What to do after the dictatorship falls?

By Robert Helvey

Best Defense bureau of war termination

What to do after the dictatorship falls is a question that
needs to be answered before the first "above the ground" opposition
demonstration or other action takes place. Too often we seem to take a "Chicken Little" approach to planning. That is, nothing is remembered from
yesterday, and no thought is given to tomorrow. Moreover, there seems to be a widely held view that the transition to
democratic government from authoritarian rule begins after the dictatorship has
been removed.

The fact is that the transition from dictatorship to
democracy begins when the people have a vision of tomorrow that provides a
better life for themselves. This
transformation in attitude from hopelessness to hope is the beginning of a
revolution. The revolution ends when
that vision becomes structurally possible in a government that is responsive to
the will of the people. Ending the
dictatorship is merely one of many phases in that march to victory.

In waging a strategic nonviolent conflict, the vision of
tomorrow is translated into a strategic goal in which the general public can
see themselves better off at the end of a successful struggle, and they are confident
enough in their movement leadership to risk their lives and fortunes in
bringing down the dictatorship by removing its very sources of power found in "pillars of support." These pillars are those institutions and organizations
that make themselves available to be used by the dictator. Most often these are the military, police,
political parties, religious institutions, government workers, and large
businesses.

To prepare the battlefields for waging a strategic
nonviolent struggle, many of the same considerations given to waging an armed
conflict are applicable. For example, no military commander worthy of command would ever develop a strategic plan
without preparing a strategic estimate in order to identify the environment in
which the struggle would be waged, the capabilities of his own and opponent
forces, and conducting a detailed analysis of opposing courses of action. As an observer, I cannot find any evidence of
a strategic estimate being prepared by either the Egyptian or Syrian nonviolent
movements. Otherwise, there would have
been plans to pre-empt the Muslim Brotherhood victories in the recent elections
and the Syrian movement would have considered that the current Assad would most
likely act as did his father in quelling opposition through slaughter. They would have
prepared for this contingency from the very beginning of the movement.

Another strategic planning failure is the misconception that
a nonviolent movement can co-exist with a violent (armed) component. There is
no nonviolent force that can exist with an armed element within its movement,
any more than a pregnant virgin can walk among us.  (There has only been one recorded incident of
this happening and that was more than 2000 years ago.) If a movement leadership
requests the participation of foreign military forces in its democracy
struggle, it is, in effect, forfeiting its claim to self-liberation and has
placed its future to be subordinate to the interests of the foreign government
intervening on its behalf.

In addition, should a
nation, or its generals, commit combat forces to national development they need to
understand that combat soldiers are trained to destroy, not build. No one
should ever see a deployed combat unit unless they are targeted for destruction
momentarily.  Nation-building missions
initiated by combat forces dilute the commitment to battle and send confusing
signals to both the combat forces and the enemy (as
hapless civilians find themselves needing a chocolate bar from the soldiers who may be
attacking their village tomorrow). In
short, if the military mission is to be assistant mayors, well diggers, and
barefoot doctors, then send the combat forces home. If the infantry, armor, and artillery
constitute the "point of the spear," it should not be dulled by digging wells and fraternizing with the locals. Combat
commanders should not be restricting the ability of combat forces to destroy
those who attack our troops. Committing our soldiers to fight, then forbidding them
from killing their attackers is simply criminal. The point to be made is that
nonviolent movements cannot accommodate military forces, whether their generals
are incompetent or brilliant.

Preparing plans for waging a strategic nonviolent conflict
requires that the planners keep the vision of tomorrow in focus throughout the planning phases, not unlike a
composer of a symphony keeps the melodies in mind as he writes the score for
each instrument to contribute to the
crescendo of the final movement. 

Returning to the question of what to do when the dictator
falls, there must be a blitzkrieg of nonviolent actions to create a new
government, achieve diplomatic recognition, publish a draft constitution, hold
a referendum, then hold elections under that new constitution, prepare amnesty
policies, and finally detain those responsible for heinous crimes who will be tried in
accordance with the rule of law. This
part of the transition is very dangerous for democratic movements and needs to
proceed at "warp speed" to gain the obedience and loyalty of the coercive
pillars of support and to preempt groups contemplating overthrowing the newly
installed interim government. Every
detail must be thought out for maximum impact. These steps need to be examined well before the dictator is removed, and
ready when like a nuclear submarine surfacing at max speed, a huge wave goes through
society, shaking the regime to its core. In its wake, a new society takes its place, demonstrating competence and
commitment to achieve the vision that sparked the revolution. That takes
strategic planning. Instead of giving pallets of $100 bills to Afghan warlords
and corrupt officials, we might be better off transferring strategic planning
skills to a few university professors in Kabul, Cairo, Damascus, and Baghdad.

Col. Robert L. Helvey, U.S.
Army, (ret), is the author of On
Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: Thinking About the Fundamentals , and a consultant and instructor to
pro-democracy groups.