t is difficult to say whether international violence is more prevalent at the present than at other times. A recent tally of world conflict shows more than forty wars of one type or another, involving more than forty nations, or nearly one quarter of the nations of the world (Elfstrom, 1990). Since the end of the Second World War, the toll of human life lost resulting from conflicts of this sort has run to the tens of millions, with more injury and destruction of property than can be counted (Beer, 1981). In addition, small-scale assaults on innocent persons, so-called acts of terror, seem a daily occurrence. While the toll of human life lost in these attacks is comparatively small, far less than caused by automobiles, alcohol or the other ills of modern life, its E-mail : [email protected] psychological impact is substantial. The threat of terrorist assault appears to weigh more heavily than the acts themselves. This threat minor, however, in comparison with the different and more permanent threat of nuclear warfare. Other periods of human history may equal the present in violence, but the great burden of contemporary life is the overwhelming nuclear threat and the way it spills out and charges actual conflict.

The great powers of the world are locked in an enduring and frequently bitter confrontation. This global confrontation has often enveloped others, lesser, confrontations and made them part of the larger struggle, surrogates for the violence the great powers do not dare to inflict on one another. The struggle of the great powers has resulted in a great amassing of arms and much posturing and manoeuvring, but little overt confrontation. This tension nonetheless feeds itself into smaller conflicts, making them symbols of the larger contest. Often this tie results in the involvement of more, and more advanced, weaponry, or pushes the scope of conflict beyond its natural imit.

Powerful weapons, massed armies, complex and global conflict are features of the mass violence of nations. But this violence is interlinked with a violence of a different sort, discrete violence. Small groups of political extremists, the politically displaced and disaffected, or revolutionaries often lack the resources to match the violence of nations. Instead, they may resort to discrete acts which can be undertaken with few people and limited equipment-acts of bombing kidnapping, hijacking, assassination, and sabotage. Small numbers and light armament offer mobility, flexibility and stealth. Yet such acts often receive attention and have repercussions far out of proportion to the resources they require. Discrete violence is often, loosely and inaccurately, labelled 'terrorism'. But only some of these acts have the goal of generating fear, and only some combatants see fear as an important means to their ends.

Discrete violence has become identified in the public mind of Western industrialised nations with these small, unstable, impecunious political groups. Discrete violence is employed by the CIA and the KGB, not to mention Libya and Syria or other nations of the Mid East, as recent studies have shown (Livingstone, 1982). Discrete violence is as much a tool of national governments as of disaffected and brutalised political groups. The major difference is that this mode of violence is available to small groups in a way that the instruments of mass violence possessed by nations are not. What has changed recently is the introduction of new techniques, those of attacking political opponents like the bomb blast in Abuja, Nigerian capital city on October 1st, 2010 allegedly aimed to destabilise the ongoing Nigeria independence anniversary celebration at Eagle square. Kidnappers and sea Pirates are on rampage in some places like Somalia and Nigeria sea waters attacking and vandalising pipeline installation in Nigeria`s Niger Delter, and kidnapping of suspected rival or political opponents or their wards and demanding ransoms before release. In Nigeria and beyond, discrete violence is made a center of attention because it commercialised into a serious business of great concern to both Nigerians and foreigners.

Simply circumscribed, violence or a violent act involves threat or actual execution of acts which have actual or potential capacity to inflict physical, emotional or psychological injury on a person or a group of persons. All sorts of other definitions are, of course, conceivable (Short and Wolfgang, 1972;Ball-Rokeech, 1972). Dahrendorf (1959) also thinks that when oppressed groups are allowed the right to organize and voice their grievances, the chances of violent conflict are decreased. Coser (1967) and Heberle (1951) formulate hypotheses and generalizations along the same lines. Turner (1964) emphasizes the importance of the general public as well as the authorities when he writes that "the public ... observes, interprets, and labels the movement. The public definition affects the character of recruitment to the movement, the means which the movement is able to use, and thus the strategies which the movement evolves and the kind of opposition it encounters." While one can easily lengthen the list of supporting quotations, Killian (1964) sums it up appropriately: "Whatever the influence of other variables, the influence of the opposition and of the public reaction to a movement cannot be over-emphasized."

The great merit of all these views is that they do not look upon the values, goals, ideology, and especially the means of conflict used by a protest group as a fixed, constant quantity. Instead, the means used to pursue conflict are the result of a process of interaction between the conflict groups. In particular, the reception of the protest groups and the reaction of the authorities and agents of social control are singled out as very important. If the authorities are unresponsive, block channels of communication, do not provide the opportunity for peaceful protest, and refuse to make concessions, and so on, the likelihood of violent conflict increases. While the magnitude of strain, type of strain, and the number of grievances account for the increase of conflict and threaten to overload and break down the existing institutions of conflict regulation, the magnitude and forms that conflict is likely to have are explained primarily with reference to the interaction between authorities and protesters.

In contrast, this issue has been discussed most recently by Huntington (1968), who starts with de Tocqueville's observation on these matters, or what I would like to call de Tocqueville's paradox. In his discussion of the antecedent of the French Revolution, de Tocqueville (1955: 176-177) observes that: it is not always when things are going from bad to worse that revolutions break out. On the contrary, it often happens that when person who has put up with an oppressive rule over a long period without protest suddenly finds the government relaxing its pressure, it takes up arms against it. Thus the social order overthrown by a revolution is almost always better than the one immediately preceding it, and experience teaches us that, generally speaking, the most perilous moment for a bad government is one that seeks to mend its ways. Only consummate statecraft can enable a king to save his throne when after a long spell of oppressive rule he sets out to improve the lot of his subjects.

From a utilitarian perspective, the steps to a moral justification for relying on violence of any sort are simple. The use of violence must be directed toward the achievement of clear-cut goals, and the value of the goals to be achieved must outweigh the cost of the violent means of achieving them. Unfortunately this elegant simplicity dissolves into formidable complexity with the attempt to put these principles into practice as guides to political action. Part of the difficulties lies with the character of violence when considered as a means. It is only rational to choose means which are readily controlled, which carry some assurance of achieving their goal, and which are not likely to incur additional costs. What is more, a means which carries great cost is only justified if the results it achieves substantially outweigh those costs.

Resort to violence always involves a substantial cost, that of the destruction of the lives or the security of individual human beings. Indeed, whatever value it may have in utilitarian terms depends on the presence of this cost. That is to say, its value is as a coercive instrument for achieving ends, whether they be national liberation, correction of injustice or imperialist domination. Because of this, only the gravely irrational or the morally bankrupt engage in acts of violence for their own sake. But, it must be understood, this is not because violent activity is without intrinsic satisfactions for those who indulge in it. The public and sensitive writers are well aware of the pleasures which accompany violent activity (Gray, 1973). A complete understanding of its use and control depends on grasping this. That is, the attractiveness of violence must be understood. This difficulty of course, is that this attraction for the wielder of violent means must always be weighed against its cost to victims, and possibly to the user as well. It is difficult to imagine circumstances where any intrinsic satisfaction resulting from violence can match the pain, anguish or death inflicted on its victims.

Since whatever intrinsic value violence may possess for the wielder will normally be outweighed by its cost, its use must be justified by some extrinsic goal. One difficulty is that it is comparatively rare for the extrinsic goal of violence to be accomplished simultaneously with the violent act itself. Sometimes the two will coincide, as when violence is used to free captives or to kill a brutal and deadly leader. Most often, though, the ostensibly justifying goal of violence will, at best, be only indirectly furthered by the act itself, as when a bombing raid is undertaken in the attempt to force a government to end its support for terrorist groups, or when government officials are kidnapped to press for the release of political prisoners. This distinction between the immediate results of violence and its further consequences underscores the uncertainty of violence when used as a means. The immediate result of violence is, say, an airfield destroyed or a government official killed. But these results do not, in and of themselves, justify the act. An airfield is destroyed to pressure a government to end its support of terrorist groups, and it is this further consequence that ostensibly justifies the act, not the immediate outcome. But there is no direct causal link between the immediate result and the desired further consequence. All too often the connection between the two is only wishful thinking. Because of the frequently tenuous connection between means employed and ends to be achieved, the resort to violence must be a calculated risk at best. The act can only be justified by the achievement of its goal, but if there is a substantial degree of doubt that the act will fail, this too must be considered. A risk factor which is sufficiently large will deflate the value of any goal. This applies with particular force to acts of violence, since their negative costs will normally be much more certain than any purportedly justifying benefit.

In sum, because violence always involves a serious cost, and this cost is explosive and difficult to control, it is unjustified if other means are available-even if these other means are slower, require more determined effort, and are less inherently satisfying. But this reveals a substantial advantage of acts of violence. They achieve their effects quickly. Where human life is in immediate danger, resort to violence may be preferable to other, slower, and less decisive methods. Normally, then, violence will be most clearly justified only where there is immediate threat to human life, and insufficient time for other methods to work.

IV.

The resort to mass violence is the most intrusive symptom of the Hobbesian state of nature which exists in international affairs. On this level, violence often seems the most satisfying way of exerting one's will or of fending off the unwanted attentions of others. Violence is readily perceived as quick, satisfying and direct. National leaders understand all too well that the flourish of arms is an excellent means of welding national unity or diverting attention from pressing domestic turmoil. The resort to arms, where successful, is hugely popular. At the very least, it can be touted as a mark of decisiveness, the fortitude to come to grips with problems. What is more, it is action, movement. Masses like to see their leaders doing things, and violence is the most spectacular and riveting doing of all. Thus, means which, it would seem, should be reserved for the last resort often become the first resort, and it is all too easy to see why.

Of the factors that allow international violence to flourish and make it appear attractive to national leaders, two loom above the rest. Nation-states have a monopoly of the instruments of mass violence, and there is nobody with the authority or means to prevent them from using it. The latter condition defines what philosophers going back to Hobbes have understood as the state of nature, and the activity of nations has frequently appeared quite Hobbesian. But what is often overlooked is that there are no effectual internal constraints, within nations, working strongly against the resort to violent means. There is no strong, active and influential constituency within nations capable of forestalling the decision to resort to violence. In part this because, when violence is directed outward, there are no groups within nations whose interests are directly harmed by it. And there are often important sectors, the military and arms makers in particular, who reap substantial benefits from it. Then too, the speed and secrecy, which is often claimed to be an essential ingredient of planning military operations, forestalls public debate and prevents the formation of effective opposition. Also, and not incidentally, there is a strong emotional urge for citizens of nations to draw together when confronted with physical and external threat.5 when faced with violent crisis, it often seems that unit is essential and that doubting and questioning should be reserved for a time when the urgency has passed.

Wars can only destroy. But sometimes destruction is necessary, to prevent further destruction. It is important to keep clearly in mind that nothing grand can be achieved by war. Sometimes a tyrant can be overthrown and freedom gained, but this freedom is only the limited and particular freedom from oppression of that particular tyrant. Freedom in the larger and grander C Year sense of self-determination and individual flourishing cannot be attained by this means. The instrument of war can only remove some of the conditions that prevent this grander freedom from being attained. It is this negative function, that of removing the causes of misery, which wars are fitted to serve. Most wars are unjustified, but some are, and when they are, they are likely to be the only instrument that can serve the purpose.

V.

In spite of the dismaying frequency of wars, the most common use of the organized forces of mass destruction by nation-states is what analysts term 'projection of power'. National leaders are resourceful at finding ways to make use of military forces for purposes other than all out warfare. Indeed, given the coercive potential of the instruments of mass destruction, it would be surprising if they had not done so. These uses, though, require somewhat greater finesses than does war if their employment is to be successful.

Projection of force is the international deployment of arms for limited acts of violence or simply manoeuvring them in a way that signals of threat or messages of support are conveyed to interested parties. The latter, signalling, modes of projection are likely the most widely and frequently used and quite possibly the most benign. The various ways of projecting power, the purposes sought, and their rates of success have all been carefully studied (Blechman, 1978;Pfaltzgraff Jr. And Kemp, 1982).

When the projection of force involves limited incidents of violence, the acts are not greatly different in nature or in principle from the discrete violence of the weak, the so-called acts of terror. Bombing performed by airplane, for example, seems little different in its nature than form bombing by smuggled suitcase. The release of hostages by commando raid hardly differs from those sprung in a prison break. For a number of reasons, there are likely to be differences both in the manner these acts take place and in their immediate targets. Terrorist groups are less likely to take on military installations and in consequence more likely to harm civilians by their acts. The violence of nations is most often directed against military targets but is also prone to result in unintended destruction. Both types of violence are probably equally likely to be misused. Nonetheless, in principle it is difficult to see why one class of acts should be thought intrinsically less benign or savage than the other. For both, the only ultimate justification can be that the act of violence results in lives being saved or the security of life increased.

The lesson is that projections of force do have a use, even a valuable and necessary one, but are of limited effectiveness and often unsuited to the grandiose goals which politicians and soldiers are likely to seek by means of them. The Israeli raid at Entebbe, for example, not only resulted in the immediate release of hostages but quite likely served to forestall future terrorist attacks. It is good example of a justified use of limited violence. It involved great risk, to be sure, but risk which was minimized by elaborate planning and precise execution (Livingston, 1986). However, cases like this are rare. Most instances of discrete violence are poorly planned, shoddily executed, and only tenuously connected to justifying goals-which themselves are often vague and amorphous.

Terrorism appears to be a matter of how discrete violence is carried out and also of who carries it out. The use of the term 'terrorist' to describe such acts seems to connote that they are designed to produce fear (Sofaer, 1986). The diverse array of bombings of airplanes in 1985 and 1986 certainly produced fear-and probably had the concrete effect of reducing the number of American travellers to Europe and the Mid-East for a time. It is not clear, however, that causing this fear was the motive for the bombings, which usually are claimed to be retaliatory, or that there are any concrete goals to which such fear may be linked.

The array of acts normally thought of as terrorist usually includes such things as bombings, kidnappings, assassinations, etc. They seem to differ from ordinary criminal activity in that they are ostensibly not performed either for their own sake or for the personal gain of the perpetrators but are in service of political goals or at least undertaken by groups with political aspirations (Livingstone, 1986). Discrete violence may thus be characterized as small-scale acts of violence intended to further the goals of a political group. Sometimes the purposes of these acts will include the generation of fear, and sometimes it is expected that this will aid in the achievement of further substantive goals. In so far as violent attacks are intended to produce fear or may reasonably be expected to produce fear as a consequence, they may properly be thought of as terrorism, but this will apply only to a small portion of the acts usually considered as terrorist.

Because such discrete assaults may be carried out with limited resources and small numbers of personnel, they are available for use by miniscule, weak and impoverished groups in a way that conventional military activity is not (Elfstrom, 1990). Furthermore, and most importantly, the means required for these acts-the equipment and personnel, can be kept hidden until put into use. Conventional military forces are difficult to hide and are removed from the eyes of the public only with some difficulty. This concealability is an important factor for weak groups at work in adverse circumstances. But, in some ways, this limits the usefulness of discrete violence. Massive arrays of conventional weaponry serve as constantly visible reminders of the power of 2012

Year governments, and can thus have continuing effect on the thought and action of others even when not put to use. Discrete violence, however, becomes visible only when used and is readily forgotten when not employed. Groups wishing to rely on it as a continuing source of power and influence must repeatedly employ it if it is to have continued effect. Nuclear missiles, for example, need not be fired in order to loom large in the thinking of numberless people. The terrorism of the Red Brigades in Europe of the 1970s, however, had to be continually re-employed, or they were quickly forgotten.

The greatest incentive for abuse, however, results from the ease of covering one's tracts in such matters. Leaders, whether of nations or of disaffected political groups, are most likely to act irresponsibly when they can act secretly, for this removes them from public accountability. Given the present international situation world opinion and peer pressure are the strongest single forces for moral accountability. Secrecy and covert activity allow them to be evaded (Elfstrom, 1990).

The other difficulty is that once such means come to be used by one nation or one political group, others will be tempted to follow suit, with an increase in violence and anarchy the result. If this sort of violence becomes a common tool of international affairs, whatever shreds of civility and decency remain in international dealings will likely be ripped away.

The mass violence of nations is all too easily misused. Even those who are otherwise responsible in their use of military forces sometimes find themselves locked in the sort of conflict with others where resort to arms is a temptation. Given these difficulties, resourceful leaders will seek out alternative ways of dealing with adversity. In addition, of course, all agree that humanity would be better off if the world were free of military weaponry. Failing that human beings would be better off if they could decrease either the likelihood or the destructiveness of the resort to military force.

In theory there are a number of ways to go about seeking these ends. Control of violence and the instruments of violence by an international agency may ultimately be the most thorough way of affecting this. However, an agency of this sort is unlikely to be established at any time in the near future, primarily because governments are presently unwilling to give up enough of their sovereignty to allow it to operate effectively and are unlikely to agree on specific goals and procedures of control. Given this, such attempts must involve individual governments, acting on their own initiative or in loose confederation with others. They may seek to avoid violence by pledges of non-aggression; by attempts to establish cultural, economic or political ties; or they can attempt to reduce or eliminate armaments. These various strategies thus focus either on intentions (by pledging to forgo developing the intention to resort to force), or on motives (by creating incentives to avoid the use of force), or on the capacity for violence (by controlling armaments).

The instability of intentions, opportunities for deception, and their invisible and elusive nature, serve to make the first approach a slender reed at best. In the long term, and ideally, eliminating the motives for resort to arms would be most desirable, but, given current conditions, hostility, conflicts of ideology or interest, and mutual suspicion limit the potential effectiveness of this approach. The mechanisms available to seek such effects, namely trade and cultural interchange, have generally proven too weak to make any significant difference.

The remaining option is the attempt to control arms themselves. This approach is attractive, since eliminating the capacity to resort to force is obviously effective in preventing violent clashes. Armaments are more stable than intentions in that, once destroyed, they cannot be recreated instantly. They are also relatively visible and hidden only with difficulty, so they can be seen and counted in a way that intentions cannot. Also, and most importantly, they are malleable and vulnerable in a way that, sadly, hostility, suspicion and conflict of interest are not. Weapons can be destroyed. History demonstrates that hostility and suspicion are much more durable. Thus it is easy to see why attempts at arms control have recently received much more attention than other options as a means of attempting to mitigate or eliminate the resort to violence. But it remains important to attempt to understand exactly what arms control is, what is able to achieve and what it cannot achieve.

Wisely crafted arms control agreements, founded on good will are thus capable of increasing stability and reducing incentive to go to war, as long as they focus on the features of weapons systems which increase the temptation to initiate hostility. Haggling about numbers in many cases will not address this issue. Nonetheless, the basic force of these agreements is on the capacity to initiate war. To a lesser degree the process itself can operate on motives, by creating an atmosphere of greater trust and understanding. Such treaties cannot by themselves avert war. There will always be strong pressures working to undermine them. Arms control treaties can play a role, perhaps even a crucial one, in creating a more stable world order, but they are not capable of doing the job themselves. They are worth pursuing because they are capable of achieving substantial benefit at little cost, but it would be unwise to expect too much from them.

In the nature of things discrete political violence must be controlled by the governments of nation-states 2012

if it is to be controlled at all. For one thing, governments themselves are often implicated in acts of discrete violence, whether by helping to instigate, finance, or plan them, or by carrying them out themselves. Recent efforts by the international community to come to terms with such acts bear witness to this, for they have acknowledged the governmental tie in such matters. Nonetheless, it remains true that many of the incidents of discrete violence are the work of small factions without governmental ties, and these, obviously, will not be controlled unless by governments. Small groups of this sort pop in and out of existence in rapid fashion. They are apt to exhibit wide ranges of seriousness or desperation and are often anarchic by nature. However, they are capable of acts of violence of sufficient magnitude to inflict significant damage to life and property and, sometimes, to create a climate of fear. In the summer of 1986, for example, American tourist all but deserted Europe for fear to terrorist acts, even though only a very small number of American travellers had been harmed in Europe in such incidents. The events themselves, however, created great publicity and generated substantial anxiety.

It is highly unlikely that any particular mode of response is capable of being adequate to deal with all forms of discrete violence at all times and places. It is also possible that these acts and these groups will wither away and simply cease to cause difficulty in a decade, as American radical groups have become nearly extinct (Alexander, 1976). They may flare up once more in the future, or they may not. The present discussion can only focus on current problems and current groups. Some features of its analysis may hold good for all future outbursts, but it is unlikely that any and all of its aspects will remain permanently viable. The temporary and fluctuating nature of these threats again underscores the point that draconian measures of response are unwarranted morally as well as practically, both because the threat may evaporate spontaneously and because particular counter-measures can be effective only against particular modes of discrete violence.

The moral and practical problems of controlling discrete political violence break in two. They can be called problems of response and problems of association. The problems of response are focused on means of reacting to acts of violence themselves. They include passive preventative measures, such as monitoring devices, security checks and armed guards at airports or other public centres, as well as security measures for embassies, until recently another popular target. Though cumbersome and expensive, these measures of passive prevention are unproblematic. It is fairly easy to known what is required, and little more is required than setting up a protective system and maintaining it. The material cost may be considerable, but the risk to human life and well-being entailed by such measures is small.

Another set of problems of response include those of managing crises in progress-events such as kidnappings and hijackings, or the Iranian hostage crisis-which extend over periods of time and require continuing attention. Many of these difficulties are purely practical ones of discovering the most effective strategies for dealing with kidnappers. This body of knowledge is growing, and techniques are becoming more effective (Bennett, J. P., 1979). Difficulties of a more pointed sort arise when hostages are being held in another nation either under that nation's auspices, as in Iran in 1980, or with the collusion of that nation, as at Entebbe. It is implausible to believe that force should never be used in such situations. Sometimes it will be the only hope of saving captives. Sometimes, as evidence shows, a strong and decisive response will be necessary to deter future acts (Livingstone, 1986).

With the violent nature of the world, resort to violence is often necessary, morally, to save lives, nurture human security, or create order-and the refusal to countenance the means of violence will often result in increased loss of life and the erosion of security. So some violence is justified and may sometimes be morally obligatory. Nonetheless, because of its deficiencies as a means, the narrow range of goals which it is suited to achieve, and the permanent danger that it will be misused, it is important to seek means to control it. The thesis of the present work is that reasoned criteria for the proper use of violence can be established, it is reasonable to expect leaders to adhere to these criteria, and that there are feasible means of controlling violence available.

The transitions from armed force to non-violent means of dealing with conflicts that I wish to consider in this section are not only the changes that result from a victory, but the more subtle transitions that can take place when many people discover that violence is incapable of achieving their objectives.

I am not so much concerned with what one might call the Versailles or the Nuremberg ways of concluding a war, when in effect the victors determine the conditions for the restoration of peace, and the vanquished for a time at least are incapable of resisting the terms imposed on them by the victors. The victors seek redress, restitution, often revenge. At the Nuremberg trials justice was seen as the infliction of their just deserts upon the perpetrators of atrocities and crimes against humanity on the defeated side. But this had little to do with reconciliation, forgiveness, the healing of memories and the restoration of relationships.

After the First World War the post-war settlement visited a punishment believed, by the victors, to be just upon the whole defeated population. The bitterness and recrimination which resulted fuelled the disputes which culminated in the Second World War. In neither situation was the process of the establishment of peace seen as primarily restorative, as oriented to the future, as concerned with healing relationships rather than settling past accounts. This way there was no easy escape from the cycle of recrimination, no healing of memories, little stress on penitence and forgiveness.

I would like to reflect briefly on situations where neither side any longer believes it can win, and many people conclude that the continuation of military action makes the achievement of a good and happy resolution of the conflict less and less likely. The particularities of such situations vary widely, and it is difficult to generalize. But lessons can perhaps be learned from a brief discussion of two such situations in recent times -South Africa after the collapse of the apartheid regime, and Northern Ireland today.

In South Africa they have been attempting an alternative approach to peacemaking after their apartheid past, with all its atrocities and wounds and bitterness. They are using 'a different kind of justice' (Boraine, 2000), which is restorative and healing, rooted both in Christian faith and in African tradition, and which sees justice as 'indispensable in the initial formation of political associations' with forgiveness as 'an essential servant of justice' (Donard and Shriver, 1995). They have been engaged in what Desmond Tutu calls 'the difficult but ultimately rewarding path of destroying enemies by turning them into friends' (Tutu, 1999). The issues of guilt and of retribution are not avoided or disguised, but they are put within a broader frame and a fuller understanding of justice and its end. The truth must be faced and moral responsibility accepted; the attitudes of the victims towards the perpetrators must be taken into account, for reconciliation is the ultimate aim. Perpetrators as well as victims need rehabilitation and healing. Justice and reconciliation rest on truth-telling, which is in itself often healing. Charles Villa-Vicencio explains the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission:

The Commission held hearings throughout the country under slogans such as 'Revealing is Healing', 'Truth, the Road to Reconciliation', and 'The Truth Hurts, But Silence Kills' (Tutu, 1999), inviting people to tell their stories and listen to the stories of others, for the healing of memories, for the redress of offences, for the overcoming of animosities and the lies that hostility engenders, and above all, quite consciously for reconciliation.

Agreement recognises the necessity of gradualness, of the slow building of confidence between those who have been for long enemies, of the tolerance within one province of two or more types of citizenship identity. The long-term future of Northern Ireland can be left open for a prolonged period of time, on the assumption that as confidence and trust grow it may be possible to move slowly towards an agreed long-term political settlement. This gives time for healing, for the 'reconciliation of memories' (Falconer and Liechty, 1998), and for the steady gathering of support around a vision of the peaceable future of Northern Ireland. Such a vision may be articulated, commended and defended by politicians, academics, church and community leaders of integrity and imagination, such as Garrett Fitzgerald, the former Taoiseach of the Republic, (CTPI, 1987) John Hume or David Trimble.

Both South Africa and Northern Ireland show in striking form the continuing importance not simply of religious rhetoric, but of central religious insights in nonviolent conflict resolution, as there is a move away from violence to other, less harmful ways of dealing with deep-seated conflicts. And these two examples raise important questions about the appropriate way of responding to terrorism.

I would like to consider in this section two alternative modes of dealing with conflicts: Gandhi's satyagraha, which has emphatically religious roots, (Bishop, 1981) and sanctions, as used against South Africa in the days of apartheid, or against Iraq. I then want to make some brief comments on recent initiatives in 'just peacemaking' and conflict resolution. a) Satyagraha was explained by Gandhi as follows:

It is a movement intended to replace methods of violence and a movement based entirely on truth. It is, as I have conceived it, an extension of the domestic law on the political field, and my experience has led me to the conclusion that that movement, and that alone, can rid India of the possibility of violence spreading throughout the length and breadth of the land, for the redress of grievances (Gandhi, 1961).

It 'laughs at the might of the tyrant and stultifies him by non-retaliation and non-retiral' (Gandhi, 1961). It makes a sharp distinction between the evil and the evil-doer. A Satyagrahi 'must have a living faith in God', (Gandhi, 1961) 'must not harbour illwill or bitterness' against the evil-doer, and 'will always try to overcome evil by good, anger by love, untruth by truth, himsa by ahimsa' (Gandhi, 1961). The means are believed to determine the end; violence seldom if ever leads to reconciliation. Our task is to explain and to understand, making every effort to enter the mind of even the worst perpetrators -without allowing those who violate the norms of decency to escape the censure of society (Wilson, 2001;p.34 ).

In the Indian Independence struggle, satyagraha operated remarkably effectively as a kind of moral blackmail of the agents of the British Raj. It was a technique of appealing to the conscience and the reason of one's opponent by inviting suffering on oneself. The opponent, it is hoped, will be converted and become a friend and ally. The moral appeal to the heart and mind of the opponent is both more effective and more morally acceptable than the threat or exercise of violence. Satyagraha's record of achieving independence with minimal violence and in binding together the community in the struggle so that it was not only a way of achieving independence, it was also the beginning of a process of nation-building that had great significance in the initial framing of the Republic of India after Gandhi's death. Satyagraha also tackled, with some success, the purification of India from untouchability and the excesses of the caste system. It did not treat India as simply an innocent victim of imperialism; India too had to be purified, disciplined and renewed if it was to be fit for independence. It is not surprising that it exercised great influence not only on the civil rights struggle in the United States, but in movements for independence throughout Africa and parts of Asia.

Yet even Gandhi himself recognised that there were situations where satyagraha could not be effective. But for all that, satyagraha should be recognised as an immensely significant non-military and non-violent way of resolving conflicts which leaves less entail of bitterness and hurt and enables reconciliation and nation-building. It is effective in some situations but not in all.

Sanctions have been much discussed and used in recent times as a non-violent or non-military way of resolving conflicts (Pentland, 2002). But sanctions may mean different things, and may be used for very different purposes. Economic sanctions may be used as a way of punishing or disabling an antagonist before or after military conflict, or in support of armed action. Sanctions may be a serious way of bringing economic and political pressure to bear on an antagonist to force him to give way or compromise, or at least to come to the negotiating table. On the other hand, some sanctions are important primarily for their symbolic value, as a way of making a dramatic statement of principle. Some people suggest that sanctions are by their nature morally preferable to the use of military force, and appropriate in almost all circumstances, but this is, I think, questionable. But perhaps just war criteria may be helpful in analysing some of the moral issues that can arise in the use of sanctions.

The sanctions deployed against apartheid South Africa were of various kinds. Boycotts of South African goods were sponsored by a variety of church and anti-apartheid groups, and encouraged by a number of prominent church leaders and others within South Africa. These boycotts had rather little direct economic impact on the South African economy, but they represented a powerful expression of solidarity, and offered many opportunities for education about the realities of apartheid. The impact within South Africa of the sport and cultural boycotts was far more considerable. These, while in themselves exercising little economic or political pressure, forced many South African Whites to ask why the rest of the world was so vehement in rejecting apartheid, and assured many South African Blacks that they had much support outside South Africa. Disinvestment and the arms embargo had more direct political and economic consequences, and it has been argued that the economic pressure on South Africa was the single most important cause for the release of Nelson Mandela and the mounting recognition that apartheid could not be sustained.

The sanctions against Iraq were, of course, of a different order. They followed a destructive military action which, in as far as it successfully achieved its stated objective by repelling aggression against Kuwait, seemed to fit ius ad bellum criteria. The Gulf War has had serious continuing impact on the Iraqi civilian population through destruction of the infrastructure. The war was less successful in achieving other, less openly stated, objectives such as removing Saddam Hussein from power, or destroying the capacity of Iraq to manufacture and use weapons of mass destruction. Sanctions following the war were apparently aimed at objectives such as these, but were singularly and disgracefully ineffective in achieving their objectives. In as far as their devastating effects were primarily on the civilian population they would seem to fall foul of the principles of discrimination and non-combatant immunity. Indeed sanctions against Iraq, backed up as they were by frequent air strikes in support of the no-fly zones, looked like punishment of the people of Iraq rather than a responsible use of non-military means to achieve a political goal, in particular the restoration of peace in the region. If just intention means that the use of military or non-military means is only allowable to resolve a conflict and achieve peace and reconciliation, the sanctions against Iraq seem to me to be highly questionable on moral grounds. Here sanctions are simply war carried on by other means, and perhaps without as close a moral scrutiny as armed conflict is accustomed to receive. Certainly sanctions against Iraq following its 1991 defeat seem to be of a radically different moral order from sanctions against South Africa aimed at supporting the ending of apartheid (Pentland, 2002).

It is much to be welcomed that a great deal of attention is being devoted today not only to what makes a just peace, but to ways of encouraging mediation and negotiations to resolve deep-seated disputes (Stassen, 1992). Glen Stassen and his colleagues have laid down 'Ten Practices of Just Peacemaking', which they are testing out in situations of deeply entrenched conflict like the Balkans. In Stassen's book, David Steele outlines ten criteria for effective 'Co-operative Conflict Resolution'. These call for those involved to understand the perspectives and needs of their adversaries; to listen carefully before making judgements; to distinguish judgements about behaviour and actions from judgements about people or cultures; to acknowledge their own involvement in the creation of conflict; to be transparent and honest in all their dealings; to encourage partnership in problem solving; to use force only to create space for a non-violent solution; to be willing to take risks; to support long-term solutions; and to recognise justice and peace as being correlative to one another. Such guidelines or principles have, of course, a variety of roots, in common sense, theology, and traditions of diplomacy, to name but a few. One of the more important of such roots may be Habermas's 'discourse ethics', and positing of an 'ideal speech situation' in which consensus may be achieved, and all the participants are free to speak their minds without intimidation, constraint, fear, threat or privileged discourses.

Everyone who has an interest, or something relevant to say, should be entitled to participate in the discussion. People concerned with conflict resolution who not only hear words, but listen to people carefully and critically are more likely, in dialogue with the people to whom they are attentive, to develop understandings of what peace may require in a particular context. In dialogue and in listening, relationship and community are built up and we discover together how conflicts may be resolved.

According to John Forester, a planner much indebted to Habermas: Developing the ability to listen critically is a political necessity. Listening well is a skilled performance. It is political action, not simply a matter of a friendly smile and good intentions. Without real listening, not simply hearing, we cannot have a shared, critical and evolving political life together. In listening we may still better understand, explain, and cut through the pervasive 'can't', the subtle ideological distortions we so often face, including, of course, our own misunderstandings of who we are and may yet be. Listening well, we can act to nurture dialogue and criticism, to make genuine presence possible, to question and explore all that we may yet do and yet become (Forester, 1989). In the practice of peacemaking, Habermas's discourse ethics can be shown to 'work', and only so can people be brought together and held together in a just community; because for Habermas the telos of speech and interaction is reaching understanding rather than asserting control.

Given the obvious ills which international violence entails, and given the propensity of national leaders for its use, it may seem that the only solution is to renounce it entirely, in all its forms. Unfortunately the present international situation does not allow this response, a response as simple and satisfying in its way as the resort to violence itself. The world is, and is likely to remain for some time, a cockpit where many nations and many groups of people have access to means of violence and the incentive to use them. It is also a world of numerous independent and sovereign nations displaying a broad range of moral sensitivity and responsibility. This spectrum includes the relatively enlightened and the absolutely tyrannical, those actively working for the benefit of their subjects and those who are a great menace to the lives and well-being of their citizens. It is a world where many governments, and many peoples, have deep-seated and bitterly-felt antipathies to one another.

With the violent nature of the world, resort to violence is often necessary, morally, to save lives, nurture human security, or create order-and the refusal to countenance the means of violence will often result in increased loss of life and the erosion of security. So some violence is justified and may sometimes be morally obligatory. Nonetheless, because of its deficiencies as a means, the narrow range of goals which it is suited to achieve, and the permanent danger that it will be misused, it is important to seek means to control it. The thesis of the present work is that reasoned criteria for the proper use of violence can be established, it is reasonable to expect leaders to adhere to these criteria, and that there are feasible means of controlling violence available. These measures fall far short of what might be sought in a more highly structured world, but they can be achieved in present circumstances-and the world would benefit considerably if they were.

What has theology to say about non-military means of conflict resolution? The first and most emphatic point is to reaffirm the traditional predisposition against the use of violence, while recognizing with regret that in some circumstances the controlled use of force is the only way of dealing with evil. There is, next, the recognition that many of the limitations and constraints put by the tradition of just war thinking are in fact necessary also for all forms of nonmilitary action to resolve conflicts. Non-military actions, like wars, can have diffuse or questionable objectives, have little likelihood of success, can have devastating effects on the civilian population, can easily go out of control and escalate into violence, or can be vindictive and vengeful. That is why the controlling emphasis on the goals of reconciliation, the restoration of peace, and the building of community are so vitally important. The