Governments do not often or consistently take into account the potential of nonviolent conflicts in their policies.

In the early- and mid-1990s, for example, the United States relied on diplomacy to end Slobodan Milosevic’s aggression in Bosnia, but it declined to provide much support to his democratic opponents inside Serbia when they were using nonviolent action to oppose him. When Milosevic later began ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, NATO`bombed Serbia until he stopped, but he remained in power. Finally in 1999, U.S. and European agencies gave modest but well-targeted support to nonviolent pro-democracy groups in Serbia, and they brought Milosevic down.

What negotiating and bombing had both failed to do—end Milosevic’s regional terrorism once and for all—nonviolent resistance accomplished. The U.S. and European support for the Serbian pro-democracy movement was not the primary reason for the movement's success, but it did help.  Fortunately some policymakers in a number of national capitals are seeing this and awakening to the realization that nonviolent campaigns usually produce democratic results, which in turn contribute to lasting peace. This is likely to change the nature of peacemaking itself.

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