Protest movements have enormous effects on the realization of demands. Many protest movements helped to meet the demands of people, political parties and others in many countries in terms of addressing living costs, giving voting rights, providing economic opportunities and making constitutional changes. In the reduction of armed conflicts — rendered devastating on most occasions — the protest movement of people may have some notable effects, though it is not a decisive factor. Even if protest movements cannot prevent and end armed conflicts always, especially when they are large scale, they may still help to reduce conflicts by preventing them from their occurring and mitigating them through promoting the conflicting parties to reach solutions and end conflicts many times.
It is pertinently notable that several measures are used to prevent and resolve wars/civil wars. But political talks and/or diplomatic negotiations are the mostly applied means of preventing and resolving armed conflicts, inter-country war and civil war. Preventive diplomacy is made to prevent wars/civil wars before their occurrence. Sometimes, the legislative body also prevents wars as it did in the United Kingdom against its potential military intervention against the Assad Government in 2014. But once armed conflicts begin, conflicting parties are brought to discussion tables by a mediating party or parties for refraining from carrying out armed attacks and reaching solutions. Sometimes, third parties are directly involved with the negotiation terms. But conflicting parties are unwilling to go to discussion tables many times, despite the continued efforts of mediating parties. There are many examples of the unwillingness of warring parties.
Among other steps, the protest movement — or the anti-war protest — is notable, though it is not a government-led war-preventive step. But the anti-war protest movement that aims to attempt to pressure a government (or governments) to put an end to a particular war or conflict or to prevent it in advance does not always help end armed conflicts. There are many examples of the failure of anti-war protests, which are often ignored by governments across the world. Anti-war protests were immediately carried out against the Russian invasion of Ukraine but they failed. Protesters largely subsided due to repression from the authorities. Citizens’ participation in protests against the military intervention of the United States could not change its decision to the Iraq war in 2003.
Many factors drive the success of the anti-war protests. Protest movements may fail when there is a strong determination of the conflicting parties to continue the war and find a solution through the war. The conflicting parties in the Ukraine war have probably given the war a chance of its ending, despite interests being sometimes expressed for talks-based solution. Among other causes, the severity of protests, the extent of public support for wars/civil wars, the extent of public support against wars/civil wars, strict government measures to control protests and the scale of the involvement in wars/civil wars also have impacts on the success or failure of anti-war protest movements. Large anti-war protests have more chance of preventing wars and reaching solutions to wars.
But anti-war protests have definitely helped to reduce armed conflicts many times across the world. According to multiple sources, the anti-war protest in Washington, which involved more than 100,000 attendees, forced an end to the US combat operations in Vietnam in 1973. Anti-war protests have some success against wars in other settings too. But between inter-country and civil wars, anti-war protests are more successful against transnational wars. In civil wars, anti-war protest movements are almost absent and difficult to be carried out. They were absent in Yemen, Sudan and many other countries. In addition to preventing wars and helping to reach solutions to them, anti-war protest movements lead to policy changes in governments regarding their participation in wars.
Anti-war protests have the potential to prevent and end inter-country wars many times but their impacts remain uncertain on most occasions. It is consequently desired that emphasis is given to the political and diplomatic means of preventing wars and reaching solutions to wars. Consequently, diplomatic mechanisms need to be strengthened in preventing and resolving wars across the world. Given that political leaders are the main decision-makers in waging wars, a good intention of them is definitely crucial to prevent wars before their occurrence and end wars based on peace talks.
