There was an article written and published in the NYT with this title "Give Peaceful Resistance a Chance". It talks about violent vs. non-violent revolutions, and concludes that non-violent revolutions are twice as likely to succeed, which a much lower cost to the society that sponsored them.
Unfortunately for the Libyan rebels, research shows that nonviolent resistance is much more likely to produce results, while violent resistance runs a greater risk of backfiring. …….. Indeed, a study I recently conducted with Maria J. Stephan, now a strategic planner at the State Department, compared the outcomes of hundreds of violent insurgencies with those of major nonviolent resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006; we found that over 50 percent of the nonviolent movements succeeded, compared with about 25 percent of the violent insurgencies.
And some of the reasons cited for the success of a non-violent revolution includes the fact that people do not have to give up their jobs, leave their families or agree to kill anyone to participate. This means that the non-violent revolutions will draw a larger portion of the population, including members of the regime being overthrown.
Furthermore, violent protests are going against an enemy who greatest strength is the use of violence. This is especially true for the US military and the IDF. Anyone who tries to challenge them violently will likely lose, because the US military and the IDF have extensive weapons, good protection from other people’s weapons, and extensive training in using the weapons. Using non-violent tactics plays to the protesters strengths, not the police or military’s strengths.
And they are more likely to succeed:
Although the change is not immediate, our data show that from 1900 to 2006, 35 percent to 40 percent of authoritarian regimes that faced major nonviolent uprisings had become democracies five years after the campaign ended, even if the campaigns failed to cause immediate regime change. For the nonviolent campaigns that succeeded, the figure increases to well over 50 percent. The good guys don’t always win, but their chances increase greatly when they play their cards well. Nonviolent resistance is about finding and exploiting points of leverage in one’s own society. Every dictatorship has vulnerabilities, and every society can find them.
“Nonviolence is not inaction – it is not for the timid or weak – nonviolence is hard work. It is the willingness to sacrifice. It is the patience to win.” – Cesar Chavez
Photo is from Iraq, taken April 8, 2011. Caption: Protesters chant anti-US slogans and wave Iraqi flags during a demonstration in the Azamiyah neighborhood of Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, April 8, 2011. Some thousands of demonstrators turned out in one of the city's largest Sunni neighborhoods to protest the U.S. military presence in Iraq. The banners in Arabic read, 'People want to drive out the occupier' and 'Free the detainees' and 'Down with the occupation.' (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed)
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