stability.
61. ^
Adam Roberts, The Technique of Civil Resistance, n. 12 above, 134.
62. ^
B. H. Liddell Hart, 'Passive Resistance', in Deterrent or Defence (London: Stevens, 1960), 221. This was originally a review of King-Hall's book, for Reynolds News, 9 Mar. 1958. The above passage was also quoted by Gene Sharp (n. 19 above) and mis-quoted by AJ.R. Groom in British Thinking About Nuclear Weapons (London: Frances Pinter, 1974),418. Cf. also Liddell Hart, 1937: 'The Defence of Freedom', in his Europe in Arms (New York: Random House, 1937),17-18.
63. ^
Wylie, n. 38 above, 23-29.
64. ^
Liddell Hart, n. 30 above.
65. ^
Liddell Hart, Strategy, n. 41 above, 364.


THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES   p.150

66. ^
Ibid., 339.
67. ^
Ibid., 228.
68. ^
Richard Gregg, The Power of Nonviolence, 1st ed. (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1934), 105; 3rd ed. [severely abridged] (Nyack, N.Y.: Fellowship, 1959), 83.
69. ^
Ibid., 1st ed., 88; 3rd ed., 90.
70. ^
Karl von Clausewitz, trans. O. J. Matthijs Jolles, On War (New York: Modern Library, 1943), 127.
71. ^
Burritt, n. 5 above.
72. ^
Marshall, n. 1 above, 67.
73. ^
Ibid., 161
74. ^
Adolf Hitler, trans. Ralph Manheim, Mein Kampf (London: Hutchinson, 1969), 625
75. ^
Quoted in Leni Yahil, trans. Morris Gradel, The Rescue of Danish Jewry (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1969),45.
76. ^
Ernst Mentze, 5 Years: The Occupation of Denmark in Pictures (Malmo, Sweden: A.B. Allhems, 1946) n.p. [iii].
77. ^
Quoted by Signe Toksvig, 'Denmark's Resistance', Atlantic Monthly, (Aug. 1942) 68.
78. ^
Gene Sharp, n. 11 above, 64-65
79. ^
To mention just a few English-language sources on the Danish resistance; see n. 75 and 76 above and also: Børge Outze, ed., Denmark During the German Occupation (Copenhagen: Scandinavian Publishing Co., 1946); Jeremy Bennett, British Broadcasting and the Danish Resistance Movement 1940-45 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966); John Oram Thomas, The Giant-Killers (London: Michael Joseph, 1975); and Jorgen Haestrup, trans. Reginald Spink, Panorama Denmark — From Occupied to Ally: Denmark's Fight for Freedom 1940-45 (Copenhagen: Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1963).
80. ^
Commander Stephen King-Hall, MP, 'The Small Countries', Free Denmark, 1/5 (Aug. 1942), I. (New York Public Library.)
81. ^
Ibid.
82. ^
Figures based on a Danish Foreign Ministry Aide Memoire in Trial of the Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal (Nuremburg: IMT, 1949) v.38, 623, 636, 641.
83. ^
Demaree Bess, 'Nothing Rotten in Denmark', Saturday Evening Post (8 Sept. 1945),46, 48.
84. ^
Gregg, n. 68 above, 1 st ed., 105 ff; 3rd ed., 83 ff.
85. ^
Liddell Hart, n. 2 above, 207.
86. ^
M.K. Gandhi, 'What of the Weak Majority?' (6 Aug. 1940). See n. 7 above, v. I, 323 of 1962 ed.
87. ^
Ibid.
88. ^
Ivo D. Duchacek, [Review of Czechoslovakia and the Absolute Monopoly of Power: A Study of Political Power in a Communist System by Barbara Wolfe Jancar], American Political Science Review, 67/3 (Sept. 1973). (Oddly enough, this same book was reviewed again in a later issue of the same journal, by Galia Golan. APSR, 68/4 Dec. 1974,  1813-15.)
89. ^
Karl von Clausewitz, trans., ed., and intro. Co!. Edward M. Collins, War, Politics, and Power: Selections from 'On War' and 'I Believe and Profess' (Chicago: Regnery Gateway, 1967; orig. 1962), 149. (Orig. 1827).
90. ^
Wylie, n. 38 above, 90.
91. ^
Marshall, n. 1 above, 157-58.
92. ^
Karl von Clausewitz, trans., and ed. Hans W. Gatzke, Principles of War (Harrisburg, Pa.: Military Service Publishing, Sept. 1942); Clausewitz, n. 70 and 89 above; Boserup and Mack, n. 15 above, 163; and Wylie, n. 38 above, 91.


THE JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC STUDIES   p.151

93. ^
Boserup and Mack, n. 15 above, 19, 148-58.
94. ^
Wylie. n. 38 above, 91.
95. ^
Gene Keyes, 'Stalin's Kuusinen Government Reconsidered: Nonviolent Defense Clues  from the Winter War (Paper presented at the International Studies Association, Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, 19 Mar. 1981). Update 2007: see HTML posting of published version, with extra material and maps.
96. ^
Max Jakobson, The Diplomacy of the Winter War (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1961), 259. Drab title: spellbinding book; tragic and comic by turns.
97. ^
Gregg, n. 68 above, 1st ed., 88-90 and passim; King-Hall, n. 10 above, and passim.
98. ^
Wylie, n. 38 above, 15-16.
99. ^
See Gene Sharp, n. 11 above; and Hannah Arendt, 'Eichmann in Jerusalem — IV', The New Yorker (9 Mar. 1963), 68-76 (also a book); and Leni Yahil, n. 75 above.
100. ^
Midlarsky, n. 4 above.
101. ^
Quoted in John 0ram Thomas, n. 79 above, 114-15 of Corgi paperback ed.
102. ^
Ebbe Neergaard, Documentary in Denmark (Copenhagen: Statens Filmcentral, 1948), 17.
103. ^
In Mentze, n. 76 above.
104. ^
Arthur Bloch, Murphy's Law and Other Reasons Why Things Go Wrong! (Los Angeles: Price/Stern/Sloan, 1977). 'If anything can go wrong, it will.'    .
105. ^
John Baylis, et al., Contemporary Strategy: Theories and Policies (London: Croom Helm, 1975),20.
106. ^
Roger Fisher, International Conflict for Beginners (New York: Harper, 1969), 20I.
To quote just one observation among many similar ones, this by Roger Fisher: 'Today reason plays a small role in international affairs. Perhaps ten per cent of international decisions reflect a purely rational judgement of what ought to be done.'
107. ^
Baylis, n. 105 above, 20.
108. ^
Adam Roberts, 'Research on a Possible Alternative to Military Defence', Bulletin of Peace Proposals (1 Mar. 1970),287.
109. ^
Adam Roberts, The Technique of Civil Resistance, n. 12 above, 119.
110. ^
Boserup and Mack, n. 15 above, 173.
111. ^
Ibid.



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