There must be 50 ways: Participating in democracy #40: Learn civilian-based defense

Military strategists and nonviolence strategists alike have been examining cases of, and future possibilities of, civilian-based defense formally since 1975,[1] and informally going back to Gandhi's vision of a peace army, what he called a Shanti Sena--or even back to the American colonists engaging in civil society nonviolent actions against the British rule in the decade prior to the American Revolution. 

"Two things are certain about the future of politics and international relations: conflict is inevitable and effective defense will be required against internal usurpers and international aggressors" (Sharp, 1990).[2]

With that hard-nosed declaration, nonviolence researcher Gene Sharp[3] (1928-2018) began one of his monographs on the power and potential of unarmed civilians preparing for, and conducting, defense against enemies foreign and domestic. He cited many examples of how people in many countries around the world had done so, usually without any formal government agency to develop such a nonviolent force, sometimes without much preparation--learning as they went along. 

As Sharp, ably assisted at that time by nonviolence scholar Bruce Jenkins, compiled both case studies and descriptions of strategies and tactics from various struggles in different countries, the evidence of the possibilities based on reality, on actual history, took shape. 

Fast-forward 35 years and the case studies have multiplied, though humanity stubbornly refuses to demilitarize, perhaps out of some deadly admixture of fear and greed.

Somehow, the accretion of evidence that nonviolence works has not overcome the cultural, emotional, and insecurity-based dependence on killing machines. Frightened humans can commit atrocities, which leads to others' willingness to retaliate in-kind.

Militarism is grotesquely profitable for the corporations contracting with governments.

Thus, the barriers to serious development of a civilian-based defense remain quite high. For the foreseeable future, it will be up to civil society to self-organize, using its auto-didactic skills and communal connections to prepare insofar as is possible to do things like oust an oppressive ruler.

References

Sharp, Gene (1990). Civilian-based defense: A post-military weapons system. Princeton University Press.

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[1] (all noted in Sharp, 1990, p. 153):

Brigadier General Edward B. Atkeson, 'The Relevance of Civilian-based Defense to US. Security Interests," Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, vol. 56, no. 5 (May 1976), pp. 24-32, and no. 6 (June1976), pp. 45-55.

Adam Roberts, "Civil Resistance to Military Coups," Journal of Peace Research (Oslo), vol. m, no. 1 (1975),pp. 19-36.

Roberts, Adam, editor, Civilian Resistance as a National Defense: Nonviolent Action Against Aggression (Harrisburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1968); reprint of The Strategy of Civilian Defence (London: Faber & Faber, 1967). Paperback edition with a new introduction, Civilian Resistance as a National Defense: Nonviolent Action Against Aggression (Harmondsworth, England, and Baltimore, Md.: Penguin Books, 1969).

Gene Sharp, "Making the Abolition of War a Realistic Goal," pamphlet, Ira D. and Miriam G. Wallach Award essay (New York: World Policy Institute, 1980).

Gene Sharp Making Europe Unconquerable (London: Taylor and Francis, 1985, and Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1985; second American edition, with a forward by George Kennan, Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1986).

Gene Sharp, National Security Through Civilian-Based Defense, booklet (Omaha. Civilian-basedDefense Association, formerly Association for Transarmament Studies, 1985).

" T h e Political Equivalent of War1--Civilian-based Defense," in Gene Sharp, Social Power and Political Freedom (Introduction by Senator Mark 0. Hatfield), Boston, Mass.: Porter Sargent, 1980).

[2] https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Civilian-Based-Defense-English.pdf

[3] https://rightlivelihood.org/the-change-makers/find-a-laureate/gene-sharp/