Possibilities of Civilian Defense in Western Europe

Gustaaf Geeraerts

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781138530522
• eBook ISBN: 9781000678710
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

This is a collection of the 13 essays making up the proceedings of the 2nd international working conference on violence and non-violent action in industrialized Societies held in Brussels on the March 24-26th, 1976.

Introduction

DOI: 10.4324/9780429338311-1

Johan Niezing

Our world, our Planet Earth, is in danger. Military expenditures nowadays exceed $300 billion a year, and will show a further increase in the years to come. Arms trade is gradually becoming an important structural element in the world economic system: the slight decrease of poverty in some parts of the third world has been totally absorbed by a growing need for armaments. In spite of all the socalled arms control agreements, the military confrontation between the two superpowers is going on. Détente, as we term it, can be viewed primarily as a guarantee for a continuation of this confrontation. In spite of both SALT-agreements, and partly even as a short-time effect of them, both superpowers have speeded up the growth of their capacity for nuclear destructiveness. The role of research and development has increased. As a recent report by seven outstanding peace researchers states military R and D serve to fuel the armament dynamics. Moreover, an increase in R and D can be considered as indicative of a further institutionalization of a warfare-state system. All investments in 'security', all hundreds of billions of roubles and dollars both superpowers have spent so far, contributed to making our planet a dangerous place to live in. Official 'security policies' did not secure anything — except a continuation of the armament process. In short, the world social system is inadequate to meet the fundamental needs of mankind.

It is a truism to say that structural violence may lead to outbursts of overt, direct violence: any government as well as any oppositional movement knows this very well. In my opinion, the main problem facing our world social system is, in this respect, quite the reverse: the ever growing armament fever, the ever lasting accumulation of preparations for war, has stimulated structural violence, has created a gigantic system of warfare-states — incapable of meeting their populations' basic needs. In Western Europe, this process of militarization has some curious aspects, notable because of their conflicting nature.

Historically, Western Europe has been a turbulent part of the world for many centuries. It served as the nucleus of the two major political systems that divide the world nowadays. Western Europe may be seen as the birthplace of all important political doctrines, including communism and fascism. But Western Europe has never acted as a unity. It exported its internal conflicts all over the world: two world wars caused the loss of millions of lives in other parts of the world. Even nowadays, the process of nation-building of many new nations is seriously impeded by the former West-European cultural domination, and by the internal conflicts within this pattern of domination: the arbitrary boundaries of many new nations, reflecting the clash of interests within the Western Europe of many decades ago, still daily cause the loss of many lives.

Thus, historically the role of Western Europe may be compared with the rather uncomfortable position of an apprenti sorcier: it changed the world, and by doing so, it became dependent on the effects of this change — more or less, and rather unwillingly. Politically it became part of the antagonistic relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States; a relationship that has its roots, at least ideologically, in Western European history. It became dependent on one of both sides, and thus formed part of the relationship itself.

However, economically Western Europe still plays an important role in the world. It can be characterized as a superpower in the making, as Galtung once described it. Some division of economic interests certainly grew up between the us and its West-European allies, at least as far as the regions of the world are concerned; the US having a free hand in Latin-America, Western Europe striving to continue her dominance over Africa and the Middle East. Nevertheless, both military allies gradually came into a position of economic competition.

As far as the defence of Western Europe is concerned, both tendencies gradually proved rather incompatible. Economic freedom of action requires a certain amount of military independence, and this call for an autonomous defence policy can hardly be considered in line with us military policies. For quite a long period this incompatibility has been a rather academic problem. During the last decade, however, owing to a number of other factors, and as a result of the aggravation of competitive relationship, the problem gradually lost this purely academic nature.

Western Europe's defence policies are approaching the crossroads. Fundamental questions have to be raised, fundamental choices have to be made, fundamental problems have to be solved. It should be stressed, however, that the way in which this fundamental problem has been 'translated' so far by most WestEuropean governmental circles into a problem of political choice, has not contributed to a better understanding of the problem itself, nor to Western Europe's security. According to these circles, Western Europe's choice is ultimately a choice between sharing the su-us relationship, or becoming a rather independent and, therefore, 'integrated' military power.

Both options, both tendencies, manifest themselves almost daily in the headlines of the newspapers, one way or another. Many political speeches, official reports, diplomatic gestures, governmental measures can be understood as reflecting, implicitly or explicitly, this fundamental problem.

Whatever the choice, the relation to the us remains rather obscure and diffuse. Sharing in us—su confrontation means sharing in the recent aggravation of this confrontation, and this means support to some of the underlying basic principles of American foreign policy which have been proved questionable. Sharing in the us—su confrontation also includes some trust in us nuclear guarantees; a trust that cannot be as absolute as it was during the first two decades of nato. On the other hand, military independence for Western Europe would aggravate political and economic rivalism between Western Europe and us. Whatever the choice, Western Europe's relation to the Soviet Union continues to be of a rather antagonistic nature.

Both options — it should be stressed — make for continuous growth of a WestEuropean armament complex; differences being merely gradual and not substantial. Neither option contributes to Western Europe's political and military security. Keeping in line with the us political objective means a continuing dependency on the relationship between us and su — a relationship that is deteriorating, in spite of all the official euphorics on détente. On the other hand, an independent traditional defence policy presupposes the existence of a European nuclear force, dominated by some of the European countries. It stimulates a new pattern of dominance within Western Europe that is, at the same time, very old-fashioned and wellknown. In this respect, one should bear in mind that nationalism, whatever its roots may be, can take the political form of isolationism as well as that of imperialism. Many of those, who were once opposed to the idea of a 'United Europe' are nowadays in favour of the so-called 'European integration process' — including the build-up of a nuclear force. The ever-growing tendency in some leading political circles to link the idea of European integration with that of a nuclear force can be considered as indicative of the intentions of those circles. The final decisions in many European countries can be expected to take place in a political climate of intimidation and repression.

Now, more than ever, there is some need for a fresh look at Western Europe's defence problems, a need for a creative, alternative style of defence thinking. Civilian defence theory might contribute to such a fundamental reorientation. But, paradoxically, civilian defence thinking is rather weak, organizationally as well as substantially. In my opinion this weakness has increased rather than decreased during the last years.

How to explain this bitter paradox? Peace research and civilian defence theory have much in common. Tendencies which are present within peace research are often reflected even more sharply in civilian defence theory. In many countries, the organizational position of peace research has been weakened during recent years. This certainly can be connected with a decline of financial support, often said to result from budgetary measures. But often such a decline should be considered as the formal expression of a shift in budgetary priorities. The short history of peace research shows that peace researchers — species of scientists who are critical per definitionem about a central and vital part of government policy — are relatively vulnerable and sometimes the scapegoats of new men of power; especially if these men belong to the arrogant, dogmatic type of politicians. What happened in the United States, shortly after the Nixon administration came to power, can also happen in some West-European countries, in the near future.

More substantially, there has been a change of subject matter, a shift in focus of interest within peace research; a shift that can be found within civilian defence theory as well. In the early sixties, peace researchers were still relatively optimistic about the possible use and impacts of their scientific activities. 'Mutual distrust' was considered as the engine, the main driving force of the 'arms race'. Peace researchers offered some methods to reduce this distrust — Osgood's GRIT being a good example. Nowadays there is a general feeling that armament processes have become rather autonomous driving forces of warfare-states. Armament processes have injured societies and are embedded in the structure and culture of these societies. Therefore, in order to stop the engine of these processes, society itself must be changed fundamentally. This calls for a more politico-sociological, and often also more radical view of peace research. And this call, this shift in interest, can be considered as the counterpart to fundamental change within society itself.

The same holds true for civilian defence theory. The idea of a non-military defence system that can be introduced rather arbitrarely within an already existing, encompassing society, the idea of civilian defence as 'Steigerung des Normalen' (Ebert) has become a contradictory one. In order to have an effective civilian defence — even in order to 'transarm' (Galtung) to such a system — one has to alter the existing society fundamentally. So a shift of focus in interest occurred within civilian defence theory too: the civilian defence system itself, its organization and functioning is no longer the central part of theorizing. Instead, more and more interest has been aroused in the social and political pre-requisites for an effective civilian defence system. This change of interest, however, has given civilian defence theory a more ideological flavour. Questions as to the extent to which a society has to be changed in order to furnish the basic conditions for a workable civilian defence system, — such questions almost inevitably give rise to a discussion on the most preferable type of society. In other words, civilian defence theory itself has to be analysed; its frame of reference has to be made explicit and to be tested as to its validity. We must analyse our own thinking in order to offer alternative remedies to our societies. The contents of this volume might contribute to this necessary self-analysis.

Two Approaches to civilian defence

DOI: 10.4324/9780429338311-2

Observations on the development of the civilian defence concept

Gustaaf Geeraerts

1. INTRODUCTION

By way of introduction, I will start this contribution with a brief characterization of what the civilian defence concept actually stands for. Then, an attempt will be made to outline – be it only roughly – in what ways the civilian defence concept further developed since the Second World War.¹ Finally, two approaches of civilian defence and their respective underlying 'thinking systems' will be confronted with each other. The fact that discussions about civilian defence often take a chaotic course presumably results from the existence of a number of 'thinking systems' which are to some extent mutually exclusive, and which, in addition, are not sufficiently explicated in the course of these discussions.

Because of their direct or indirect influence upon the thoughts and actions of scientists and others who concern themselves with problems of civilian defence, these 'thinking systems' are to be conceived of as carriers of an ideological force. They are ideological in that they over-emphasize certain aspects of and conditions for civilian defence, while at the same time completely or partially neglecting other ones. The displaying of these ideological systems appears to be of fundamental importance for the further development and possible implementation of civilian defence, especially in a time that in a number of Westeuropean countries also defence politicians and even the military start taking interest in civilian defence. Indeed some danger exists that decision makers and also pressure groups, once they have integrated civilian defence in their political programme, will be eager to define the conditions, which are necessarily connected with a political implementation of civilian defence, along the lines of their sphere of interests.²

2. THE CONCEPT OF CIVILIAN DEFENCE

The concept of civilian defence was inspired by and to some extent empirically founded on a series of historical experiences with spontaneous non-violent resistance against coups d'état and military occupations. The most important among them undoubtedly are the resistance against the Kapp-Putsch in 1920, the so-called passive resistance of the German population against the French—Belgian occupation of the Ruhr Basin in 1923, the Danish and Norwegian resistance against the German occupation during the Second World War and finally the non-violent resistance of the Czechoslovakian population against the invasion of five member states of the Warsaw Pact in 1968.³

In all these cases non-violent resistance has been appealed to, not as a result of a planned and thoroughly prepared defence policy, but spontaneously and on a mere ad hoc basis. Nonetheless, Adam Roberts rightly noticed that 'despite that its use has followed this pattern, the technique of civil resistance has shown a good deal of power and also considerable potential for further development'.⁴

Since the end of the fifties this potential for further development became more and more the object of scientific research. More and more an attempt has been made to derive from historical experiences with spontaneous nonviolent resistance the general principles of a strategy for civilian defence, which provides us with the deliberate and planned employment of nonviolent actions in order to defend societies against coups d'état and military invasions.⁵ Along this way a small international group of peace researchers has succeeded, in the course of the last ten years, in developing a more or less rounded concept of civilian defence.

According to this concept civilian defence is to be understood as a defence structure based on the planned and prepared combination of nonviolent actions (viz. symbolic actions, denial actions and overt confrontations) by the majority of the population of a given nation or international community. As such, civilian defence can be employed against internal (e.g. coups d'état) as well as against external (e.g. military invasions) forms of agression.⁶

Contrary to the traditional military defence a civilian defence campaign does not pertain so much to a territorial defence, but to a defence of social values (i.e. freedom, democracy, peace etc. . . . ) and the social structure (the way the society is organized in its entirety...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents Page
• Foreword Page
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Two Approaches of Civilian Defence. Observations on the Development of the Civilian Defence Concept
• 3. Social and Political Conditions for the Expansion of the Non-violent Movement
• 4. Unarmed Defence for Western Europe? Observations on the Problems of European Socialism, Civilian Defence and Soviet Communism
• 5. Civil Power or Military Union? The European Community, a State in the Making
• 6. Through Non-violent Action in Intra-societal Conflicts to Civilian Defence. Some Remarks on the Past and Future of the Research on Civilian Defence
• 7. Disarmament as a Non-violent Initiative. How People Learn to Want Civilian Defence, or the Long March Towards a Political Culture of Preparedness to Resistance
• 8. Theoretical Perspectives in Civilian Defence. An Issue in West German Peace Research
• 9. The Conditions of Non-violent Action
• 10. Civil Resistance and Swedish Defence Policy
• 11. Survey on the Discussion of Civilian Defence in Switzerland
• 12. A Terminological Make-up — The Ideas of Swiss Military Strategists about the Role and Meaning of Non-violent Actions of Resistance as Part of the Total Defence Conception
• 13. Some Notes on Civilian Defence with Regard to the Limits to Growth
• About the Authors