Promoting defections through non-violent resistance tactics - the case of the Syrian uprising

ABSTRACT

While the contribution of military defections to the success of non-violent struggles has received significant attention in Non-violent Resistance (NVR) literature, little has been said about the ethical challenges involved in promoting defection through non-violent tactics. Looking into the incidents of the Syrian uprising, this article examines the practical and ethical aspects of the tactics that NVR activists adopt to promote defections and argues that some of these tactics might raise challenges that undermine their contribution to NVR. The costs for defectors might undercut protesters’ ability to encourage defections, and the probability that defectors will resort to an armed revolt undermines the chances of success of NVR campaigns. This article suggests that promoting defections is more likely to be effective when NVR actionists mitigate the costs for defectors by protecting them and their families after they defect. In doing so, activists could reduce the chances of defectors turning to violence and improve NVR’s chances of success.

KEYWORDS:

• Nonviolent Resistance
• NVR
• Defections
• Moral conflict
• Moral jiu-jitsu

1. Introduction

Military and security forces defection increases Nonviolent Resistance (NVR) chances of success (Ackerman and Hardy 2014; Sharp 2005; Chenoweth and Stephan 2011; Nepstad 2013). Nevertheless, promoting defections through non-violent tactics includes practical and ethical challenges that could affect NVR’s effectiveness. NVR is a civil action that adopts non-violent methods to bring political reform. It includes mass protests, strikes, civil disobedience, noncooperation boycotts, and sit-ins (Sharp 1973, 2005). Gene Sharp, a prominent theorist of non-violent action, lists 198 tactics protesters can adopt to exert social, financial, and psychological pressure on their opponents to replace machine guns, bullets, and tanks. NVR strives to be a progressive substitution for institutionalized violence. Namely, it purports to replace war (Roberts 2011). The effectiveness of NVR is a subject of debate. Chenoweth and Stephan’s (2011) found that NVR is twice more likely to succeed than an armed insurgency and leaves better chances of democratization after the conflict ends. However, recent studies suggest that NVR is rarely entirely non-violent and has little chance of success without using some violence or relying on the violence of the opponent (Anisin 2020; Pressman 2017).

NVR theorists point out that military and security forces defections are crucial for NVR campaigns’ success (Chenoweth and Stephan 2011; Nepstad 2013; Ackerman and Hardy 2014). Sharp tells us that the regime’s power depends on the loyalty of its troops and emphasizes that NVR actionists should strive to enlist security forces’ support (1973). Chenoweth and Stephan’s study (Chenoweth and Stephan 2011; Stephan and Chenoweth 2008) found that a regime change is 46 times more likely to succeed if activists promote defections, emphasizing that NVR has a strategic advantage in promoting defections. Along these lines, Zunes argues that military disobedience and defection are more likely to occur in NVR campaigns because the moral force of non-violence gives actionists an inherent advantage that could affect security forces’ decision to disobey and/or defect (2011).

During the Arab Spring uprisings, defections occurred at different rates. For example, in Egypt, the military sided with protesters and stated that it would not violently repress the uprising. In Bahrain, however, the army remained loyal to the regime. This article investigates the Syrian uprising (2011), where despite mass defections, the uprising deteriorated into a civil war. A sizable body of research highlights the various factors that affect military behaviour during revolutions. Various explanations point to political, institutional, and social variables potentially affecting security forces’ decision-making (Barany 2011; Bou Nassif 2015). Political factors of defection refer to the perception of the regime’s strength. In Syria, the regime largely maintained control over big cities such as Damascus, while small towns became the battlegrounds (Schierenbeck and Rudd 2018). In Egypt, the military realized that Mubarak was losing and supported the revolutionaries (Nepstad 2013). Institutional variables point to internal military cohesion, military socio-political divisions, the relations between elites and average units, and the relations between several branches of the security apparatus. Syrian low-ranked conscripts were mostly of Sunni origin, while officers and high-ranked Generals were from the Allawi minority. The unequal deployment of military positions mostly taken by Alawites affected the military cohesion and Sunni conscripts’ fidelity to the regime and consequently led to their mass defection (Bou-Nassif 2015). These factors also relate to the social variables that might affect the soldiers’ decision to defect. Social variables include the intensity of the demonstrations and the military’s, particularly the Generals, susceptibility to public criticism. Sectarian and tribal relations between the army and revolutionaries might also affect the military’s willingness to repress protesters violently. For example, in Bahrain, the hostility between Sunnis and Shi’ites gave the Sunni-dominated military a political incentive to remain loyal to the regime (Nepstad 2013).

While these explanations help predict military behaviour during civil uprisings, the effects of protesters’ behaviour on security and military personnel did not receive much attention (Martin 2021). A significant portion of NVR literature discusses NVR’s strategic advantage in mobilizing participants and enlisting support for the struggle. However, not much has been said about how NVR tactics impact soldiers’ decisions to defect, and about the practical and ethical challenges NVR tactics of promoting defections incur. The theoretical literature suggests that NVR is a spectrum of actions ranging from passive resistance to solicitation of violence so that it backfires against the regime (Schock 2003; Gan 2013; Pressman 2017). Despite potential moral problems, NVR enjoys widespread legitimacy and is not subject to deep moral inquiry. Considering this lacuna, this article examines the moral and practical problems involved in NVR’s tactics of promoting defections and argues that these problems could weaken the entire campaign’s effectiveness.

This article focuses exclusively on NVR actionists’ means of promoting defection and seeks to answer two questions: (1) What are the ethical and practical challenges of promoting defections through NVR? And (2) How could these challenges be resolved? To answer the first question, the first section provides a theoretical overview of the contribution of defections to NVR. The second section describes the NVR tactics for promoting defections. The third section describes the practical and ethical challenges these tactics incur. I suggest that NVR activists confront security forces with a moral conflict to encourage them to disobey or defect. This moral conflict could result in high costs for defectors who face the dilemma of repressing civilians or risking their lives and the lives of their families, which could undermine their willingness to defect. The fourth section offers a lesser evil assessment whereby the harm of promoting defections might be morally excusable, provided that this harm is a last resort and serves to promote a greater good (Gross 2021). Building on this moral assessment, I offer ways in which NVR tactics of promoting defections could meet the lesser evil requirements and argue that protesters are responsible for adhering to this ethic for two reasons. The first is strategic. Alleviating the costs or providing better opportunities to defectors might encourage defection (Albrecht and Koehler 2018). The second is moral. Protecting defectors reduces the chances of the conflict turning to armed struggle and keeps NVR an action that limits costs for all parties involved.

2. The effectiveness of defection in NVR

Security forces defections refer to the withdrawal of security apparatus members from the regime (Stephan and Chenoweth 2008). NVR theorists describe security forces’ defections and disobedience as an effective way of undermining the regime’s pillars of support (Helvey 2004; Sharp 2005; Ackerman and Hardy 2014). The reasons are straightforward. Regimes exercise their power through their troops. When their security forces personnel refuse to obey orders, the regime loses its ability to repress protesters. The security forces’ response is an important indicator of the revolution’s chances of success (Barany 2013). On this basis, NVR theory develops two central goals in promoting defections.

First, non-violence has a better chance of encouraging security forces’ disobedience. Security forces might be reluctant to use excessive force against unarmed civilians, and their noncooperation or disobedience weakens the regime because it cannot exercise its power to repress demonstrators. In authoritarian regimes, disobedience might incur severe costs. Security forces might be subject to extreme penalties if they disobey the regime’s orders. To avoid these penalties, they might need to desert or defect to the resisting group. Second, when defections increase, it undermines the regime’s legitimacy and empowers the resisting movement in two ways. (1) Defections can create a snowball effect that increases and motivates more disobedience and defections. (2) Security forces might join the resisting movement and raise the number of participants, thereby increasing the impact of the campaign and its effectiveness (Ackerman and Hardy 2014). In that sense, promoting defections is an effort of mobilization. Even if defectors do not join the NVR movement, their desertion signifies the magnitude and pervasiveness of the NVR campaign.

Given the centrality of security forces’ support to the success of the NVR campaigns, activists adopt several tactics to persuade security forces to abandon their posts, disobey orders, defect, or join the resisting movement. The following sections will elaborate on these tactics and suggest that they build on moral conflicts security forces experience when faced with unarmed protesters.

2.1. Moral conflict as an NVR tactic of promoting defections

Security forces’ interactions with NVR demonstrators in civil conflicts involve three actors. Security forces stand between two opposing sides: the regime and the protesters. In this position, they might face conflicting duties. The regime will expect them to perform their professional responsibilities and follow orders. Civil protesters would emphasize the security forces’ social and moral responsibility to support the civil struggle and protect their fellow citizens (Nepstad 2013). While professional duties are usually binding enough to keep security forces obedient, when ruthless regimes order their troops to use excessive force against unnamed demonstrators, they might face difficulties maintaining their obedience. The conflict between security forces’ reluctance to use excessive force against unarmed demonstrators and their professional duty to follow orders might induce a moral conflict.

Moral conflicts among soldiers and the police may emerge when regimes order excessive force against protesters to quell revolts. At the beginning of the Syria uprising, Assad ordered his troops to shoot indiscriminately at protesters (Amnesty International 2012). Testimonies from security forces who defected indicate that refusal to shoot at compatriots was one of the reasons they defected (Albrecht and Koehler 2018). Indeed, such orders placed security forces in a dilemma of violently repressing unarmed demonstrators or disobeying and potentially defecting and joining the resisting movement. NVR theory describes this moral conflict as the tactic of ‘Moral Jiu-Jitsu’.

2.2. Moral conflict and moral Jiu-Jitsu

Moral conflicts usually occur when two (or more) moral principles and values collide in performing a single action (Fourie 2015). When protesters maintain non-violent discipline during social unrest, they can trigger feelings of sympathy or mercy within security forces. As a result, security forces might feel compelled to disobey orders to repress the protest and appease demonstrators by avoiding harming them. In NVR theory, Gregg describes this moral conflict as ‘moral jiu-jitsu’, a tactic that seeks to make the opponent’s social or moral duties more compelling than her professional duties and prevent her from exercising force (Gregg 2018: 49).

Moral jiu-jitsu exploits the opponent’s conflicting moral values so that his actions contribute to the resisting group’s effort. When applying this tactic, NVR actionists strive to frame security forces’ decisions as a choice between defending the regime or protecting civilians. NVR actionists might try to intensify the moral conflict security forces experience by fraternizing with them and emphasizing social, tribal, ethnic, and sectarian ties to trigger an emotional reaction that would prevent them from using force. Alternatively, when security forces do not respond to efforts of fraternization, protesters would strive to expose their brutalities, and security forces might face the penalties of public shaming and social sanctions. Syrian protesters have used both tactics, but their level of success was controversial.

2.2.1. Fraternization

Sharp describes fraternization as the positive alternative to socially boycotting police officers or other agents of repression (1973:146). In fraternization methods, actionists strive to create close contact so that security forces can see and hear protesters and hopefully engage in a conversation with them. Through this contact, actionists hope to induce national, cultural, or ethnic solidarity and persuade security forces to switch sides, disobey orders and support the opposition or, at least, shake their loyalty to their regime (Ketchley 2017, 46).

A prominent example of the practice of fraternization happened in the Egyptian revolution, where activists used several tactics to gain the sympathy of security forces by emphasizing social norms to compel security forces to restrain their violence. For instance, during the uprisings, the NYT reported that protesters “selected a committee … to negotiate directly with the Egyptian military. They settled on a strategy that some in the movement called ‘hug a soldier to try to win the army’s rank and file over to their side (New York Times, 2011). In another instance, activists circulated online an image of a mother kissing an officer’s cheek, thus capitalizing on the Egyptian social and religious norm of honouring mothers and reminding security forces of their social obligations (Ketchley 2017, 49–50; Mhajne and Whetstone 2018). On January 31st, the Egyptian military announced its support for the opposition (BBC, January 31st, 2011). While many scholars take this statement as a sign of military defection, a recent study by Holmes and Koehler (2018) suggests that the Egyptian military “defected” only from Mubarak but sought to preserve the old regime and, in reality, protected Mubarak and his family (2018). The Egyptian army’s decision to avoid harming protesters changed the course of the revolution and illustrated the potential success of fraternization, but the Syrian uprising showed different dynamics. Despite the preliminary effort of framing the revolution as a people’s struggle for dignity and liberty, the sectarian split in the Syrian society profoundly affected the support revolutionaries received from the army. While in Egypt, protesters’ efforts led to the Generals giving orders not to shoot and repress unarmed protesters, in Syria, most of the high command remained loyal to Assad, and defectors were primarily low-ranked soldiers..

The Syrian revolution began after several schoolchildren painted graffiti against Assad. The children were arrested and reportedly tortured, and sporadic demonstrations erupted to express civil rage against the children’s arrests. The successes of Tunisia and Egypt profoundly influenced Syrian actionists, but Assad’s inordinate response to the protests changed the dynamics of the non-violent struggle. The immediate use of violence affected protesters’ non-violent discipline and prompted a rapid militarization that was framed as self-defence. This led to a cycle of violence in which protesters’ violence legitimized the regime’s reprisals, thereby leading to the escalation of violence on both sides (Wallace 2018). The regime’s brutal repression motivated defection of soldiers who refused to participate in the carnage. Testimonies from defectors indicate that one reason for their desertion was the refusal to shoot at unarmed civilians (Human Rights Watch 2011; Albrecht and Koehler 2018). Some efforts of fraternization took place as protesters drew inspiration from the Egyptian slogans and shouted: ‘the Army and the People are one hand’, and some actionists made efforts to hand out flowers to soldiers (Droz-Vincent 2017, 173). The outcomes were controversial. While many Syrian conscripts defected, the military elite remained loyal to Assad. Theorists point out the sectarian split as a primary reason for this turnout While Sunni conscripts sympathized with demonstrators and defected, the Allawi minority stayed. Alawite loyalty to Assad was not a coincidence, the Alawite occupation of most high-ranking positions prevented their desertion. The regime used several mechanisms to ensure the General’s loyalty, including padded salaries, promotions, and appealing housing programs in central cities (Khaddour 2015). Thus, aside from sectarian splits and religious feuds, monetary incentives contributed to the loyalty of high military officials. While deep frustration encouraged Sunni conscripts to defect and protect their families and communities, the Syrian Army’s institutional dynamics significantly harmed the protesters’ ability to promote the defection of Alawite Generals and officials. Bou-Nassif (Bou Nassif 2015, 644) suggests that defection in Syria was mainly a Sunni phenomenon and estimates that about 50,00–60,000 Sunnis have defected from the Syrian army. Assad’s brutal response to soldiers’ disobedience resulted in mass desertion. Some ran away to avoid arrests, torture, and potential executions (human rights watch 2011). Many other defectors formed the Free Syria Army (FSA) which was overwhelmingly Sunni. Seventy-five percent of the FSA were Sunni Arabs, and about twenty-five percent were Sunni Kurds (Spyer 2012, 48). The members of the newly formed rebel group claimed to have assumed their responsibility to protect their fellow civilians.

As it turned out, protesters’ efforts of fraternization were not as effective in preventing the army’s violence in Syria as they were in Egypt, and when violence escalated, protesters sought to capitalize on violence by exposing security forces’ brutalities to draw international attention (Lynch, Freelon, and Aday 2014).

2.2.2. Exposing brutalities

While fraternization seeks to prevent security forces from using force, ‘public shaming’ is the price security forces may pay for their loyalty to the regime. The leading role of social media during the Syrian uprising made public shaming a dominant tool. Public shaming is an expression of social disapproval that causes the shamed person to experience regret for violating social codes (Braithwaite 1989, 100). It is based on society’s ability to use social norms as policing instruments and impose social sanctions to restrain behaviours or punish those who have violated accepted social norms (Aitchison and Meckled-Garcia 2021). Public shaming often plays a prominent role in NVR campaigns as it uses shared criticism to unite the public and disparage those who oppose the struggle or refuse to participate. In regards to security forces, Gregg (2018) describes the role of public shame as follows:

With the audience as a sort of mirror, [the attacker] realizes the contrast between his own conduct and that of the victim. [He] begins to feel a little excessive and undignified – even a little ineffective – and by contrast with the victim … [he] realizes that he has lost prestige. He somewhat loses his inner self-respect and gets a sense of inferiority.

(p. 52).

This description is important because it links the importance of shaming individual soldiers to the grand strategy of encouraging disobedience and defection in NVR. Exposing the regime’s brutality is often associated with Gene Sharp’s tactic of ‘political jiu-jitsu’ that aims to paint the regime’s repression in the worst possible light (Sharp 1973). However, exposing the regime’s brutalities translates into shaming security forces. Protesters sometimes depict security forces’ use of force as a national betrayal and vilify them as regime mercenaries. Syrian revolutionaries sought to expose security forces’ brutality to generate public outrage to persuade security forces to join the uprising. Syrian activists tried to document all demonstrations using various alternative networks at the beginning of the non-violent campaign. Protesters anticipated the regime’s violence and carried documentation devices and button-size cameras pinned to their shirts and ties to communicate the regime’s brutality to the outside world. When police officers and soldiers used force, bloggers and cyberactivists posted videos and images of their violence. Activists used the images of badly tortured children as religious and cultural symbols to depict obedience as heresy, with the victims of police violence as ideological saints and those who killed them as disloyal assassins. For example, the image of the bruised body of 13-year-old Hamza al-Khatib became a symbol of police savagery. Khatib and many other demonstrators killed by security forces gained the title of glorified martyrs. The narrative attached to victims of police brutality motivated more children to try to gain the prestigious title (Saleh 2013).

As the riots culminated in a full-scale civil war, human rights organizations established a campaign called ‘Naming and Shaming’ to expose the identity of security forces who used excessive violence (The Guardian 2011 Exposing security forces’ violence became an online industry in Syria. Activists became the informers of news networks and sometimes fabricated incidents of police violence or recycled the same events several times. The Syrian revolutionaries had a vibrant cyber infrastructure that included many online platforms responsible for reporting violence to the outside world. In some of the most ambitious projects, activists sought to collect sufficient data to establish liability for possible war crimes (Lynch, Freelon, and Aday 2014). In using these tactics, actionists placed security forces under the scrutiny of outside spectators, their community, and even their own families in the hope of encouraging their disobedience or holding them accountable for their crimes.

3. The practical and ethical challenges of promoting defection through NVR tactics

Both fraternizing with security forces and exposing their brutalities are effective tactics to impose a moral conflict on security forces. However, the severe punishments defectors might face when they disobey gives their moral conflict another dimension. The potential punishments soldiers might face for disobedience might deter them from appeasing demonstrators and transform their moral conflict between disobedience or social sanctions and potentially legal prosecution to a conflict between obedience or severe penalties.

3.1. The costs of defections

The social sanctions security forces might bear for obedience might be overshadowed by potential costs of disobedience and defections. These costs might significantly limit security forces’ options because they must choose between using force against unarmed civilians or being subject to the regime’s penalties, and the penalties could be severe in authoritarian regimes, including physical injury, torture, arrest and incarceration, fines, expropriation, and even executions. The Syrian regime captured many defectors, arrested, tortured, and often publicly executed them (Human Rights Watch 2011). While executions and physical torture were highly visible deterrents, other penalties were also devastating. Disobedient soldiers and police officers were forced to abandon their jobs, families, and children. The dangers involved in disobedience led those who defected to take their weapons and defend themselves, their families, and other civilians (Human Rights Watch 2011).

The potential punishments on the one hand and demonstrators’ appeals on the other, trapped members of security forces in a severe moral conflict. Occasionally, this moral conflict contributed to defection, as some Syrian soldiers reported that they defected because they could not stand the thought of shooting at their compatriots (Human Rights Watch 2011). While the legal instructions to disobey illegal orders (Caron 2019: 57–74) of shooting at unarmed protesters should have attenuated this moral conflict and prevented security forces from using force against unarmed protesters, the fear of the potential costs had a more considerable effect. According to Albrecht and Koehler’s (2018), moral considerations affect, to some extent, security forces’ decisions, but they are not necessarily an effective trigger of desertion. Their study finds that fear is more effective in triggering desertion. Albrecht and Koehler’s study refers to soldiers’ risk in continuing military service, but their findings indicate that fear is a dominant factor in soldiers’ decision-making and suggest that imposing a moral conflict on security forces might be counterproductive when the fear of punishments is extremely high.

In practice, soldiers’ moral conflicts could contribute to the NVR struggle if security forces act against their professional duties and support protesters, but there are no guarantees that this will happen. In extreme situations such as in Syria, supporting the resistance movement also required security forces to overcome their fear and resist their natural inclination to save their own lives and the life of their families. Such extreme moral conflicts might develop into moral distress and bring different outcomes.

3.2. The problem with inducing severe moral distress

Moral distress occurs when an agent makes a moral judgement on the right thing to do in a particular situation but cannot act on it due to external constraints (Papazoglou & Chopko, 2017). The professional literature on moral distress focuses primarily on medical staff and social workers. However, recent studies on the morally distressing conditions in police work suggest that police’s moral responsibility for civilians’ welfare makes police members susceptible to moral distress. Such moral distress usually emerges when external constraints inhibit them from doing or completing their mission of protecting civilians (Blumberg, Papazoglou, and Schlosser 2020). External constraints often refer to institutional, organizational, and financial limitations that preclude the agent from following their moral inclinations. Similar dynamics characterize security forces’ work in NVR situations. On the one hand, the security forces act in a reality over which they have little control. On the other hand, they are asked to make a moral judgement about the right way to act when the stakes are extremely high in any course of action. While moral judgements rely on one prevailing duty and violating other values or principles (Fourie 2015), they also include calculations of utility, professional duties, and an assessment of personal costs and benefits (Patil and Silani 2014). In situations of severe moral distress, utilitarian calculations could give the agent an excuse for acting against her ethical inclinations (Jameton 1984). In the case at hand, security forces had to weigh the extreme risks of defection versus the mental harm of shooting indiscriminately at protesters. In this situation, some decided to shoot in the air or at protesters’ feet to avoid killing them (Human Rights Watch 2011). These actions, or using non-lethal force instead of deadly force, might have been security forces’ only ‘way-out’ of the moral conflict they experienced.

3.2.1. Is the use of non-lethal force permissible?

Security forces have legal protection when they disobey illegal orders to shoot at unarmed protesters. Article 33 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court requires soldiers to refuse orders that are ‘manifestly’ illegal (Takemura 2009, 157–63; Major 1992, 349). While the term ‘manifestly’ can be open for interpretation, shooting at unarmed civilians seem to fit the bill. Despite the legal protections, the high costs of disobedience might encourage security forces to follow orders. However, when the moral distress intensifies with the demand to shoot at unarmed civilians, instead of practicing complete disobedience, security forces can resort to other means of crowd control.

The international law enforcement rules limit the use of force to conditions of strict necessity and demand that the force be proportional to the threat. The ethical principles of human rights require law enforcement officials to respect human dignity and uphold the law without prejudice or discrimination against any person. Many police and military manuals elaborate on security forces’ right to use force. They also specify the instances in which defensive killing is permissible (Cawthray, Prenzler, and Porter 2013). The principles of international human rights law (IHRL) that apply to policing state that ‘firearms may not be used against persons except in self-defence or defence of others against the imminent threat of death or serious injury’ (Crawshaw 2018). IHRL permits using water cannons, tear gas, or rubber bullets against civilians in certain conditions if they were given sufficient notice and still refuse to disperse (Siegert 2018). These non-lethal means of self-defence and crowd control leave room for security forces’ interpretation, particularly in mass demonstrations where civilians practice disobedience themselves and demonstrations turn to riots and include stone-throwing or damaging public facilities. Indeed, during military operations, soldiers often lack a complete picture and must trust their commanders. In Syria, officers took soldiers’ TVs, radios, and phones, and they were told that they needed to fight armed groups supported by Israel and the US and that they must stop protesters at any cost. The chaotic setting in the Syrian uprising could have been a convincing setting for soldiers to use their arms in self-defence. As one defector said: ‘Most of us believed it, and we were scared; even the movement of birds and butterflies would set off shooting’. (Human Rights Watch 2011). Nevertheless, even in situations of apparent self-defence, the decision of shooting to kill is difficult, and using non-lethal force is might become a way of avoiding the worse consequences. Where the threat level is unclear, these means provide another precaution. In shooting in the air or towards protesters’ feet, security forces do their jobs and avoid the potential punishments of disobedience while preventing the harm of using lethal force.

The option of using non-lethal force could help security forces resolve the moral conflict that protesters seek to trigger. As such, it might undermine activists’ efforts to encourage defections based on moral appeals. Consequently, security forces resorting to using non-lethal force might become a significant challenge to the NVR effort. Non-lethal force might be severe enough to disperse demonstrations but still legally permissible in times of civil unrest. Additionally, using non-lethal force increases the risk of demonstrations deteriorating into violence if civilians’ non-violent discipline fluctuates in reaction to security forces’ use of such force. When this happens, civilians may lose their immunity, and shaming the security forces who have used non-lethal force instead of firing at the protesters becomes morally controversial because security forces risk their own lives to defend protesters.

3.3. The problems with ‘shaming’ security forces

While non-lethal force could be security forces’ ‘way out’ from the moral dilemma posed by protesters, non-lethal force may still inflict much harm on non-violent protesters. Protesters can still frame security forces’ use of brutal repression to galvanize the masses and trigger public outrage but resorting to this tactic raises two ethical problems.

First, soldiers or police officers that avoid harming civilians instead of following orders to shoot them indiscriminately might not deserve the public shaming or the social sanctions protesters impose on them because they take a significant personal risk to protect their compatriots. This is a challenging argument because shooting at unarmed protestors, despite the legal and moral prohibitions, might justify public shaming, even if security forces do so to avoid the penalties of disobedience. Nevertheless, there were cases of Syrian snipers shooting at security personnel because they fired in the air instead of firing at protesters (Human Rights Watch 2011). This indicates an imminent risk to security forces’ lives. Taking this risk has a moral significance. In these cases, security forces’ actions, while physically injurious, are not pure brutality. Non-lethal weapons could injure, maim, and even kill, but choosing to shoot to deter at the risk of severe punishments and even death, instead of shooting to kill, is a moral choice that might excuse security forces from liability to public shaming.

Second, shaming often requires violence. Sometimes, actionists provoke violence to backfire in the shape of domestic and international criticism (Sørensen and Martin 2014; Gross 2018). In Syria, the regime’s violent repression made provocation  unnecessary. However, protesters instrumentalized the regime’s violence and made it the content of shaming. As the civil uprising escalated to violence, the civil opposition did not try to eliminate the regime’s violence (Hinnebusch, Omar, Tina, et al. 2016). Instead, they sought to document and publish it to gain international empathy and support. This course of action raises several ethical challenges.

1. Documenting violence puts many protesters at risk and jeopardizes the entire NVR campaign. Legally, protesters have a personal responsibility to escape violence if they can (Heitner 2014). That Syrian protesters brought recording devices to the scene implies that they were aware of the risk of their participation and knowingly decided to stay. While this does not legitimize security forces’ use of force, it passes some of the responsibility to protesters if they had willingly stayed foot in the face of fire. Furthermore, documenting violence does not necessarily increase the chance of defection because security forces might face social sanctions when they use excessive violence, even if they subsequently defect.

2. Provoking extreme violence might reduce the chances of defection. Security forces that bear criminal liability for extreme violence might not be able to seek asylum in other countries where they would be indicted for their actions. In 2020, the Guardian reported about Syrian defectors imprisoned for war crimes and crimes against humanity they had committed while they were part of the Syrian security force apparatus. Paradoxically, while the legal system is supposed to prevent security forces from using excessive violence, the legal implications might prevent them from defecting in these extreme situations.

3. Public shaming exacerbates sectoral divisions that might harm the potential of promoting defections. In Syria, this manifested in the deep rift between Sunnis and Alawites. Social divisions build on narratives that assign a particular behaviour to a particular group. The Syrian case demonstrated this proclivity when activists and rebels identified those who remained loyal to the army as Alawites while categorizing Sunnis as potential revolutionaries. Thus, the brutalities of the security forces carried an Alawite ethnic stamp. McLauchlin (2015) explains that ethnicity could signify loyalty to the regime and lead rebels to interpret ethnic groups’ closeness to the regime as a collective loyalty that indicates levels of reliability and trustworthiness. These narratives were prevalent in Syria from the beginning of the revolution as Sunni revolutionaries demonized, criminalized, and accused the Alawite sect of Assad’s brutality. This deep division affected the Alawites’ defection, even though not all Alawites supported Assad. For example, in one interview, a Syrian Alawite said that his community is ‘Assad’s first victim as he uses his clan as “human shields” to maintain his power’ (New York Times, June 19^th, 2013).

The deep ethnic rift meant that even if Alawite officers or soldiers wanted to desert or escape, they had to pass a test of fidelity which made the task even more challenging. In the practice of promoting desertions, this meant that exposing brutalities or shaming of security forces was counterproductive because shaming subsumed an ethnic character that alienated an entire ethnic group. Koehler, Ohl and Albrecht (2016), call it the ‘Deserter’s Dilemma’ that explains why potential deserters will not leave the military even if their conscience dictates otherwise. They interviewed more than ninety former members of the Syrian army and found that deserters needed help from revolutionaries and rebels if they wanted to escape. Revolutionaries knew the safe roads to get to the border. They helped protect the deserters’ families and manufactured false evidence of death. These measures were vital to those who sought to escape the potential punishments of disobedience but were not readily available to those perceived as the regime agents and therefore affected the Alawite minority’s defection rates.

As discussed above, shaming security forces as a social policing instrument to restrain the use of force might prove ineffective in the short run considering the sectorial divisions that it might generate in the long run. Failed attempts to promote defections might work in the regime’s favour, as it would allow it to demonstrate the potential penalties for disobedience. Assad’s executions and arrests of security forces were not just punishment methods; they were also the regime’s instruments for deterrence (Nepstad 2013; Davis 2014). Indeed, even if the threat of public shaming causes enough moral distress to encourage some security forces to defect, a few defectors are not enough to bring down mighty and obstinate regimes and may inflict unnecessary suffering on both sides.

4. Promoting defections ethically and effectively

How should NVR actionists promote defections when each action they perform might bring adverse outcomes? Encouraging defection may unjustifiably harm the security forces and undermine the NVR campaign. Refraining from encouraging defections might significantly impair NVR’s chances of success. In choosing between two bad choices, protesters might rely on the lesser evil defence.

Ignatieff (2005) refers to the lesser evil defence as the ethics of balance. Referring to states’ decision-making, Ignatieff recognizes that sometimes limited harm must be inflicted to prevent greater harm. Based on this premise, a lesser evil defence has two guidelines: (1) The action must be the last resort to ensure that no other action could have been applied that would have generated less harm. (2) The action must have significant chances of preventing a greater evil for all the parties involved (Gross 2021, 62–63). Building on this ethic, the significance of defections to the success of NVR might excuse some of the potential costs imposed on security forces, provided that the inflicted harm was the last resort.

Several reasons enable us to look at promoting defections as a last resort. (1) The Syrian protesters confronted extreme brutality, so the risks imposed on security forces seemed a necessary evil compared to not doing anything and permitting oppression to continue unchecked. (2) While oppressed civilians have relied on international community intervention, interventions are not necessarily the least harmful route. Interventions usually occur after severe repression has been applied. In Libya, for example, NATO intervened violently when Qaddafi’s violence got out of hand (Davis 2014). (3) Confronting violent regimes requires mobilization, strategic planning, non-violent discipline, and defections. These tactics are designed for two purposes. First, making the regime’s violence work against it (backfire). Second, neutralizing the regime’s ability to exercise force (promoting defections). From that angle, promoting defections can be considered a last resort because there is a chance that defectors would not resort to armed insurgency. Finally, striving to keep the struggle non-violent is not only more effective but also corresponds to the overarching goals of non-violence as a struggle that may incur harmful consequences but not as harmful as those of a violent insurgency. Complying with the lesser evil ethical demand renders the potential costs of NVR morally excusable as a necessary evil that promotes a greater good.

The moral question, then, is whether promoting defection prevents violence in practice. The case of Syria implies that not always. Defectors often turn to violence or might join a group of rebels and increase the chances of violence. This poses a challenge to protesters if their goal is to prevent violence and might require them to take extra measures to ensure that the struggle remains non-violent. Arguably, in promoting defections, protesters choose a confrontational method and understand that it might result in necessary violence. However, there is a difference between deciding to take the risk of being a victim of violence and asking someone else to take the risk of being a victim of violence to gain protection. Syrian protesters took to the streets with cameras, indicating they were willing to accept the regime’s violence as a necessary evil. This was not the case with the defectors’ decision to join the rebel groups. Some defectors did not want to fight against the regime but eventually joined the armed opposition because they had no choice. As much as 95% of fifty-six defectors participating in Albrecht and Koehler’s study testified that they were in a tough position that forced them to fight against compatriots (2018).

How can protesters promote defections while maintaining nonviolence? The first thing might be protecting defectors. The second is to avoid asking for protection from defectors.

4.1. Protecting defectors

Promoting defections might be more conducive to NVR if actionists mitigate security forces’ moral conflict by offering them refuge and protection. Offering protection is also a strategic act because it might encourage more defections.

Protecting defectors has proved effective in several cases. For example, in the 1986 People Power Revolution in the Philippines, protesters provided shelter in houses of worship and convents (Kraemer 2014). That revolution was an astonishing success. The dictator, Ferdinand Marcos’s even most loyal guards, shifted loyalties and defected in mass, eventually leading Marcos to leave and the country to be liberated (Chenoweth and Stephan 2011, 147–161).

Security forces personnel deciding between arrest and torture or shooting protesters might be more inclined to save their own lives than defect. Activists can mitigate these outcomes by offering defectors and their families shelters and a safe escape from the regime. Such actions might provide stronger incentives for the security forces to defect. This does not mean that all defectors decide to remain non-violent. Some may be suspicious of activists’ particularly if activists use public shaming. The Syrian case exemplifies how public shaming that builds on sectarian splits reduces the chances of defections and suggests that avoiding such tactics might promote defections from all sectors and groups.

There is no doubt that security forces would still need to take a risk. Nevertheless, offering security forces a refuge could derail authorities’ threats and provide security forces with a more tolerable choice. Such actions demand resources and require reorganization and extensive coordination, but they could significantly weaken the regime and prevent violence. NVR organizers could solicit international support for shelter, transportation, food, and economic assistance for families of defecting security forces. External actors could help deserters escape to other countries. It should be noted that protecting deserters might incur costs for activists and civilians because the regime might punish civilians who assist deserters. However, the risk of armed struggle might surmount the threat of these punishments.

4.2. Refraining from asking for armed protection

NVR theory identifies non-violent discipline as a crucial component of NVR’s success. Ethically, non-violent discipline mitigates the costs for all the parties involved and ensures that NVR actionists adhere to the initial goals of NVR. That is, to replace armed insurgencies. From this perspective, actionists might ask whether promoting defections is a viable way to maintain the struggle non-violent. In Syria, defections led to the formation of the rebels’ army, indicating that NVR actionists do not always have control over the outcomes of the defections they promote. Nevertheless, engaging in NVR entails some responsibility to strive to minimize the escalation of violence. This becomes challenging if actionists hope to recruit security forces to protect demonstrators.

The distinction between promoting defection to prevent violent repression and asking defectors to use their weapons to protect civilians is important. In asking for protection, protestors ask defectors to break the law twice. One by asking them to defect, and two by asking them to use their weapons to protect demonstrators. While protection might not be necessary in law-compliant regimes where civilians’ right to protest is defended by the law, in Syria, protesters had two options to maintain the protests. (1) Increasing defections to reduce the regime’s capabilities to exercise its power. (2) Using weapons to protect the protestors. As many of the defectors joined the armed opposition, the FSA formed a combination of the two options. This combination was strategically effective because it ‘killed two birds a shot’. The problem is that security forces can use force to maintain public order and enforce the law as long as they are part of the security apparatus. Once they defect, they become regular civilians who enjoy the same protections and have the same obligations as everyone else. They are no longer responsible for protecting other civilians, and protesters cannot expect defectors to defend them against the regime’s violence. In Syria, however, the interaction between protesters and defectors fleshed out a compelling social expectation that security forces will continue defending protesters even when they are no longer a part of the security forces apparatus. Numerous testimonies from Syria indicate that activists encouraged defectors to join the armed opposition. For example, in about fifty neighbourhoods near the city of Homs, there were several sit-ins in which civilians staged demonstrations supporting the FSA. Several protesters claimed that the purpose of these protests was to thank the FSA. As one protester stated: ‘We wanted to thank the Free Syrian Army, the only protectors of Syrian protesters after God. We also wanted to encourage those soldiers still hesitant to defect from the Syrian army and side with us’ (Aljazeera 2012). The expectation that defectors defend civilians was an informal social demand, as some Syrian defectors reported, ‘Our main job is to try and protect protesters and thus allow the protest to occur’ (Spyer 2012). But allowing protests to occur under armed protection might be counterproductive to the NVR effort. Activists are likelier to maintain the non-violent nature of the revolutions when they explicitly ask defectors to remain non-violent.

Asking defectors to remain non-violent does not guarantee their appeasement. Resorting to an armed uprising seems like an instinctive choice and the best option when fighting against violent regimes. Additionally, non-violence may be perceived as a sign of weakness. The instinct to resort to violence is also reinforced by perceptions of masculinity, particularly in traditional societies that expect men to protect their women and families. Aside from these reasons, the regime’s violence seems to provide a moral licence to resort to violence as self-defence (Wallace 2018) and reinforce violent rebels’ ability to encourage defectors into violence rather than peaceful means of resistance. Either way, the rapid escalation of violence in Syria led defectors to defend themselves against the regime’s retaliation with firearms.

From protesters’ perspective, the distinction between persuading security forces to perform acts of omission (avoiding using their weapons to quell the revolt) and recruiting them to commit acts of commission (actively protecting demonstrators with their weapons) has ethical and practical implications. When NVR seeks to benefit from armed protection, the laws of armed conflict (LOAC) may apply.¹ Armed agents protecting civil protesters make the distinction between non-violent and violent protesters extremely difficult as it becomes unclear if protesters are serving as voluntary human shields to protect their newly recruited fighters, or if armed fighters are protecting protesters. Either way, this collaboration renders all protesters liable to harm (Heitner 2014), and the chances of violence increase significantly.

In that regard, other alternatives may be available. NVR groups could provide non-violent training to counteract defectors’ instinctive choice of armed revolt. For example, shortly after the uprisings in Egypt, The New York Times reported that Egyptian activists received NVR training from human rights organizations and NVR think tanks (see also in Zunes 2011). Providing such training to defectors could allow NVR activists to harness military and police personnel’s experience and strategically apply it to NVR campaigns. Colonel Robert Helvey’s project of training military personnel in NVR methods is a prominent example of instilling military strategy in NVR tactics.² Training defectors in NVR could empower them and enable them to exercise their military skills in non-violent campaigns, thereby giving them routes to contribute to the non-violent movement instead of using weapons. At the very least, such measures could relieve security forces of their sense of moral obligation to provide an armed defence to protesters after they defect.

5. Conclusion

This paper discussed the moral and practical challenges of applying NVR tactics to promote defection. NVR relies on social, psychological, and moral mechanisms of pressure. These mechanisms manifest in actionists’ efforts to fraternize with security forces to form unmediated contact that would potentially prevent them from using their weapons. When this mechanism fails, activists could potentially turn to instruments of shaming as a way of ‘public policing’ that manifests in exposing security forces who have used force against protesters. In practice, these levers of pressure create a moral conflict in which security forces must choose between protecting civilians or suffering the penalties of their disobedience.

While these pressure engines might be tactically effective, they involve risks that could jeopardize the non-violent campaign. The Syrian case exemplifies how NVR’s tactics to promote defections raised several ethical and practical problems that reduced their effectiveness. The military elite remained loyal to the regime, and conscripts defected to join the armed opposition leading to a bloody civil war. These challenges, I have argued, inevitably affect the contribution of defections to the success of NVR.

This article proposes that non-violent civil resistance combines ethics and strategy. Strategic NVR’s theory offers clear guidelines for successful action. Along these guidelines, considerations of effectiveness can provide an answer to ethical dilemmas NVR tactics raise. This theoretical framework could be applied to different cases, and the arguments in this paper leave room for culturally and ethnically sensitive future examination. Unique social and cultural codes could affect the moral judgements of security forces and protesters and may influence perceptions of the limits of permissible and impermissible harm. The significance of these variables to the analysis offered here makes them valuable topics for further consideration that could widen NVR groups’ range of action. Such analysis could be instructive for specific NVR campaigns.

On a final note, the normative evaluation in this article primarily suggests that moral behaviour matters strategically, particularly when protesters pursue a goal defined in terms of justice and dignity. Accordingly, the challenges discussed in this article call for prudence and require NVR organizers and activists to view morality as a strategic consideration.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The ICRC notes that although, in terms of policing, IHRL applies, in cases of internal conflict, the laws of armed conflict apply to police forces as part of the security apparatus. See ICRC, ‘Violence and the Use of Force’, July 2011, https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/assets/files/other/icrc_002_0943.pdf.

2. See Popular Resistance.org at https://popularresistance.org/col-robert-helvey-on-strategic-nonviolence/.