Sounds like bullshit. Just in recent memory: look at Belarus 2021, look at the massive Serbian protests that have been going on for over half a year and the govt is still not relenting.

American Revolution. French Revolution. Iranian Revolution.

Just a few very violent, and successful, revolutions.

Interesting how the paper picks East Timor/Indonesia as a case study but makes no mention of the massacres of the PKI and suspected communists, which the US was ambivalent, if not supportive about.

Any serious study of resistance movements around the world will paint a very different picture, one in which nonviolence is frequently met with slaughter, and people turn to violence specifically because nonviolence failed.

The fact of the matter is that people living in the imperial core cannot be well versed in the history of every country in the world (to the extent that we can even exert influence in the first place), and this allows the media to either ignore things like the massacres in Indonesia, or spin them in such a way to justify the preferred side through biased framing. The thing the paper cites as a major determining factor of success or failure is defections from security forces, but what if those security forces come from thousands of miles away?

Trying to assert a universal principle on a tactical level regarding such broad categories is kind of silly in the first place. It's too broad. You have to assess what you're trying to accomplish and formulate a strategy to get there based on the particular situation you find yourself in.

From "The Jakarta Method:"

This was another very difficult question I had to ask my interview subjects, especially the leftists from Southeast Asia and Latin America. When we would get to discussing the old debates between peaceful and armed revolution; between hardline Marxism and democratic socialism, I would ask:

“Who was right?”

In Guatemala, was it Árbenz or Che who had the right approach? Or in Indonesia, when Mao warned Aidit that the PKI should arm themselves, and they did not? In Chile, was it the young revolutionaries in the MIR who were right in those college debates, or the more disciplined, moderate Chilean Communist Party?

Most of the people I spoke with who were politically involved back then believed fervently in a nonviolent approach, in gradual, peaceful, democratic change. They often had no love for the systems set up by people like Mao. But they knew that their side had lost the debate, because so many of their friends were dead. They often admitted, without hesitation or pleasure, that the hardliners had been right. Aidit’s unarmed party didn’t survive. Allende’s democratic socialism was not allowed, regardless of the détente between the Soviets and Washington.

Looking at it this way, the major losers of the twentieth century were those who believed too sincerely in the existence a liberal international order, those who trusted too much in democracy, or too much in what the United States said it supported, rather than what it really supported—what the rich countries said, rather than what they did. That group was annihilated.

The problem when it comes to the current situation in the US, is that these protests already came baked in to the Project 2025 plan from the start.

They're not going to change their minds on anything as a result of the protests because they already knew there'd be mass protests before Trump signed a single order.

Considering the UK's biggest export is independence days, it's kind of hard to think that all of those were solved through non violent means.

my fucking ass 👅🥾

Bolsheviks, Stonewall riots, suffragettes, all famously peaceful movements that got their rights by staying on their knees and asking nicely.

The cries for violence here are quite disgusting. I understand our American friends are frustrated, but violence is only going to get you killed. The police in the US have been receiving military gear for decades now. If you want violence, you will get it.

Then there are some major misconceptions about the 3.5% rule. That is for persistent non-violent protests. Week in, week out, for months at a time, before this yields results. Violent protests drive away many of the people you need on board to achieve genuine change and make it exponentially harder to get to your 3.5%. Try getting a grandma or a family with kids to join when molotov cocktails are being thrown around.

So for everyone here calling for violence, you are idiots and you won't achieve a damn thing.

Er... Hong Kong?

Bogus unsupported stats

In a capitalist system, all protests are violent because the capitalist system is violent by definition.

As long as we industrially murder people all around the globe, protests have not been successfull.

And nobody cares if women got the right to vote in this system. Its like making a party about women being able to join the NSDAP.

We are imperialist. We need to be stopped by any means necessary.

So how do you keep the police from making it violent?

Also non violent protests turn violent because the opposition embed bad actors to create the violence or counter protest pushes people to violence out of self defense.

The US population is about 340 million. So we would need 11.9 million to protest.

no non-violent movement that has involved more than 3.5% of a population has ever failed

US police: hold my riot gear!