NATIONAL SECURITY THROUGH CIVILIAN-BASED DEFENSE
Gene Sharp
Omaha: Association for Transarmament Studies, 1985
93 p.p., $4.95 paper
MAKING EUROPE UNCONQUERABLE
The Potential of Civilian-Based Deterence and Defense
Gene Sharp
Cambridge: Ballinger, 1985
252 pp., $14.95 paper
Professor Gene Sharp is neither doctrinaire pacifist nor a left-wing screamer. He has written significant books, in the past. The issues he addresses now are real and his proposals are grounded in elements of truth. But, in the end, I found it impossible to avoid the conclusion that Sharp is building intellectual cathedrals on sand. And, in the end, I found Professor Sharp's concept of a shift from military to nonmilitary national defense not much more than a form of neo-Hobbesianism--not quite "better red than dead," but something perilously close to it.
In both of his books, Sharp advocates something called "transarmament"--a shift from military to nonmilitary national defense--for example, a new concept of defense based not upon organized technological violence but upon massive civilian nonviolent resistance. According to Professor Sharp, this strategy can be implemented only over a period of decades, and only after entire populations have received extensive training in the tactics and techniques of nonviolent resistance. Further, Professor Sharp suggests that these techniques can also serve as a complement to traditional defense, although he clearly prefers a complete ultimate transition. (The governments of Sweden and France are reportedly looking into the potential of nonviolent techniques in support of military defense.) Eschewing pacifist intent (although genuflecting to pacifist ideals), he argues that, in the contemporary world, "transarmament" could conceivably work at least as well as military deterrence and defense, and at considerably less cost and risk.
Professor Sharp's contention is based upon two truths. First, given present and probable military and political realities, increases in traditional defense capabilities do not automatically yield commensurate increases in security. They may, in fact, actually jeopardize it. This phenomenon is most obvious at the nuclear level, where quantitative increases in weapons systems may in fact heighten instability by provoking counter-responses-the classic cycle of the arms race. Further, at the nuclear level, even clear "superiority" confers few benefits. (As Henry Kissinger once asked in an exasperated moment, "Once you get nuclear superiority, what do you do with it?")
This dilemma of increasing power/decreasing security may also operate at the conventional level, at least in Western Europe. NATO has never attained a genuinely credible conventional deterrent; American declaratory policy has always been first-use of nuclear weapons in defense of Europe. This doctrine of "extended deterrence"--of risking American nuclear devastation for the sake of Europe--has never seemed entirely credible to our allies. But, even assuming that a serious conventional defense of Europe were possible without bankrupting the defenders, would not a reversion to
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