Insecure people feel threatened. People who feel threatened often turn to insults and violence. It’s hard to “love your enemies” while you’re killing them. Bob Dylan wrote: “How many ears must one man have before he can hear people cry?” War tramples the New Testament command to “consider others better than yourself.”

Some people see
Competitive killing
As thrilling.
To me,
Even the thought
Is chilling.

Earth scorched
By war
Leaves behind
The charred bodies
Of innocent people
Torched.

Violence
Will lead
To a need
For an ambulance.
This isn’t good for
Health care costs.

Could nonviolence turn back an invader? When people are blown up by bombs, the news only captures the aftereffects. However, if thousands of people kept stepping in front of tanks one after the other, if the tanks continually ran over them the world would be enraged. Few tank drives could look innocent people in the eye one after another and continually run them over, however, bombing innocent people (who are hiding in buildings) from 40,000 feet is so much easier.

If everybody in a country said, “We ain’t doin’ what you say,” even if they didn’t fire a shot, no invader could conquer them. Countries organize people and train them to resist violence violently and then measure their success by the dead body count, however, organized, persistent nonviolence has seldom (if ever) been seriously tried as the primary defense against an invader’s military violence.

Countries don’t have eternal souls. People do!

Violence won’t stop Russia’s invasion, but organized, persistent, nonviolent noncooperation tore down the Iron Curtain. It can keep it from reestablishing itself in Ukraine.