Resisting Militarism

An intimate study of the imaginative, subversive and often highly mischievous world of British anti-militarism

• Engages with groups including Campaign Against Arms Trade, Stop the Arms Fair, the Space Hijackers. Smash EDO and the Plowshares Movement
• Draws on a range of critical traditions including poststructuralism, feminism, queer theory, postcolonialism and anarchism
• Develops a new account of the nature and limits of militarism, as understood from the perspective of its opponents
• Makes a case for the radical and ethical potential of prefigurative direct action

In the past 15 years, anti-militarist activists in the UK have auctioned off a tank outside an arms fair, superglued themselves to Lockheed Martin’s central London offices and stopped a battleship with a canoe. They have also challenged militarism on an everyday level in many other ways. This book tells the story of their resistance. It explores why anti-militarists take part in such actions, considers the politics of different tactics and examines the tensions and debates within the movement.

As it explores the multifaceted, imaginative and highly subversive world of anti-militarism, the book also makes two overarching arguments. First, that anti-militarists can help us to understand militarism in novel and useful ways. And secondly, that the methods and ideas used by anti-militarists can be a potent force for radical political change.