The contributions to this special issue of the International Journal of Peace Studies consider antiwar protests’ potential to influence national security policies. They are particularly concerned with questions of movement efficacy and with developing contingent generalizations about features of antiwar movements and features of the political environment that together determine movements’ influence on state policies and, possibly, on political structures and societal values. Important definitional considerations concern the temporal and issue dimensions of antiwar protest. Opposition to a particular war motivates some movements. These ad hoc movements seek to change government policy regarding a specific, ongoing war. While this goal may be linked to other political agendas—be they anti-militarist, feminist, anti-imperialist, pro-democracy, and so forth—these are secondary to the primary focus on bringing a particular war to an end. The time horizon of such movements is limited, and they typically dissolve or become inactive after the war ends. In this article we will discuss what is the anti war movement, its goals, intellectual contributions and impact on NSP.
What is Anti War Movement?
An anti-war movement is a social movement in opposition to one or more nations’ decision to start or carry on an armed conflict. The term anti-war can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts, or to anti-war books, paintings, and other works of art. Some activists distinguish between anti-war movements and peace movements. Anti-war activists work through protest and other grassroots means to attempt to pressure a government (or governments) to put an end to a particular war or conflict or to prevent one from arising.
Goals and Scope of Antiwar Movements
A key question that bears on questions of antiwar movements’ effectiveness and influence is “What is the relative importance to movement leaders of ideological goals broader than ending a particular war?” It may also be useful to locate movement goals on a continuum from domestic to international politics, with world peace and disarmament goals located on the more international and abstract end and also implying the potentially radical displacement of domestic elites. Peace groups with broader time horizons and more abstract goals generally find it harder to achieve favorable public responses and typically remain politically marginal. Ad hoc protests with a single agenda of ending a war have greater potential to attract mainstream support and to contribute to changes in policy.
Peace and antiwar movements are not infrequently linked with movements whose primary focus is human rights or democratization. In the definition used for this analysis, however, the latter type of movement is distinguished from antiwar movements. The distinction is related to the familiar difference between negative and positive peace: “Negative peace” emphasizes the absence of war and political violence and in this sense is aligned with the single-issue focus and more immediate time horizons of ad hoc antiwar movements. “Positive peace” imbues peace with a content that may include strengthening human rights and civil society, feminism, and constructive conflict resolution. practices, and so on—goals extending beyond antiwar movements’ focus on changing a particular security related policy. As well as the term “antiwar,” it may be worth briefly considering the concept of a “movement.”
The Role of Intellectuals and Scientists in Antiwar Activism
Various people have discussed the philosophical question of whether war is inevitable and how it can be avoided; in other words, what are the necessities of peace? Various intellectuals and others have discussed it from an intellectual and philosophical point of view, not only in public, but also by participating in or leading anti-war campaigns despite it differing from their main areas of expertise, leaving their professional comfort zones to warn against or fight against wars.
Philosophical possibility of avoiding war
Immanuel Kant: In (1795) “Perpetual Peace” (“Zum ewigen Frieden”). Immanuel Kant’s booklet on “Perpetual Peace” in 1795. Politically, Kant was one of the earliest exponents of the idea that perpetual peace could be secured through universal democracy and international cooperation.
Leading scientists and intellectuals
Here is a list of notable anti-war scientists and intellectuals:
- Linus Pauling was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his peace activism (his second Nobel Prize). He circulated multiple petitions among scientists.
- Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein had correspondences on violence, peace, and human nature.
- Bertrand Russell mostly was a prominent anti-war activist; he championed anti-imperialism. Occasionally, he advocated preventive nuclear war before the opportunity provided by the atomic monopoly was gone and “welcomed with enthusiasm” world government. He went to prison for his pacifism during World War I. Later, he campaigned against Adolf Hitler, then criticized Stalinist totalitarianism, attacked the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War, and was an outspoken proponent of nuclear disarmament. In 1950 Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he championed humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought.
Conditions for Antiwar Protest
Antiwar Movements: Goals, Intellectual Contributions, and Impact on National Security Policies
The contributions to this special issue of the International Journal of Peace Studies consider antiwar protests’ potential to influence national security policies. They are particularly concerned with questions of movement efficacy and with developing contingent generalizations about features of antiwar movements and features of the political environment that together determine movements’ influence on state policies and, possibly, on political structures and societal values. Important definitional considerations concern the temporal and issue dimensions of antiwar protest. Opposition to a particular war motivates some movements. These ad hoc movements seek to change government policy regarding a specific, ongoing war. While this goal may be linked to other political agendas—be they anti-militarist, feminist, anti-imperialist, pro-democracy, and so forth—these are secondary to the primary focus on bringing a particular war to an end. The time horizon of such movements is limited, and they typically dissolve or become inactive after the war ends. In this article we will discuss what is the anti war movement, its goals, intellectual contributions and impact on NSP.
What is Anti War Movement?
An anti-war movement is a social movement in opposition to one or more nations’ decision to start or carry on an armed conflict. The term anti-war can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts, or to anti-war books, paintings, and other works of art. Some activists distinguish between anti-war movements and peace movements. Anti-war activists work through protest and other grassroots means to attempt to pressure a government (or governments) to put an end to a particular war or conflict or to prevent one from arising.
Goals and Scope of Antiwar Movements
A key question that bears on questions of antiwar movements’ effectiveness and influence is
“What is the relative importance to movement leaders of ideological goals broader than ending a particular war?”
It may also be useful to locate movement goals on a continuum from domestic to international politics, with world peace and disarmament goals located on the more international and abstract end and also implying the potentially radical displacement of domestic elites. Peace groups with broader time horizons and more abstract goals generally find it harder to achieve favorable public responses and typically remain politically marginal. Ad hoc protests with a single agenda of ending a war have greater potential to attract mainstream support and to contribute to changes in policy.
Peace and antiwar movements are not infrequently linked with movements whose primary focus is human rights or democratization. In the definition used for this analysis, however, the latter type of movement is distinguished from antiwar movements. The distinction is related to the familiar difference between negative and positive peace: “Negative peace” emphasizes the absence of war and political violence and in this sense is aligned with the single-issue focus and more immediate time horizons of ad hoc antiwar movements. “Positive peace” imbues peace with a content that may include strengthening human rights and civil society, feminism, and constructive conflict resolution. practices, and so on—goals extending beyond antiwar movements’ focus on changing a particular security related policy. As well as the term “antiwar,” it may be worth briefly considering the concept of a “movement.”
The Role of Intellectuals and Scientists in Antiwar Activism
Various people have discussed the philosophical question of whether war is inevitable and how it can be avoided; in other words, what are the necessities of peace? Various intellectuals and others have discussed it from an intellectual and philosophical point of view, not only in public, but also by participating in or leading anti-war campaigns despite it differing from their main areas of expertise, leaving their professional comfort zones to warn against or fight against wars.
Philosophical possibility of avoiding war
Immanuel Kant: In (1795) “Perpetual Peace” (“Zum ewigen Frieden”). Immanuel Kant’s booklet on “Perpetual Peace” in 1795. Politically, Kant was one of the earliest exponents of the idea that perpetual peace could be secured through universal democracy and international cooperation.
Leading scientists and intellectuals
Here is a list of notable anti-war scientists and intellectuals:
- Linus Pauling was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his peace activism (his second Nobel Prize). He circulated multiple petitions among scientists.
- Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein had correspondences on violence, peace, and human nature.
- Bertrand Russell mostly was a prominent anti-war activist; he championed anti-imperialism. Occasionally, he advocated preventive nuclear war before the opportunity provided by the atomic monopoly was gone and “welcomed with enthusiasm” world government. He went to prison for his pacifism during World War I. Later, he campaigned against Adolf Hitler, then criticized Stalinist totalitarianism, attacked the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War, and was an outspoken proponent of nuclear disarmament. In 1950 Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he championed humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought.
Conditions for Antiwar Protest
Antiwar movements, and social movements generally, benefit from liberal democratic political culture. Autonomous social movements tend to emerge and flourish as part of civil society in liberal democracies.
“Where autonomous peace groups have managed to emerge within one-party states or under military rule, their existence has been an indication of some measure of tolerance and pluralism.”
The rationale for undertaking a war of self-defense when a country’s home territory is invaded or attacked is nearly indisputable, and under these circumstances no antiwar movement with substantial political influence is likely to emerge. Of course, the idea of the country’s home territory may be contested domestically, as with the West Bank in the Israeli context. On the other hand, when no generally obvious threat to what the public consensus considers the home territory is self-evident, the state’s claims of defensively motivated war become more questionable. Within liberal democracies, ad hoc antiwar movements arise when the rationale for the state’s commitment to a particular war is unclear—that is, if the war can readily be understood as a non-existential “war of choice” rather than a war of national survival. In the Vietnam War, for example, the inability of successive U.S. administrations to offer a convincing existential rationale for the war was the essential condition giving rise to domestic antiwar protest.
Lack of an obvious rationale for war does not automatically produce protest. It
becomes more likely as a war’s publicized costs in human and material terms and in
terms of a society’s self-image increase well beyond initial expectations, and as the war
becomes prolonged and appears to the public to be waged ineffectively. As a check on
government power in a democratic system, antiwar movements do not so much prevent
the state’s recourse to war in the first place as press governments not to persist in wars
that fail to meet public expectations of a timely and affordable victory. When a war goes
wrong—when its costs escalate, when its immoral qualities are manifest in media reports, and when the public cannot easily perceive the war’s necessity—then those who are immediately affected or otherwise motivated may protest, and their protest may shift public opinion to create political incentives for war terminations.
Lack of an obvious rationale for war does not automatically produce protest. It
becomes more likely as a war’s publicized costs in human and material terms and in
terms of a society’s self-image increase well beyond initial expectations, and as the war
becomes prolonged and appears to the public to be waged ineffectively. As a check on
government power in a democratic system, antiwar movements do not so much prevent
the state’s recourse to war in the first place as press governments not to persist in wars
that fail to meet public expectations of a timely and affordable victory. When a war goes
wrong—when its costs escalate, when its immoral qualities are manifest in media reports, and when the public cannot easily perceive the war’s necessity—then those who are immediately affected or otherwise motivated may protest, and their protest may shift public opinion to create political incentives for war terminations.
