AEI’s Jamila Raqib in Waging Nonviolence on Expanding Our Definition of Security

Published on March 30, 2026

Expanding Our Definition of Security
By Jamila Raqib

This article is based on a presentation AEI Executive Director Jamila Raqib gave at the Munich Peace Meeting, hosted in preparation for the Munich Security Conference.

We must expand our definition of security. This issue is the topic du jour of Davos and Munich Security Conference meetings and recent speeches by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Finnish President Alex Stubb, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and more.

Let’s be very clear: A secure world is not only one defended by military deterrence or access to weaponry, despite the world’s continued default to military defense spending, which hit a new record last year at $2.7 trillion. It is rather a world where people’s agency and power is recognized — to resist oppression and defend their societies and democratic rights through organized, strategic, nonviolent means. That, too, needs to be part of these discussions.

While this type of action is already shaping geopolitics in profound ways, it remains largely unacknowledged, unsupported, and misunderstood in current security frameworks. This is a strategic blind spot. One that we now have an opportunity to address, amid multiple intersecting and worsening global crises.

First is the rise of authoritarianism worldwide. Organizations like the V-Dem Institute in Sweden have documented this trend extensively. Dictatorships are becoming more dictatorial and democracies are experiencing backsliding. And authoritarian regimes are not just consolidating power, they are adapting, learning, and becoming more resilient. One of the ways they are doing this is by targeting and dismantling the very movements that challenge them.

Second, while these movements are proliferating at unprecedented rates, fueled by social media, digital tools, and global connectivity, the success rates of those movements are declining. We’re seeing more action, but less impact. This should give us all pause.

Third, faith in democratic institutions is eroding. The reality is that for many of our communities around the world, their experience is that the world is becoming less safe, less democratic, and more violent.

Fourth, confidence in nonviolent means of change is declining. As peaceful avenues narrow, some communities are turning to violence, which is the means most of our societies still tell us is the ultimate form of power. Others are disengaging entirely, overwhelmed by the sense that they are powerless against the well-funded, well-armed, and sophisticated systems harming their families and futures.

These trends — rising authoritarianism, declining faith in democratic pathways, and the declining effectiveness of movements — are not just troubling, they are destabilizing. They carry major implications for global security and for the resilience of our democratic systems. But in this crisis, there is also an opportunity.

There is now a clear opening for international actors to play a leadership role in shaping a new global security paradigm, one grounded in the real-world practice of strategic nonviolent action. And it is this conversation that belongs on the agenda of forums like the Munich Security Conference, the United Nations’ myriad peace, security, and human rights convenings, and beyond.

People are already using nonviolent means often with great bravery and under difficult conditions, and likely in every country in the world. The will to resist injustice, the capacity to defy and disrupt oppression, even when that defiance carries enormous costs, is a deeply human impulse.

The question is not whether people will act. The question is whether the international community — within the United Nations Security Council, the U.N. Human Rights Council, or the U.N. Peacebuilding and Peace Support Office, for example — will meet them with support or leave them to stand alone and to potentially turn to violence.

If we fail to support these movements, we are not only failing ethically. We are creating a strategic vacuum at precisely the moment when collective global action is needed the most. It is no longer enough to condemn authoritarianism, to express concern about democratic backsliding, or to issue statements in support of human rights.

People on the frontlines are looking for allies and real, meaningful support. We are hearing from our partners around the world that they feel alone. They feel isolated. They feel demoralized. And that is exactly what authoritarian regimes want, because this isolation makes it more possible for them to deepen autocratization.

It’s also no accident that human rights organizations and civil society institutions are increasingly in the line of fire of authoritarian governments. They understand that these groups are the first line of defense against authoritarian consolidation, because they are the ones with the power to mobilize, to organize, to disrupt, and to defy unjust systems when traditional political mechanisms fail.

These communities are our frontline defense. Yet that is far from the message that we, the international community, are sending today. Because in too many places, even in democratic countries, nonviolent resistance is being criminalized. While the U.K.’s Palestine Action ban was ruled unlawful recently, for example, we can expect more of these criminalization attempts. Protest is also being labeled as extremism. Civil disobedience is being rebranded as domestic terrorism. The U.S. government recently attempted to assign this label to Minneapolis protestors, although this is currently being challenged.

Here in the United States, a recent presidential directive gives law enforcement broad powers to investigate, disrupt, and surveil NGOs, activists and their supporters. In Europe, too, restrictions on civil society support are increasing to alarming levels, often quietly, through legislative changes and funding cuts. Free speech, freedom of assembly, and democracy itself are being criminalized.

These developments represent a strategic gap in how we understand and secure democracy. If we continue down this path, we send a dangerous message that people must simply trust systems that are already failing them: that they must sit back, remain patient, and allow injustice to continue while they wait for someone else to save them.

This is not only ethically problematic, it is also strategically unwise. So, what can be done?

The first step is norm-setting: security circles — like the Munich Security Conference and U.N. fora — must establish the legitimacy of strategic nonviolent action as a recognized and essential tool of global security. This can be done by creating space for movement leaders to share their achievements and challenges alongside state and institutional actors.

The second is to convene working groups on how external support for movements — legal, diplomatic, logistical — can be more coordinated. This would help shift the conversation from “whether” to support movements to “how” to most effectively support them.

The third is to support the infrastructure of movements, such as digital security, nonviolent resistance training, coordination tools, and communications, so that nonviolent action can be strategic, disciplined, and effective.

The fourth is to launch a dedicated space within security circles, like the Munich Security Conference and U.N. councils, where policymakers, activists, and civil society leaders come together to co-create rapid responses to nonviolent struggles. This effort could include a nonviolent peacekeeping or peace operations force, as well as a peacebuilding support office for post-conflict support to ensure that any gains that are achieved can be defended.

We need to move beyond symbolic gestures and invest in concrete tools for global cooperation and security, so that our global institutions not only discuss peace, but actively incubate it.

The truth is that despite their impact, nonviolent movements receive a fraction of the attention, support, and resources that are directed toward military efforts and traditional diplomacy. They are too often viewed as fringe players or simply left out of security conversations altogether. Worse, they are being actively targeted by repressive states while the international system looks away.

By expanding our definition of security, we can more accurately reflect how a secure world is achieved and defended in practice: not only through military deterrence or access to weaponry, but through the power of people to speak freely, to assemble, to protest, and to resist — supported in doing so through organized, strategic, nonviolent means. Because that may be our strongest tool for ensuring lasting security for generations to come.

If security institutions integrate the role of nonviolent movements into their thinking and planning, we can better support and reinforce the local agency of those who are struggling for justice and democracy. We can reduce the reliance on violent conflict as the default mechanism of change and strengthen long-term democratic resilience. And we can gain allies, not just in governments, but among people. People need to know they are not alone. Let’s ensure that the goal of our security policies is not only to defend borders, but to defend democracy and the human dignity at their roots.