In the past 15 years, UK anti-militarist activists have auctioned off a tank outside an arms fair, superglued themselves to Lockheed Martin's central London offices and stopped a battleship with a canoe. They have also challenged militarism in many other everyday ways. This book explores why anti-militarists resist, considers the politics of different tactics and examines the tensions and debates within the movement. As it explores the multifaceted, imaginative and highly subversive world of anti-militarism, the book also makes two overarching arguments. First, that anti-militarists can help us to understand militarism in new and useful ways. And secondly, that the methods and ideas used by anti-militarists can be a potent force for radical political change.

A compendium of writings that detail the grassroots actions of social and political activists from the civil rights era of the early 1960s to the present day, this book reviews the major points of intersection between white supremacy and the war machine through historic and contemporary articles from a diverse range of scholars and activists. Among the historic texts included are rarely seen writings by antiracist icons such as Anne Braden, Barbara Deming, and Audre Lorde as well as a dialogue between Dr. King, revolutionary nationalist Robert F. Williams, Dave Dellinger, and Dorothy Day. Never-before-published pieces appear from civil rights and gay rights organizer Bayard Rustin and from celebrated U.S. pacifist supporter of Puerto Rican sovereignty Ruth Reynolds. Additional articles, essays, interviews, and poems from numerous contributors examine the strategic and tactical possibilities of radical transformation for lasting social change through revolutionary nonviolence

The Military and Militarism in Israeli Society systematically examines the cultural and social construction of 'things military' within Israel. Contributors from comparative literature, film studies, sociology, anthropology, geography, history, and cultural studies explore the arenas in which the centrality of military matters are produced and reproduced by the state and by other public bodies. Analysis is presented using three perspectives: the production and reproduction of collective representations; the dynamics of gender, voice, and resistance; and the construction of individual life-worlds.

Refusing to take part in war is as old as war itself. This wide-ranging and original book brings together four different bodies of knowledge to examine the practice of conscientious objection: historical and philosophical analyses of conscientious objection as a critique of compulsory military service and militarization; feminist, LGBT and queer analyses of conscientious objection as a critique of patriarchy, sexism, and heterosexism; activist and academic analyses of conscientious objection as a social movement and individual act of resistance; legal analyses of the status of conscientious objection in international and national law. Conscientious objection is an increasingly important subject of academic and political debate in countries including the US, Israel and Turkey. This book provides a much needed introduction and tool for making sense of the history of nation-states in the 20th century and understanding the political developments of the early 21st century.

A sweeping history of the passionate men and women in uniform who have bravely and courageously exercised the power of dissent Before the U.S. Constitution had even been signed, soldiers and new veterans protested. Dissent, the hallowed expression of disagreement and refusal to comply with the government’s wishes, has a long history in the United States. Soldier dissenters, outraged by the country’s wars or egregious violations in conduct, speak out and change U.S. politics, social welfare systems, and histories. I Ain’t Marching Anymore carefully traces soldier dissent from the early days of the republic through the wars that followed, including the genocidal “Indian Wars,” the Civil War, long battles against slavery and racism that continue today, both World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War, and contemporary military imbroglios. Acclaimed journalist Chris Lombardi presents a soaring history valorizing the brave men and women who spoke up, spoke out, and talked back to national power. Inviting readers to understand the texture of dissent and its evolving and ongoing meaning, I Ain’t Marching Anymore profiles conscientious objectors including Frederick Douglass’s son Lewis, Evan Thomas, Howard Zinn, William Kunstler, and Chelsea Manning, adding human dimensions to debates about war and peace. Meticulously researched, rich in characters, and vivid in storytelling, I Ain’t Marching Anymore celebrates the sweeping spirit of dissent in the American tradition and invigorates its meaning for new risk-taking dissenters.

Anarchism 1914–18 is the first systematic analysis of anarchist responses to the First World War. It examines the interventionist debate between Peter Kropotkin and Errico Malatesta which split the anarchist movement in 1914 and provides a historical and conceptual analysis of debates conducted in European and American movements about class, nationalism, internationalism, militarism, pacifism and cultural resistance. Contributions discuss the justness of war, non-violence and pacifism, anti-colonialism, pro-feminist perspectives on war and the potency of myths about the war and revolution for the reframing of radical politics in the 1920s and beyond. Divisions about the war and the experience of being caught on the wrong side of the Bolshevik Revolution encouraged anarchists to reaffirm their deeply-held rejection of vanguard socialism and develop new strategies that drew on a plethora of anti-war activities.

Militarism is being globalized today not only in war zones such as Ukraine and Syria, but in “peaceful” arenas such as families and football stadiums. Ideas and practices of masculinities and femininities are fuel for this global militarization. Who is presumed to be “weak” and who “tough”? Who is the “protector, who the “grateful protected”? Written by one of the world’s leading feminist scholars, this masterful and provocative newly updated edition tracks how women’s desires to be patriotic yet feminine and men’s fears of being feminized each have been exploited to globalize militarism—and thus what it will take to roll back militarization anywhere. Here are explorations of how governments shrink the meaning of “national security,” how Nike and Adidas rely on militaries to keep women workers’ wages low, how ideas about feminization were used to humiliate male prisoners in Abu Ghraib, and of why “camo” became a fashion statement. Cynthia Enloe offers readers a practical gender analysis tool kit with which to expose militarism’s blatant and subtle workings. Focusing her lens on the “big picture” of international politics and on the not-so-small picture of women’s and men’s complex everyday lives, Enloe challenges us to chart militarism in all its forms in this updated edition.

The long cultural moment that arose in the wake of 9/11 and the conflict in the Middle East has fostered a global wave of surveillance and counterinsurgency. Performance in a Militarized Culture explores the ways in which we experience this new status quo. Addressing the most commonplace of everyday interactions, from mobile phone calls to traffic cameras, this edited collection considers: How militarization appropriates and deploys performance techniques How performing arts practices can confront militarization The long and complex history of militarization How the war on terror has transformed into a values system that prioritizes the military The ways in which performance can be used to secure and maintain power across social strata Performance in a Militarized Culture draws on performances from North, Central, and South America; Europe; the Middle East; and Asia to chronicle a range of experience: from those who live under a daily threat of terrorism, to others who live with a distant, imagined fear of such danger.

Feminist Praxis against U.S. Militarism provides critical feminist and womanist analyses of U.S. militarism that challenge the ongoing U.S. neoliberal military-industrial complex and its multivalent violence that destroys people’s lives, especially women and other vulnerable populations. It highlights the intentional critique of U.S. militarism from feminist/womanist perspectives that seek to show the ways in which gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, and violence intersect to threaten women’s lives, especially women of color’s lives, and the broader environment upon which women’s lives are dependent. Most of all, this volume challenges the readers to understand the U.S. as the warfare, counterterror, carceral state and its devastating effects on the everyday lives of women, especially women of color, locally, nationally, and globally. This volume also helps readers understand the racialized gendered impacts of U.S. militarism in conjunction with the ongoing global economies of dispossession and militarized violence across the borders of nation-states. Interrogating U.S. military interventions in “other” countries can show how the U.S. War on Terror directly affects U.S. “domestic” affairs and daily lives in the United States.