NCD. — 08. Definition and design of a nonviolent civil defence

1. Étienne Godinot
Translation : Claudia McKenny Engström
26.06.2017
Series “Towards a nonviolent civil defence”
Slides 4
Definition and design
of a nonviolent civil defence

2. Definition and design of a nonviolent civil defence (NVCD)
Contents
• Research on nonviolent civil defence
• A democratic defence of democracy
• Defining nonviolent civil defence
• Two battlefronts:
- political institutions, local powers, administration
- social forces
• The objectives of NVCD
- making society unseizable
- making wills inflexible
- surviving without becoming exploited
• The role of NVCD in comparison with army defence

3. Nonviolent civil defence,
a concept born with the nuclear weapon
In 1958, a high ranked British officer, major Stephen King Hall
recommended, in his book Defence in the Nuclear Age, the
United-Kingdom unilaterally renounce the nuclear weapon
and instead establish a nonviolent civil defence.
In 1964, Alastair Buchan, Director of the International Institute for
Strategic Studies (IISS) wrote: “ It is essential we pay more
and more attention to indirect strategies in order to preserve
our societies from foreign domination. And it is possible our
society’s survival rests in the hands of nonviolent defence.”
Photos : - Stephen King Hall’s book
- IISS, Arundel House, London

4. NVCD research in Europe and the USA
Researchers work on the subject, especially during the cold
war :
- in Norway (Johann Galtung)
- in the UK (Stephen King Hall, Adam Roberts, Michael
Randle)
- in Germany (Theodor Ebert)
- in Belgium (Yohann Niezing, Jean Van Lierde, Robert Polet)
- in Spain (Gonzalo Arias)
- in the Netherlands (Hylke Tromp, Alex Schmid)
- in the USA (Gene Sharp), etc.
Photos :
-Gene Sharp, political science professor, University of Massachussets, author
of numerous books on nonviolent action and civil defence
-including Civilised War.

5. Research on NVCD in France
• Studies are led in France
• - in 1975 by a group of civilians and military,
animated by Olivier Maurel;
- in 1982 by the MAN *;
- in 1984 by Jean-Marie Müller in his book
You said “Pacifism”? From nuclear threat to
nonviolent civil defence.
* Mouvement pour une Alternative Non-violente (Movement
for a Nonviolent Alternative)

6. Research on NVCD in France
There are researches who find things…
In France, the literary reference in the matter is Civil Dissuasion –
Principle and methods for nonviolent resistance in French
strategy, written by Christian Mellon, Jean-Marie Muller and
Jacques Sémelin in 1985 * (photos).
The book is divided into three parts:
- Conceptual clarification
- Historical contributions
- A few measures that could prepare French society to deterrence
through nonviolent civil defence
* at the request of French Defence Minister, Charles Hemu (La dissuasion civile -
Principes et méthodes de la résistance non-violente dans la stratégie française, éd.
Fondation pour les Études de Défense Nationale, 1985)

7. International research
International symposiums have taken place on the topic of
nonviolent civil defence and deterrence, in
Oxford (1964), Munich (1967), Uppsala (1972), Oslo
(1978), Antwerpen (1980), Strasbourg (1985).
Photos
-(above) Norwegian researcher Johann Galtung
-(below) General Jacques de Bollardière, MAN co-founder
-Symposium organised by the IRNC in Strasbourg,
nov. 1985

8. Non-collaboration principle applied to defence
An exterior aggressor’s stranglehold or an internal dictator’s
dominance over a people can only last so long as the oppressor
benefits from active or passive collaboration of a majority of the
population.
To deprive power of such support, collective non-collaboration
must be organised, a non-collaboration that can mean mass civil
disobedience :
- if the power doesn’t suppress it, the movement will grow;
- if power represses it, the latter repression will develop popular
solidarity and increase the number of transgressors.
Photos :
-Etienne de la Boétie, author of Discourse on voluntary servitude
-Henry David Thoreau, author of a treaty on civil disobedience
-Mohandas Gandhi, first one to lead civil disobedience campaigns.

9. A democratic defence of democracy
• The object of the defence id democracy.
The author of the defence is the citizen.
The defence of the rule of law rests first on citizens, before it
can count on the army.
When military technology precedes, supplants and ends up
evacuating political reflection, it is no longer the citizen
who is actor of defence, but a technical instrument, a
military machine, a system of weapons.

10. Defining nonviolent civil defence
Nonviolent civil defence (NVCD) is a defence politics against
all kinds of attempts to destabilise, control or occupy our
society,
combining , in a prepared and organised way, nonviolent
collective actions of non-cooperation and confrontation with
the adversary,
thus preventing the latter to reach his objectives, admitted or
not, his aggression :
- ideological influence,
- political domination,
- economic exploitation.

11. Nonviolent civil defence :
making society unseizable
In other words, the goal is to make our societies
unseizable, untouchable by the aggressor:
- politically incontrollable;
- ideologically impossible to submit;
- economically unexploitable.
The idea is also to dissuade the aggressor from attacking
this society
- because his losses would be superior to his gains;
- because he would risk his own power.
That is civil deterrence.

12. A deterrence that doesn’t threaten personal safety
First interest of NVCD and civil deterrence :
it is a system of a purely defensive defence that
presents no threat to material security what so ever.
On the contrary, nuclear deterrence – French for
instance – can be perceived by a State or terrorist
organisation as a danger and call for preventive strike
in case of serious tension.
Photo : like the hedgehog in front of potential predators, NVCD is a
system of defence without attack.

13. What risks, what adversaries today ?
In the study Civil Deterrence in 1985, the potential aggressor was
the Soviet Union where reigned a communist dictatorship.
Today, the risks of aggression, destabilisation or control of our
societies are different:
- exterior aggression by terrorist organisation;
- risk of coup or power accession by authoritarian or
dictatorial regime, grounded on an ideology of exclusion or
xenophobia, for instance following a serious food, economic,
financial, social and/or ecological crisis.
Photos :
-Twin Towers attack in New York, 11th
September 2001
-Economic crisis today, that has only just begun.

14. A global approach to security and peace
Ecology and security
For instance, defence politics – French and European – must
take into account the weight of climate change.
1. Senator Leila Aïchi, Foreign affairs and defence Commission
Secretary at the French Senate, speaks in those terms about
Somalian piracy, to which we have hitherto only responded in
excessive security measures, increasing the number of navy
ships :
“ We will not find a solution to the problem if we do not
understand that 95 % of these pirates are impoverished
fishermen, hit by resource scarcity. And that is the consequence
of the ecological crisis, be it through the ocean’s increased
acidity generated by climate change, because of over-fishing or
water pollution ”.
Photos :
-Somalian pirates
-Livre vert de la Défense, éditions du Sénat, published in 2014 under the
supervision of Leila Aïchi (photo above).

15. A global approach to security and peace
Climate change, energy and security
2. “ Out-of-control climate change can be the spark that sets the
fire between communities. The United States, namely its army,
are aware that climate change is a major factor of instability (…).
For instance in Syria, the conflict was if not launched, at least
amplified by the climate factor. It is indeed, a phenomenon of
desertification increased by climate change that brought a million
and a half people to go from North to South of Syria.
3. As soon as States, big or small, will be able to produce
energy within their borders and free themselves from
dependence, the conditions of stability, equity and thus, peace,
will be re-established ”.
Nicolat Hulot, (La Vie, 26.02.2015)

16. 1 - Making society uncontrollable
Two battlefronts
Civil deterrence and NVCD act on two battlefronts :
1 - the institutional one :
- the State: constitution, executive, legislative and judicial
powers, public services (police, border control, schools,
universities, postal services and telecommunications, energy,
transports, etc.)
- local powers (regions, districts, municipalities
2 - a social front : political movements and parties,
associations and NGO, companies, trade unions and
professional organisations, civil society movements
(associations, clubs, cooperatives), Churches, etc.
Photo above : the French Constitutional Court.

17. At the head of the State,
maintaining legitimate power…
The constitution must guarantee the State’s legitimate
leaders will refuse to cooperate with the aggressor, or else
they would lose their legitimacy.
Provisions specify what acts must, always, be illegal,
whatever their appearance of legality they might present,
for example, a constitutional modification or
limitation to fundamental rights, a call to cease
resistance, etc.
Photos :
-Pétain and Hitler in Montoire, 24 October 1940
-Anti-Jewish laws under Vichy regime.

18. …a legitimate but also efficient political power
A sort of “government of national union” is desirable to lead the
population’s political resistance.
- Decide with precision, in structural composition of those bodies,
who may enter in clandestinity in case of occupational threat or
internal dictatorship.
- Decide parliamentary activity should be upheld *, even
clandestine and irregularly.
* to remind the population and international public opinion of the democratic
legitimacy of the resisting power. Reduce preventively the number of
parliamentarians called to seat in case of serious crisis, while maintaining the same
political composition.
Photos :
-A possible convergence in time of peace : Daniel Cohn-Bendit, François Bayrou,
Michel Rocard;
-Disappearing in a crowd, one form of clandestinity.

19. The functioning of local powers
Regional, district and municipal powers must be
prepared to exercise their powers in exceptional
conditions.
Clandestinity of their leaders can be very diverse
depending on the risks.
Decentralisation reduces the vulnerability of all local
powers towards attempts to take them over.
Photos :
-Bourg-en-Bresse (Ain, France) town hall
-Regional council of Franche-Comté in Besançon

20. Preparing for exceptional circumstances
Numerous delegations from the grassroots must be
implemented as soon as normal power can no longer be
exercised.
Decentralisation must not prevent the coordination of
resistance actions.
- Take preventive measures regarding support to this
coordination : radio, internet, etc.
- Create organigrams allowing to clearly situate the relations
in discussing, executing and informing between the different
instances with responsibility within the resistance.
Photos :
-Local radio;
-Organigram of delegation

21. Make sure administration can resist
The objective of NVCD is not only to guide civil servants in
their individual and difficult choice (resign or stay in function,
obey or not to this or that order, destroy or not this or that
document, etc.),
but also to make sure administration will enter in resistance
with the enemy, preventing the latter from reaching his goal to
dominate or exploit.
Civil servants must be trained in obeying legitimate power, and
know who carries that legitimacy (even clandestine) and who
doesn’t.

22. Educating to initiative and ethics
• Individual initiative will often be necessary in order to counter
certain measures ordered by the power in place. It is
therefore important that administration develop a critical
thinking regarding those orders, as well as a sense of
initiative.
Educating to personal responsibility must be done within a
wider collective reflection in each service or working
team, on the general requirements of resistance.
This education must include a systematic reflection on
the conditions of legitimate obedience and thus, on the
duty to disobey when those conditions are not fulfilled.

23. How to decide between orders ?
To deprive the illegitimate power from executors, criteria
need to be established, criteria that will help in
discerning which orders and rules should be followed or
not, implemented or not, ignored or not, challenged or
not, etc.
Official instructions should be set for public agents in
case of serious disrupt in the exercise of legitimate
power.
They must provide a few simple criteria that will help the
person or the group to make a decisions on questions
that in normal time, are not of their competence.

24. An example : the police force
1. Legal provisions and rules : what should be, during an
occupation, dictatorship or coup, the general attitude of the police ?
2. Provisions on police officers’ training : when does the civil duty to
disobey become a professional duty ? *
3. Practical provisions : ensuring that in no circumstance, police
documents may be used by the occupying force or agents.
* What attitude to adopt when, for example, an order of arrest is received
concerning people solely on the basis of their racial, political or religious
belonging ?

25. Civil society and its organisations
- Educating role : to prepare NVCD, it is important to develop activities in which
citizens can take responsibilities and learn solidarity.
The more civil society is alive, the more society will be able to resist.
- Practical role : civil society life creates extremely ramified networks, difficult to
destroy or control, that can become for resistance, the organisational structures
and informative channels.
Photos :
- An example of participative democracy : the steering committee of the review
Nonviolent Alternatives
- An example of network, the Alliance pour la planète (Alliance for the Planet)
regrouping 35 trade unions, movements and alternative associations.

26. 2 - Making our will inflexible
Whether the conflict is military * or not, it is a confrontation of
wills that in the end, is the ultimate stake and central place.
Everything that helps a society to demonstrate its faith in
democracy, human rights and freedoms, increases its security.
Dissuasion is efficient if the will to resist is largely shared
amongst citizens.
* “ War is an act of violence destined to force an adversary to
implement one’s will. ” Clausewitz
Photos Photos
- Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831), war theorist
- The Plateau des Glières, place of resistance, yesterday and today.

27. Democratic contagion, a risk for the aggressor
For the potential aggressor, contagion of our democratic
ideal in his people can become a risk for his own power.
Democracy is a heritage we wish to defend, but also a
liberating strength we could spread.
“ It is sometimes said the nuclear bomb was what stopped the
Russians from invading Europe in years following the 2nd
World War.
I am not convinced by this argument (…). The Russians
outnumbered us (…). The United-States at that time, has few nuclear
bombs (…). What dissuaded the Russians, was the idea that their
troupes would blend in with Western population ”.
Basil Liddell Hart

28. The spirit of defence of the population
1. Awareness of what needs to be defended (homeland, democracy,
freedom, etc.) and what might constitute a threat
2. Feeling, in each citizen, of real responsibility in defending these
values and ideas and what role to play in case of aggression
3. Accepting risks, personal and collective ones, to defend the values
we believe in*.
* Educating to techniques of nonviolent resistance will result in a
lucid acceptation of certain risks by larger and larger strands of the
population.

29. The human cost,
incomparably lighter than the military one
Indeed, it is very likely the repression orchestrated
by the aggressor or dictator will cause victims in
the population.
But the number of these victims will be much
smaller than in case of guerrilla, classic war or
nuclear war.
Photos :
-Second World War Military cemetery
-Nagasaki 9th
August 1945.

30. The role of moral authorities
By their words and attitudes, “moral authorities” (journalists,
church, renowned intellectuals, teachers, political leaders,
trade unions, associations, etc.) can exercise considerable
influence on the choice made by millions of citizens :
- legitimize resistance
- ethical thinking despite the struggle
- facilitate consensus towards a nonviolent form of
struggle.*
* for instance: without killing them, isolate collaborators and prevent
them from harming.
Photos :
-Stephane Hessel, French resistant in 1939-45, former ambassador, author of
the text Indignez-vous
-Danielle Mitterand (1924-2011), President of the France Libertés Foundation.

31. Social cohesion, a necessity for consensus
The strategic consensus of social national forces necessary
in time of crisis (and also created by the aggressor when his
threat becomes real…), does not imply ideological
consensus in time of peace, which is neither possible nor
wished for.
Social cohesion is necessary to create a social consensus in
defence. Those excluded will have no reason to be solidary
in a society that marginalises them.
The feeling of social injustice, doctrines based on inequality, racist
behaviour, worship of the strongest one, are all major threats to
the capacity of defence.
Photos :
•- Youth in poor suburbs, put to the side by society
•- Unemployment, symptom of an economic system where men are a mere
variable of adjustment.

32. Motivated and prepared citizens
The best way to prepare a defence of democracy in time of
crisis is to reinforce it and make it more efficient in time of
peace.
The more the citizens of a country have the feeling they live in
a just and open society, more they will be motivated to defend
this society against what threatens it.
The more they participate in the political and economic
management of their country, the more they will be prepared
to defend their society against a potential aggression.

33. 3 – Following without being exploited
All at the same time it is necessary to
- stop the aggressor from profiting from our wealth,
- maintain a sufficiently high economic activity for the population
to survive in decent conditions :
– for its optimism not to be shattered
– for most of its energy not to be dedicated to
finding individual solutions to basic needs (food,
heating, etc.).
Photos :
-Maintaining food supplies, production
-The mental health of a population is also essential : having food

34. The principal forms of economic non-collaboration
Partial strike, working without collaboration
- plan for fast dispersion in clandestinity of a few thousand
people working in key sectors, destruction and hiding of material
- working slowly, making “mistakes” or voluntarily “forgetting”,
executing wrongly, etc.
Nonviolent sabotage *
-paralysing machines without destroying them, by removing a
fundamental piece, changing a programme, etc.
* so as not to scare the aggressor and justify a violent repression

35. Resisting and surviving
Just like military defence, NVCD must plan in advance
infrastructures and supplies, and thus, take measures regarding
food, transports, communication, energy, etc.:
- by diversifying supply sources of raw material and
the products not produced by us
- look for new raw material and substitute products
- constitute stocks
- organise NVCD within the European Union

36. Agriculture: liberate ourselves from oil dependence
1 - Produce in a more autonomous way :
- Reduce dependence to oil (tractors, machines,
pesticides, heating green houses and animal farms,
transports, etc.)
- Improve use of wood and biomass
- Organise large return to the countryside in order to
substitute part of man’s work to the machine’s,
develop use of animals in farming
2 - Transporting food to consumers : favour short circuits

37. Electricity : decentralise
Infrastructures are very vulnerable (production centres,
namely nuclear power stations, cables transporting electricity,
inter-connexion posts) :
develop renewable and decentralised energies (photovoltaic,
hydroelectric, wind, etc.)
The functioning in networks is very difficult for non-
professionals to control.
Resistance, depending on the context, must determine which
sectors or areas to prioritise, and the ones which can be
deprived from electricity.
Photos :
-Nuclear power, vulnerable yet maximal centralisation
-Photovoltaic, invulnerable and decentralised.

38. The role played by NVCD in military defence
Three scenarios are possible :
1. It complements :
NVCD is put into place at the same time as military defence.
Adding nonviolent means of resistance will only increase
military efficiency.
Punctual actions will on the other hand not support a globally
nonviolent resistance.
../..

39. The role played by NVCD in military defence
2. Appeal : NVCD is installed after failure or at least stop of
military defence. That is the most unfavourable hypothesis,
but the only way to generate within society a new feeling and
will to struggle: “It’s not all over…”
3. Option : NVCD is chosen instead of military defence.
Global deterrence (e.g.: nuclear) has failed, has not
frightened the enemy, and it seems any use of weapon is if
not in vain, suicidal. NVCD is the most reasonable hypothesis
to defend without destroying.
Photos : - Spare wheel
- Alternative
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