If the capacity for non-violent self-defense is lacking, there need be no hesitation in using violent means.
—Mahatma Gandhi1
Although I developed the infinite shield because I wanted to control my rage, I am not the only person who can benefit from the infinite shield in this way. I have met many activists who avoid talking to those who disagree with them because they are worried more about their own temper than the hostility of other people. When I speak with activists around the country about waging peace, one of the most common questions they ask me is, “How do you remain calm and not get angry when dealing with hateful and ignorant people?” A female peace activist once told me, “I’m usually a very peaceful person, but sometimes the people who support war say things that sound so offensive and ignorant to me that I want to punch them.”
The infinite shield can help us live peacefully with our friends, coworkers, family members, and significant others by preventing disagreements from turning into destructive shouting matches. But the infinite shield is also vital when waging peace on a larger scale. If we encourage people to take action for a just cause but don’t prepare them to deal with their own anger or a hostile person who disagrees with them, we are not giving them the practical tools they need to maximize their effectiveness. When we revile instead of respect those who disagree with us, it not only weakens our ability to create positive change. It can also have deeper consequences, because despising others can suck the joy out of our lives, draining our energy to work for peace and justice during challenging times, and putting us at risk of becoming bitter and cynical people.
By increasing our respect for the humanity of others, the infinite shield can protect us from becoming bitter and cynical. This is one of the many ways the infinite shield benefits us, along with everyone we interact with. A bronze shield protected Greek soldiers, but not beyond its edges. Anyone standing beyond its edges was excluded from its sanctuary. Also, a bronze shield was designed to defend only those standing behind it, not those in front. But unlike the bronze shield of the ancient Greeks, the infinite shield has no edges, no borders, no front, no back. The infinite shield does not exclude anyone. When human beings oppose us, the infinite shield guards them from our disrespect and hostility as much as it guards us from theirs.
So far in this book I have explored the basic building blocks of the first line of defense: the infinite shield. Later in this book I will explore the basic building blocks of the second line of defense: the sword that heals. The infinite shield influences people by conveying respect through our words, composure, attitude, and behavior. The sword that heals influences people by using strong ideas, persuasive dialogue, and strategic actions to transform how they think. This book creates a foundation you can build on through your own study, and I hope these pages inspire you to learn more about the incredibly deep and complex art of waging peace.
If we truly want to wage peace effectively, strengthening the infinite shield within us and learning how to wield it for the benefit of all is the first step. Many believe the idea of respecting all people as human beings is naive, but this book shows it has practical survival value, because respecting others makes us less likely to have conflicts with them and more successful at resolving the conflicts that do arise. Many also do not realize how important the ability to remain calm truly is, but Roman philosopher Seneca tells us, “The power of wisdom is better shown by a display of calmness in the midst of provocation, just as the greatest proof that a general is mighty in his arms and men is his quiet unconcern in the country of the enemy.”2
However, is there ever a situation where the first line of defense (the infinite shield), second line of defense (the sword that heals), and even third line of defense (the three forms of deflection) don’t work? What happens when someone breaches the infinite shield, dodges the sword that heals, and prevents us from deflecting an attack? What happens when people are filled with so much berserker rage that their forebrain—the part of our brain capable of thinking and listening—shuts down? What happens when the siren song of rage drowns out a person’s ability to hear the voices of reason, compassion, and conscience? In his book On Combat, Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman shares a letter written to him by Keith Nelson Borders, a police officer he trained. The letter describes what happens when all hell breaks loose and the only option left to protect people is violence:
On April 28, 2001, at [8:38 p.m.], I was involved in my sixth officer-involved shooting with a man intent on killing his wife, daughter, and four-year-old granddaughter. His plan was to shoot them, and he had armed himself with a .357 mag., 9mm, and a 12-gauge pump shotgun.
When I arrived, the suspect immediately began firing at me with the handguns while I evacuated the daughter and granddaughter. While attempting to evacuate the wife, the suspect aimed the shotgun at us. I pushed the lady on the ground and covered her with my body. The suspect fired and four pellets struck me in the head, two entered my brain.
The blast of the shotgun flipped me over, and I got up off the ground and pulled the lady behind cover. I engaged the suspect in a running gun battle wounding him seven times (five fatal wounds), but he would not go down. As with most head wounds, I was bleeding profusely and felt as though I would soon lose consciousness, when I saw the suspect coming towards the lady and me. I had fired 39 of the 40 rounds that I carry. So, using the breathing technique that you teach, and that I learned in the U.S. Army Infantry [marksmanship training] 15 years ago, I slowed myself down, got a good sight picture, and fired the fatal headshot.
The bullet struck him in the left eye, my exact point of aim, and ended the threat. I was wounded, bleeding profusely, and firing with only one hand, as I had to hold the lady down behind cover.
This was my sixth officer-involved shooting, all have been fatal for the bad guys. I have been shot in three of those six shootings, and my body has seven bullet holes in it. I have been stabbed once and have lost a partner in the line of duty—but we must fight the good fight.3
Would Gandhi approve of police officer Keith Nelson Borders using violence to protect the innocent from a berserking man? When Gandhi’s son asked him if violence should ever be used to protect those being attacked, he responded:
I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence. Thus when my eldest son asked me what he should have done had he been present when I was almost fatally assaulted in 1908, whether he should have run away and seen me killed or whether he should have used his physical force which he could and wanted to use, and defend me, I told him it was his duty to defend me even by using violence. Hence it was that I took part in the Boer War, the so-called Zulu rebellion and the late war [World War I]. Hence also do I advocate training in arms for those who believe in the method of violence. I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honor than that she should in a cowardly manner become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor. But I believe non-violence is infinitely superior to violence.4
Most people in our society view Gandhi as a naive pacifist who fully rejected all uses of violence, but this portrayal of Gandhi is a myth. Many peace activists also believe in this mythical portrayal of Gandhi. During my lectures I often ask peace activists to raise their hands if they knew that Gandhi served as a military recruiter four different times, volunteered as a medic for the British army in the Boer War and Second Zulu War (also known as the Zulu Rebellion), received the War Medal from the British Empire for his military service, and supported Britain’s violent resistance against Germany in World War I and Poland’s violent resistance against Germany in World War II. Very few raise their hands.
Gandhi was certainly committed to nonviolence. But when people were being harmed by injustice, he would rather see them become disciplined soldiers trained to fight back violently than be helpless victims too afraid to resist. According to Gandhi, the worst thing a person can do when being abused or witnessing abuse is remain passive and impotent. He said, “Violence is any day preferable to impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become nonviolent. There is no such hope for the impotent.”5 Gandhi thought it was easier to get conscientious, disciplined soldiers to embrace nonviolence than it was to transform passive, undisciplined people into peace warriors. I offer my own life journey as evidence to support his claim, because as a soldier I used to believe strongly in violence but found much in his philosophy that appealed to me.
Even at the end of his life, Gandhi maintained a nuanced view of violence and nonviolence. Gandhi scholar Peter Brock said: “Indeed [Gandhi] had never ceased to maintain that, while nonviolent resolution of conflict was preferable to the use of violence, himsa [violence] employed to right a wrong was preferable to tame submission to injustice or aggression. A follower of ahimsa [nonviolence], he believed, had to reckon with that fact.”6 Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk and peace activist, said: “Those who cannot practice a really dedicated non-violence should defend their rights and justice by force, if no other means are available. Gandhi does not preach the passive surrender of rights or of human dignity. On the contrary, he believes that nonviolence is the noblest as well as the most effective way of defending one’s rights.”7
Gandhi said: “Non-violence is not a cover for cowardice, but it is the supreme virtue of the brave . . . Cowardice is wholly inconsistent with nonviolence . . . Non-violence presupposes ability to strike . . . He who cannot protect himself or his nearest and dearest or their honor by non-violently facing death may and ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor. He who can do neither of the two is a burden.”8
Gandhi believed nonviolence is “the supreme virtue of the brave,” and this book supports his viewpoint by showing that courage is necessary to effectively wield the infinite shield. For example, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. risked their lives when waging peace, exhibiting impressive courage in the midst of enormous danger. Although Gandhi understood the power of waging peace, he realized violence may sometimes be necessary to defend our rights, those we love, and justice itself. To better understand how a person can advocate waging peace without fully rejecting violence, consider a medical doctor who advocates antibiotics without fully rejecting amputation.
If a man gets an infection in his foot, most doctors believe a proactive method of treatment such as antibiotics is preferable and far superior to a method of last resort such as amputation. Likewise, when a conflict arises between human beings, I think a proactive method of conflict resolution such as waging peace is preferable and far superior to a method of last resort such as violence. Two hundred years ago, medical technology was very limited, and little was known about preventative medicine. When a person had an infected foot back then, doctors would often amputate because they did not know how to cure the infection. Our way of violently resolving conflicts is limited in the same way medical technology was two hundred years ago.
The use of amputation and violence have a lot in common, because they are both more reactive than proactive, often waiting until a situation has escalated to a dangerous point before taking action. But using antibiotics and waging peace are both proactive, dealing with the problem early before it spirals out of control. Furthermore, just as preventative medicine aims to prevent infections from happening in the first place, waging peace aims to prevent conflicts before they arise.
Although amputation and violence are both sometimes necessary, this book will show that people in our world rely too heavily on violence because they have not been trained in the art of waging peace, just as doctors two hundred years ago relied too heavily on amputation because they did not know about antibiotics such as penicillin. In this chapter I will discuss the rare situations when violence might be effective as a last resort, and later in this book I will explain from a strategic perspective why violence should never be used in a social movement.
Like Gandhi and many other peace advocates, I struggled for many years to reconcile my commitment to waging peace with my understanding that violence as a last resort might sometimes be necessary. This led me to develop the four lines of defense, which show that violence, like amputation, has its place. The four lines of defense also show that the skillful use of waging peace, like the skillful use of preventative medicine and antibiotics, is always preferable and usually more effective than a destructive last resort. As the first two lines of defense, the infinite shield and the sword that heals are the preventative medicine for human conflict. They are the penicillin for evil.
Martin Luther King Jr. said human beings have a “greater capacity for goodness” but also the “potential for evil.”9 If we want to create a more peaceful world we must not lose sight of this reality. Although my books show that human beings are not naturally violent by citing abundant evidence from military history and other sources, my books also explain the many ways people can become violent. For example, I have had a violent temper, but I was not born this way. Rather, I was conditioned to be violent. Similarly, the vast majority of people in the violent criminal population were abused as children in ways that hindered their greater capacity for goodness and nurtured their potential for evil.
Many peace activists understand our greater capacity for goodness but underestimate how violent a person can become through trauma, abuse, and conditioning. I have met some activists who believe the world doesn’t need police officers or even laws. The rage within me disagrees. Because I have experienced the berserker mindset firsthand, I realize how extremely dangerous people can become when they are seduced by the siren song of rage. One reason I became obsessed with studying peace was because I wanted to learn how to protect society from people who have experienced violent tendencies like myself.
I have had many life-changing realizations during my journey on the road to peace. Although our psychological wounds can urge us to lash out violently, I learned we can heal our trauma, abuse, and conditioning through the process of spiritual change. I also learned there are so many peaceful ways to resolve conflict, and when we are trained in these nonviolent methods we almost never have to resort to violence. Not only did Gandhi and King understand this, but so have other warriors.
Kaibara Ekken was born into a samurai family in Japan during the seventeenth century, serving as a samurai scholar for the Kuroda Han clan.10 Trained as a physician, he later became a philosopher who wrote about many subjects, including the warrior code. In the following excerpt, his description of proper warrior behavior sounds very similar to the nonviolent philosophy of Gandhi and King. In addition, Ekken explains the importance of avoiding violence not from a moralistic viewpoint, but a practical and realistic perspective:
If you are insulted in the presence of others, you shouldn’t get angry even if it happens twice. You should respond with the truth. If the person doesn’t accept the truth, then rebuke him sternly. Don’t insult him back . . . You shouldn’t contemptuously insult people yourself, because no matter how timid they may be, if they get angry they may go ahead and fight . . .
A man of courage is not outwardly rough. He should be, as Xunzi says, “able to be calm, then able to respond.” That means that when facing an opponent you can win by calming your mind and not letting it stir. If you get excited at the drop of a hat, you have no internal basis for responding to opponents, so you won’t be able to overcome people . . .
Superior warriors consider it best to win without fighting. If a fight is unavoidable, a good commander is skilled in the ways of war and has strategy, so he doesn’t get a lot of people killed, whether enemies or allies . . . Even if they become generals, humane men do not kill a lot of people . . . When battling opponents, if you are excessive in beating them, they’ll lash back and fight powerfully . . . Even in an argument between ordinary men, if one vilifies the other too much and is excessive in beating him down, he’ll wind up the loser if the other man can’t put up with it and retaliates vehemently . . . When dealing with people, it is imperative to be polite in speech and manner, avoiding discourtesy.11
At West Point I studied “just war theory,” which is an argument developed by Saint Augustine and other thinkers that provides moral justification for war. Western culture has been obsessed with the morality of war and the question of when violence is justified. But many Eastern thinkers take a more useful approach by instead focusing on the practicality of war and the question of when violence is effective.12 According to many Western just war theorists, if you can justify using violence then it is acceptable to attack someone. But according to martial arts philosophy, even if you can justify using violence it is often not the best way to solve a problem, and can actually put you in greater danger.
For example, if someone pulls a knife on me I am certainly justified in punching him. But martial arts taught me that attacking a person with a knife is not the most effective way to protect myself. If someone threatens me with a knife, martial arts taught me to first consider other options such as talking my way out of the situation or running away, because violence escalates conflict and should therefore be my last resort. Rick Wayman, one of my coworkers at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, was held at knifepoint in London. He explains what happened:
I decided to hit up the shops on Brick Lane in East London . . . I lost myself in the thought of a Bangladeshi curry dish or a fresh-baked bagel, both specialties of Brick Lane. I was shaken from my delicious daydream by a swift blow to the head. Out of nowhere, an angry, raging young man appeared with a flurry of fists. His intoxicated stumble allowed me time to make a brief getaway, but the next thing I knew I was between a brick wall and a chain-link fence on the sidewalk with a knife pressed against my wool sweater, poised to plunge into my stomach. “You’re another one of those white racist sons of bitches who come down to Brick Lane thinking you own the fucking place, aren’t you? I’m just another no-good Paki—that’s what you think, isn’t it? Isn’t it? What the fuck are you and your people doing to my brothers in Iraq?”
He doesn’t ask for my wallet; he doesn’t demand the passport I’m carrying in my bag. He has lived the oppressed life of a Pakistani teenager in Britain, and chose me as the outlet for his anger. This random act of violence, fuelled by alcohol and probably years of being bullied and ignored by most of British society, put me in a bit of a quandary. Do I punch and run? Do I knee-in-the-ballsgrab-the-knife-throw-it-down-the-sewer? Do I tell him to drop the knife and “fight like a man with your hands”?
All of these are options that may have ended the confrontation and led to my safe escape. But my reaction was to look him in the eyes. I asked him questions about himself. I told him what I do in London and about the people I work with. I told him about the Pablo Neruda book I checked out from the library yesterday. I told him I would rather have a cup of coffee with him than fight him. He asked me questions: “So you were trying to prove Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons? So you support Tony Blair?” and later . . . “How long have you lived in London?”
Aha! There’s hope! Active nonviolence can work! Knife in pocket, he invites me to his uncle’s restaurant (one building down) for a cup of coffee. Out of another, deeper pocket, he pulls out a longer knife. He hands it to someone in a nearby doorway. Along the way, I ask him why he carries a knife—is it for protection? “I’m not afraid of nobody on this street but God.” He opens the door to the restaurant for me. It’s a nice place—crisp white tablecloths, napkins folded in the shape of roses, wine glasses and shiny silverware on all the tables. Three steps in, he cries “You motherfucker!” and lands a right hook to my jaw. I grabbed both his arms so he couldn’t punch me anymore, but somehow he did. A few older men came in and started speaking to him in their common language. Two guys in their 20s managed to grab one of his arms each, leaving me free to go. So I went.
What does this all mean? Where did I go right, and where did I go wrong? When does my desire to live exceed my desire to reach the humanity of the other person? Is nonviolence the answer? What would I do if I could do it all over again?13
As I mentioned earlier, every hostile situation is different, and whether you are being yelled at by a loved one or held at knifepoint by a stranger, you must assess the unique circumstances you are in and do what you think is best. During life-threatening confrontations you must use your reason and intuition to decide whether you should rely on the infinite shield, use the sword that heals, try to deflect the attack, or resort to the violence of the perilous arrow.
Did Rick handle the situation the right way? Martial arts philosophy focuses on protection and survival, and if you walk away from a lifethreatening situation with only a couple of bruises it is considered a victory. Perhaps Rick could have handled the situation differently, but the important thing is that he survived and nobody was seriously injured. If I had gone berserk in that situation I might have maimed or killed the attacker, but I also might have been seriously wounded or killed in the process. Kaibara Ekken said, “Superior warriors consider it best to win without fighting,” and I think Rick’s way of resolving the conflict without resorting to violence would have made Ekken and even Sun Tzu proud.
In The Art of War, written over two thousand years ago, Sun Tzu says, “Attaining one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the pinnacle of excellence. Subjugating the enemy’s army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence.”14 Studying Eastern thinkers and martial arts philosophy taught me that violence is not the best option for solving problems because it escalates conflicts and is extremely unpredictable. By contrasting chess and poker, we can better understand why violence is so dangerous.
A street fight is less like chess and more like poker, because in chess you can see what your opponent has on the board, but in poker you don’t know what cards the other person is hiding. Perhaps your opponent has a high probability of beating you because his cards contain a flush, straight, full house, or royal flush. There are many unknowns in a poker game, and the same is true in a street fight. Perhaps the person you are about to fight has a concealed weapon, is stronger and more skilled than he appears, likes to fight dirty by gouging the eyes and attacking the groin, or easily goes berserk. What if someone intervenes on his behalf during the fight and hits you on the back of the head? Or what if he knocks you out with a lucky punch? Even if you are bigger, stronger, and a much better fighter, you could still lose due to any of these reasons.
Just as two poker players raise the stakes by betting more and more money, trying to make the other person give up by “folding,” two people in a street fight raise the stakes with every punch they throw, hoping the other person will fold. Perhaps the person will fold after you throw the first punch, or maybe the person will go berserk and be willing to bet his life. Rage differs from anger, because people filled with rage care more about hurting you than their personal safety. That is not the kind of person you want to gamble with.
Most people do not like getting punched and are afraid of fighting. As a result, when they feel terrified and desperate after getting hit, their behavior becomes extremely unpredictable. They might beg for mercy, curl up in the fetal position and protect their head, try to run away, kick you in the groin, or rip off your ear. I call violence the perilous arrow for two reasons. First, the word “perilous” refers to the escalating nature of violence. The respect we convey through the infinite shield does not always get through to people, but it’s difficult to imagine a scenario where a genuine show of respect would escalate a conflict or backfire. If people attack us after we show them genuine respect, it is probably because they already intended to assault us. The perilous arrow, on the other hand, can easily escalate conflicts and backfire because it requires us to raise the stakes with violence, like a poker player making larger and larger bets.
The second reason I use the term “perilous arrow” is because the metaphor of an arrow represents the unpredictable nature of violence. Unlike a shield and sword, which are in your grasp and safely under your control, once you shoot an arrow across a long distance you lose control of it and cannot predict with certainty where it will land. Just as an arrow can be blown off course by an unexpected gust of wind, violence is so unpredictable and difficult to control because chance often decides who wins and who loses. Military strategist Carl von Clausewitz said, “There is no human affair which stands so constantly and so generally in close connection with chance as war. But together with chance, the accidental, and along with it good luck, occupy a great place in war.”15
Every hostile situation is unpredictable, no matter what line of defense we use. But of the four lines of defense, the perilous arrow (violence) is the most unpredictable. Why? The infinite shield and the sword that heals work effectively only when we remain calm and control our aggression. Calm reduces the chaos, confusion, and unpredictability in a situation. But for the perilous arrow to work I must take violent actions that escalate aggression. Aggression increases the chaos, confusion, and unpredictability in a situation. Calm and aggression are both also contagious. Calm people can transform a hostile situation into a peaceful and productive discussion, whereas aggression can have a domino effect, causing the situation to spiral out of control.
Furthermore, the perilous arrow forces you to abandon your other lines of defense, because you cannot shoot an arrow while holding a shield and sword. In other words, you must temporarily discard the infinite shield and the sword that heals when resorting to the perilous arrow, because you cannot practice the art of waging peace while punching someone in the face. To better explain the risks and uses of the perilous arrow, I must discuss how the perilous arrow comes in three varieties.
I have seen pro-war advocates argue that if people are against war, they must also be against the use of violence for personal self-defense. This is simply not true. I for one am adamantly opposed to war, yet I do not reject the use of violence for personal self-defense. How can this be?
If a man breaks into my apartment and attacks me, he is choosing to put himself in an illegal and very dangerous situation. But in modern wars the majority of people killed have been innocent civilians who were never given a choice. Using violence for personal self-defense is therefore very different from modern war, because if a person chooses to invade my apartment and attack me I can defend myself without killing any innocent people. In addition, I don’t have to kill an aggressor invading my apartment in order to protect myself, because I can begin by threatening him with violence. If he does not back down and assaults me, I can knock him unconscious, wrestle him to the ground and apply a submission hold, or stab him with a knife until he loses the ability to fight, then immediately call 911 so he receives emergency medical care that might keep him alive. If the aggressor ends up dying, then I have killed one person who chose to invade my apartment and attack me.
When personal self-defense is concerned, we have various ways of using violence to protect ourselves, many of which are nonlethal. The Shaolin monks in China, who developed a form of martial arts to defend their Buddhist monasteries from bandits, used the bo staff as a personal self-defense weapon because it allowed them to subdue an attacker without inflicting lethal wounds. They were also trained to use swords in case a situation required a deadlier weapon. But when modern war is concerned, even the countries that try to minimize civilian casualties kill many civilians due to the chaos and confusion of war. During the past seventy-five years there have been many wars where tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even millions of civilians have died from the intended and unintended effects of war. There are so many examples that I cannot list them all in this short section.
Because war kills so many innocent civilians, using violence in war is much different from using violence against one person who chooses to invade my apartment and attack me. Journalist Tony Dokoupil describes just one of the countless ways war kills innocent civilians:
Lu Lobello, a machine gunner with the Saints and the Sinners in 2003, traveled to Washington, D.C., to speak to a panel at the Newsweek and The Daily Beast Hero Summit. To an audience of mostly civilians in business casual, he revived his memories of that battle in Baghdad. By way of introduction, the moderator, Wolf Blitzer, said that Fox Company had killed three civilians in the crossfire. “Well,” said Lobello, “first off, there were about 20 innocent civilians, not three.” He then limned the rest of the raw story: many of the cars in the intersection held families, not fighters. When the Marines realized this, they tried to help, but often it was too late. Another car would come, and they would shoot it, because what if this one was the enemy. “We were shooting at civilians,” his superior officer explained to a reporter in 2008. “We were taking out women and children because it was us or them.” The image that stays with Lobello is one of the first from that day, of a fellow Marine walking in tight circles, talking to himself. “We shot a baby!” he screamed, turning to Lobello. “Lobello, we shot a baby!”16
In addition to protecting ourselves from home invasion, personal selfdefense also refers to the act of protecting our loved ones from a violent attack, because in most cases we can defend them by confronting the aggressor and not hurting any innocent people. I am a strong advocate for personal self-defense, and that is why I am also a strong advocate for waging peace. The infinite shield and the sword that heals are the most effective forms of personal self-defense, followed by the three forms of deflection. The perilous arrow is a dangerous last resort.
Law enforcement officers have many options other than violence. As I mentioned earlier, they stopped terrorists such as Ted Kaczynski and Timothy McVeigh, along with numerous serial killers, without killing a single person. Law enforcement officers have the ability to conduct investigations and arrest people, who are then supposed to receive a public trial by a jury of their peers. Also, when the police came to my apartment after I broke the window, they didn’t kick the door down and attack me. Instead, they used nonviolent techniques to calm me down.
Not all police officers are trained in nonviolent techniques, and some rely far too much on violence. Psychologist Abraham Maslow said, “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”17 In a similar way, if a person is trained only in violent techniques then physical force will seem like the best way to solve a problem. Our society also conditions us to view violence as an effective way to solve problems. I have seen countless television shows and movies that portray violence in a glamorous and unrealistic way.
I am well aware of the fact that police officers have often abused their power, but Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman is doing incredible work to help strengthen the ethical code of law enforcement officers who are supposed to “serve and protect.” Grossman is also helping to improve their training so that when they must resort to violence, innocent bystanders are less likely to be injured. According to Grossman, the human brain does not function well in combat, and that is why people need high-quality training in order to perform effectively in combat. Human beings are not natural predators of their own species, and that is why people need thorough combat training to become proficient fighters.
In fact, combat is such a chaotic and confusing environment for the human brain that soldiers often kill their own comrades accidentally in what are known as “friendly fire” or “fratricide” incidents. According to the U.S. Army, 12 to 14 percent of the American soldier deaths during World War II were due to friendly fire. During the Vietnam War it was 10 to 14 percent, and in Operation Desert Storm it was 12 percent.18 In June 1993 after the first Gulf War, the House Armed Services Committee prepared a study stating that a “15 to 20 percent fratricide rate may be the norm, not the exception [as] past rates of fratricide have been systematically and substantially underestimated.”19
The chaos and confusion of combat, in addition to unethical behavior, can cause police officers to harm the innocent. But police officers, like Japanese samurai and European knights before them, are supposed to live up to a high ethical code. The warrior class in any society is often required to obey an ethical code—also known as a warrior code—because when a group of people are armed with weapons they can do immense harm to the population they are supposed to protect. Although many samurai behaved more like thugs and criminals than virtuous warrior protectors, the Code of the Samurai clearly states that a samurai should never abuse someone who cannot fight back. A common theme in warrior codes around the world is that warriors have a duty to protect the innocent, vulnerable, and helpless. The Code of the Samurai, written over three hundred years ago, states:
If the conduct of a warrior’s wife displeases him in some way, he should explain the reason and admonish her in such a way that she will understand . . . If you don’t follow this advice but instead shout at your wife . . . abusing her with foul language, that may be the way of back-alley [workers] of the business district, but it is certainly not appropriate to the behavior of a knightly warrior. How much the more objectionable it is to brandish your sword or punch her with your fist—this is unspeakable behavior, characteristic of a cowardly warrior . . . To abuse someone he sees cannot fight back is something a valiant warrior simply does not do. [emphasis added]”20
Will our society always need police officers trained in the perilous arrow to protect it? Or is it possible to reduce violent crime to such a large extent that police officers will no longer be needed in the future? As I write this the American population is around 300 million. If only one out of every ten thousand Americans had a propensity for committing violent crimes as a “repeat offender,” this would amount to 30,000 violent criminals in our country—quite a large number. And since those 30,000 people can join each other to create small violent groups, we can understand why Martin Luther King Jr. believed in “the intelligent use of police force.”
In a small tribe ranging from a dozen to several hundred people, it is easy to imagine a situation where law enforcement officers are not needed and people can settle disputes among themselves. But when a society contains hundreds of millions of people—any of which could be affected by the serious mental disorders that can cause people to endanger others—there will always be some murderers, child molesters, con artists, and others who want to take advantage of the vulnerable. It is the duty of police officers to protect the vulnerable.
In addition, as long as there is alcohol in the world we will need police officers. I am certainly not arguing in favor of prohibition, nor am I trying to be moralistic. Instead, I am simply being realistic. It is a fact that a small percentage of people become aggressive when they drink alcohol, and that people are more likely to commit violent crime when drunk. The Code of the Samurai understood the dangers of alcohol, warning us to be careful around those in drunken rages: “It is not impossible that on the road, or at your destination, you may run into someone in a drunken rage, or some kind of fool, and get into an unexpected duel.”21
As King said about the use of federal soldiers in Little Rock, “So I believe in the intelligent use of police force, and I think that is all we have in Little Rock. It’s not an army fighting against a nation or a race of people. It is just police force, seeking to enforce the law of the land.”22 By refining the warrior code to help us meet new challenges in the twenty-first century and holding law enforcement officers accountable for their wrongdoings, we can ensure the perilous arrow does more to protect rather than harm humanity.
War is a master of deception. The war system has convinced most people that it is effective at keeping us safe, but in the second part of this book I will reveal what the war system doesn’t want us to know. We are living during a fragile time in human history when war is no longer an acceptable way of using the perilous arrow. Now that I have introduced the four lines of defense and discussed the basic building blocks of the infinite shield, I can explain in the pages ahead why war is so dangerous and counterproductive in the twenty-first century. In order to solve our national and global problems, we must realize that our greatest enemy today is not a particular group of people in a far-off country. Our greatest enemy is war itself.