[injidup]

> the only viable solution becomes giving the movement its demands.

This interpretation reeks of Western naivete. Students were not merely arrested — they were gunned down en masse in the streets and even in hospitals. They were provoked by the U.S. president, who promised support to take on the institutions, but that support never materialized. The likely endgame of this current gunboat diplomacy is similar to Venezuela: the U.S. secures resource access while leaving the existing system intact, and the student protesters are hunted down. In other words, nothing changes for the people demanding reform.

[ViktorRay]

”This interpretation reeks of Western naivete.”

The essay you are responding to was written by a historian.

The ideas actually described in the essay were not developed by a Western person. They were first implemented successfully by a non-Western person.

Mahatma Gandhi.

And Gandhi developed these ideas from reading the writings of another non-Western person. Leo Tolstoy.

More information can be found here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Letter_to_a_Hindu

As you can see in this article the non-Western Tolstoy was influenced by many non-Western religious and philosophical figures. Tolstoy then influenced the non-Western Mahatma Gandhi to successfully implement these ideas.

[ghc]

I'm sure European aristocrat Leo Tolstoy would be astonished to find himself lumped in with an Indian as being non-western.

[ViktorRay]

Tolstoy was Russian. Russia is not a Western country. And Tolstoy was influenced by non-Western philosophical and religious figures.

[ghc]

While Russia is not quite a western country, the European upper classes around St. Petersburg and Moscow were no less "western" in philosophy and thought than people from nearby Latvia, Ukraine or Finland.

Tolstoy delighted in Schopenhauer, a western philosopher who he based much of his later ideas on. And yes, Tolstoy was later influenced by eastern thought, and was famously a Sinophile, but that is, again, a western tendency common among upper class europeans of the period (along with Japonisme).

Furthermore, "War and Peace" is often called one of the greatest works of "western literature". It's even included in Encyclopedia Brittanica's "Great Books of the Western World".

Just because the Russian Empire wasn't universally western doesn't mean large groups of people within were not. My own great grandparents came to America from St. Petersburg and considered themselves western.

[ViktorRay]

That’s very interesting! Thank you for the thoughtful reply.

[vkou]

> Russia is not a Western country.

Russian culture, as it is practiced in the country's power centers, both historically and today is absolutely Western.

It may not be liberal western culture, but guess what, there's no shortage of Western countries that have been, or are, quite illiberal.

For a simple example, MAGA is western culture. United Russia isn't at all different from it, it just has a different coat of paint and supreme leader.

[watwut]

The only thing that can make Russia "western" is if you equate white and western.

MAGA is western, because it is American. Russia is not western, because it is neither europe nor america. And they themselves consider themselves east. And did for over a hundred years.

[don_esteban]

If you have traveled a bit around the world, and first hand experienced different cultures, you will recognize that Russia of Moscow/Petersburg and other big cities is much closer to 'west' than to 'east' of China/India/Japan/Mongolia/Indonesia.

Maybe not western enough for you, it does have a distinct flavour (but then Sicilia is also distinctly different from Sweden), but still much closer to Europe than to Asia proper.

[vkou]

> The only thing that can make Russia "western" is if you equate white and western.

The thing that makes it western is similarity of culture, philosophy, religion, social structure, historic exchange and cross-pollination. [0] All of which exist well within the range set by countries that you would have no qualms of calling western.

It is very similar to the rest of Europe on all those axes, in a way that Indian, East Asian, Middle Eastern, Native American, African[1], Polynesian culture, philosophy, and structures are not.

Yes, there are some peculiarities about it that the anglosphere finds alien. The same can be said for any distinct culture within the western sphere.

---

[0] Keep in mind that when I am speaking of Russia, my claims cannot be generalized among all of the ~100 ethnic and cultural groups that compose it. Just of the ones that make up the country's political center.

[1] I am speaking from a position of incredible ignorance when I just roll up an entire continent into 'African'. It's quite likely that people who know their ass from their elbow would be able to tell me why I'm wrong to do so.

[Gud]

…against a western government.

[odiroot]

> Mahatma Gandhi.

I daresay the Brits were not as willing to gun down peaceful protesters as today's regimes are.

[dugmartin]

You should look up the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.

(Full disclosure - I had to look up the name after remembering it portrayed in the movie Gandhi)

[tim333]

At least that was condemned by Churchill as "unutterably monstrous".

The Iranian lot don't seem to have similar sentiments.

[pinewurst]

Gandhi also suggested, “But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife.”

[ordu]

You are responding to a short quote from the article. This quote works with some assumtions, which are also discussed in the article. It is not naivete, the article is an interpretation of facts, including those when non-violent protests didn't work. We can disagree with the interpretation, but even if I know a way to do it, we just can't do it dealing with this small quote taken out of the context.

[JumpCrisscross]

> interpretation reeks of Western naivete

The author is "an ancient and military historian who currently teaches as a Teaching Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University" [1].

> Students were not merely arrested — they were gunned down en masse in the streets and even in hospitals

Non-violent doesn't mean peaceful.

People died in our Civil Rights protests. People died in the Indian independence and the Phillipines' People Power Revolution. Each of their leaders were gunned down, and the last won in an autocracy. (Even if you only read the blurb, the state's violent overreaction is part of the parcel.)

> They were provoked by the U.S.

Lots of Americans think the world revolves around us. The truth is we have less influence than we think. We didn't provoke these protests, though we did give them false hope.

> the U.S. secures resource access while leaving the existing system intact, and the student protesters are hunted down

Which opposition figure is being hunted down in Venezuela under Rodriguez?

[1] https://acoup.blog/about-the-pedant/

[martin-t]

This article is on my to-read list and I am a great fan of Mr. Devereaux's work. But I also feel like promoting non-violence outside the context of western democracies is misleading and potentially dangerous. Maybe he addresses it somewhere in the article but I have yet to read it so forgive me if he does.

But how does he explain the failure of peaceful revolutions in Belarus or China?

My understanding of social dynamics is that being peaceful only works as long as it gains you more supporters than you lose by government action against the movement. Some governments give in but if not, at some point, the scale tips and violence or surrender are your only options.

In Belarus, I knew they were fucked as soon as I heard that police support the protests by putting down their guns and joining the protesters.

They gave up their ability to use violence and therefore became as irrelevant as the other protesters. They should have kept their guns. They should have tried to use their openly armed protest to incite other armed people to also join. At some point, the potential violence would materialize but hopefully at that point, enough of the armed people would be on the side of the protest.

Maybe the dictator would give up if he saw the situation spiraling out of control (and hopefully be executed as punishment anyway).

Maybe the dictator would try to flee and get caught and executed ("gunned down"). Maybe his bunker would get overrun.

Maybe someone close to him would try to get favor from the protesters and kill him.

But all of those potential outcomes were closed off if people opposing him didn't have enough guns.

[watwut]

> But how does he explain the failure of peaceful revolutions in Belarus or China?

Does that need special explanation? Violent revolutions fail too ... revolution does not guarantee a success.

[m4rtink]

You mean how Russia shipped in Wagner thugs to protect Lukashenko in Belarus ?

[JumpCrisscross]

> feel like promoting non-violence outside the context of western democracies is misleading and potentially dangerous

The article discusses "efforts, in a sense, directed against the state itself, both violent approaches (what we might call ‘terroristic insurgency’) and non-violent approaches (protest)" (Id.).

> Maybe he addresses it somewhere in the article but I have yet to read it

"The ‘center of gravity’ – the locus of the most important strategic objective – for most insurgencies thus often becomes the political support that sustains a government, be that a body of key supporters in non-democratic regimes or the voters in democratic ones. That body of key voters or supporters, of course, is often not even located in the theater of operations at all: the Taliban ultimately won their insurgency in Afghanistan because they persuaded American voters that the war was no longer worth the cost, leading to the election of leaders promising to pull the plug on the war" (Id.).

> how does he explain the failure of peaceful revolutions in Belarus or China?

"All that said, there are very obviously regimes in the world that have rendered themselves more-or-less immune to non-violent protest. This isn’t really the place to talk about the broader concept of ‘coup proofing’ and how authoritarian regimes secure internal security, repression and legitimacy in detail. But a certain kind of regime operates effectively as a society-within-a-society, with an armed subset of the population as insiders who receive benefits in status and wealth from the regime in return for their willingness to do violence to maintain it. Such regimes are generally all too willing to gun down thousands or tens of thousands of protestors to maintain power.

The late Assad regime in Syria stands as a clear example of this, as evidently does the current regime in Iran. Such regimes are not immune to an ‘attack on will,’ but they have substantially insulated themselves from it and resistance to these regimes, if it continues, often metastasizes into insurgency or protracted war (as with the above example of Syria) because the pressure has nowhere else to go" (Id.).

[martin-t]

Thanks, looking forward to reading the full article myself.

Hopefully there's more about how these regimes have failed in the past and how to make them fail in the future. Because AFAICT at that point, violence is the only possibility apart from waiting for the dictator to die from natural causes and the system to disassemble itself as potential successors fight each other.

[buran77]

His is a very idealistic take which weirdly omits that every major example of non-violent protest working to topple a regime involved some foreign super power spending trillions of dollars to wage very much violent wars for the purpose. The insight that he's missing in so many words is that you need to crack the door open just enough for a foreign (super)power to want to come barging in for some reason. Non-violent protests might work as good optics for this, but good optics don't launch rockets on the enemy.

> there are very obviously regimes in the world that have rendered themselves more-or-less immune to non-violent protest.

This sounds like a cop-out to the original blanket statement, or at least this is how I interpret it from your earlier quote. Regimes copy methodologies from others wherever possible and learn from failure to coup-proof themselves faster than the population can keep up. This is why most authoritarian regimes have endured for so long despite many being otherwise failed states, and almost always need some sort of external covert or military intervention to tip the scales.

It's like saying that you can hit the target every time by just meditating. And having a professional take the shot for you.

[JumpCrisscross]

> insight that he's missing in so many words is that you need to crack the door open just enough for a foreign (super)power to want to come barging in for some reason

No foreign superpower barged into the Civil Rights or the Indian independence movement. Not directly. (If we’re counting hypothetical foreign involvement that’s a geopolitical constant.)

> sounds like a cop-out to the original blanket statement

And no excerpt from an article will do a full reading justice. The article makes no blanket statements, its entire thesis is armed insurgency and protest are strategic twins.

[buran77]

> No foreign superpower barged into the Civil Rights

The presumably US Civil Right movement wasn't happening in an authoritarian state. There's no question that non-violent protest works differently in democratic or well functioning countries. But what's the value of this comparison in practice? Under an authoritarian regime would you recommend writing letters to your representative just because this has been known to work in democratic countries?

> or the Indian independence movement

At least this example is on point. But one good example doesn't generally validate a theory. Look no further than the Syrian civil war you mentioned in your previous comment which required trillions of dollars worth of foreign military intervention. Or the countless failed protests and uprisings all around the world.

> The article makes no blanket statements

It's presented as a "recipe" of sorts, a scenario that flows naturally to the expected and described conclusion when it's anything but. Where's the data to back up such a claim, even if later qualified with a weak "of course it doesn't work all the time"? Any evidence that it works most of the time? A significant even if minor part of the time? Does critical thinking have to take a step back in favor of wishful thinking just because the latter gives you the feels while the former the chills?

[martin-t]

> learn from failure to coup-proof themselves faster than the population can keep up

Institutional memory is longer than individual memory. What drove this point home for me was an article about how the police on London can predict whether a protest will turn violent and that they know how to corral people depending on which outcome they want.

But for now, institutions still at least rely on individuals to retain the experience/memories/skills and individuals have their own agency and can leave the organization or die.

[Fuzzwah]

Do you recall the article? Was it this https://netpol.org/2025/03/01/this-is-repression-annual-stat...?

[dataflow]

>> They were provoked by the U.S. president, who promised support to take on the institutions, but that support never materialized

> Lots of Americans think the world revolves around us. The truth is we have less influence than we think. We didn't provoke these protests, though we did give them false hope.

Sorry, but you're just wrong in this case. The US president absolutely had a huge impact here. Meaning it wasn't just "hope": if he hadn't said and done what he did, the protests and deaths absolutely would not have occurred at the same scale. I'll post an article for reference, but you will find more on this if you look.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/18/why-protesters...

[JumpCrisscross]

> if he hadn't said and done what he did, the protests and deaths absolutely would not have occurred at the same scale

The Guardian interviewing a handful of people, one of whom is a random protester in Iran, doesn’t establish this absolutely in any serious framework. The fact that the protests have recurred should give pause to your hypothesis.

[dataflow]

> The fact that the protests have recurred should give pause to your hypothesis.

First, the fact that they have recurred while the US has been building up military forces there should give you pause on your hypothesis.

Second, just because a fire grows and shrinks after being started, that doesn't mean there was no initial fuel.

Third, nobody said they wouldn't have recurred. The sentence was "they wouldn't have occurred at the same scale."

Finally, I replied to your other comment to avoid duplicating the discussion, and this is going to be my last comment on the matter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47117884

[jfengel]

Even setting aside my disagreements with the current President, the US has an atrocious track record when it comes to following through with support. Why on earth would they believe him?

[energy123]

They didn't. It's called a Schelling point to solve the coordination problem. You don't get the luxury of picking and choosing your Schelling points a la carte. They come rarely and when they come you have to act or the window passes.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Why on earth would they believe him?

One, we have no evidence they did. The claim that kids put themselves in front of guns forty days ago and again today because of Trump's tweets is extraordinary.

Two, if they did, it's because they're desperate. I can't imagine Iranians actually want the shah back. But they know rallying around the shah's image pisses off the regime. In that way, it's actually smart to wave his flag around if it means someone on the other side missteps.

[dataflow]

> One, we have no evidence they did.

What? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/18/why-protesters...

[JumpCrisscross]

No, The Guardian interviewing a single protestor in Iran isn’t an open-and-shut case. We have plenty of people tweeting just about everything from Iran. But we don’t yet know how these protests were formed and led, who did the organizing, et cetera. That means we don’t have the data to build a counter factual with yet, and anyone pretending they do is revealing their credibility.

[dataflow]

> No, The Guardian interviewing a single protestor in Iran isn’t an open-and-shut case. We have plenty of people tweeting just about everything from Iran. But we don’t yet know how these protests were formed and led, who did the organizing, et cetera. That means we don’t have the data to build a counter factual with yet, and anyone pretending they do is revealing their credibility.

Have you read the news about this? Do you seriously think there's only one protester claiming this that we have any knowledge of, with one outlet reporting on it? Just because I gave one link to get you started that doesn't mean there isn't more if you look for it.

Nobody ever said "this is an open-and-shut case" either. Nor was anybody expecting a scientific proof. The sentence was "there is no evidence," and I produced one such, and you moved the goalposts.

I'll leave one more link here but you can believe whatever you want, it's a waste of time arguing here.

https://time.com/7347090/iran-protesters-trump-help/

[thbb123]

If anything, they'd want something like Mossadegh back, which is not to please Trump at all