elaborate shelter building programme, and had scheduled air raid practices as
late as the Vietnamese war period, it too largely gave up serious efforts at civil
defence. The argument in both cases was that there could be no cost effective
protection against a counter-city strike by Soviet nuclear weaponry. Civil
defence preparations were restricted mainly to protecting government and
administrative e ́lites, and making plans to control and organize whatever
part of the population did manage to survive an attack. Many of those opposed
to nuclear weapons view the provision of civil defence as not only useless, but
also dangerous to world peace, because civil defence measures suggest survi-
vability, and survivability may encourage nuclear risk-taking.
The policy of the Soviet Union, which had major plans for evacuation and
shelter of urban populations, illustrates a general policy difference which
permeated all areas of thinking about nuclear war in the West and East. While
the USA and the UK basically took the attitude that a nuclear war, if it came,
could have no winners, the Soviet Union argued that even such wars can be
won. Soviet nuclear weapons strategy was therefore based on a theory of
fighting and winning a nuclear war, and a relevant civil defence strategy
supported it. Since the virtual removal of any serious threat of superpower
nuclear war, civil defence is likely to fade as an issue. However, the experience
of the Gulf War has shown fairly clearly that, below the level of nuclear war,
extensive civil defence measures, especially against chemical attacks, are still to
be taken seriously in likely war zones, and as Western states come to fear the
possibility of weapons of mass destruction being deployed by a ‘rogue state’ or
throughterrorism, it is possible that some from of civil defence may re-
emerge.
Civil Disobedience
Civil disobedience is a protest strategy, arguably invented and certainly
popularized by Mahatma Gandhi during his campaigns first against ‘pass book’
laws in South Africa and then against the principle of British rule in India. The
idea is to urge large numbers of protesters very publicly to break some specific
law, or defy official authority in some clear-cut way. The dual aims are to draw
attention to the evil against which the protest is made, and to attempt to force
the government into taking extreme action in defending the object or policy
protested at. The action thus forced upon the government may be so distasteful
to it, or stretch its resources, as eventually to change its attitude. Even if the
position of the authorities is not swayed, the dramatic demonstration of
intensity of feeling among those who have protested is expected to increase
support for the protesters in the population considerably, thus strengthening
the campaign.
Civil Disobedience