From Afghanistan to the Falklands, from Northern Ireland to Iraq, British troops are nearly always in action somewhere in the world. But whenever there is war, there will be people who resist it. Sometimes, they can draw on public sympathy. At other times, they stand alone against the crowd. Peace movements large and small have been a constant part of UK history, not least in the last 40 years. This book tells their stories. Drawing on interviews, fresh research and newly released government documents, the book sheds light on some of the most surprising and overlooked events of recent decades. Peace activists in the 1980s did not know that Margaret Thatcher's government feared that US troops on UK bases would fire on unarmed demonstrators. When the ceasefire came about in Northern Ireland, few noticed the peace work that Quakers had been doing behind the scenes for years. While the jingoistic atmosphere of the Falklands War is much remembered, there is less talk about the protests against it that saw more than 100 arrests at navy recruitment centres and public demonstrations. Four women who successfully disarmed a warplane in the 1990s were just a few of those to be acquitted after actions that could have resulted in years in prison. Apparent public support for the campaign against the Iraq war masked deep and bitter divisions amongst anti-war activists. Dissent and disobedience within the armed forces continues far from the public gaze. As recently as 2011, Michael Lyons was refused discharge from the Royal Navy despite developing a conscientious objection to war. He spent seven months in a military prison. This is a book that brings to life the realities of resistance by people whose refusal to conform has much to say about how we see the UK and British history today.

There is a long tradition of opposition to war and organized peace campaigns date from 1815. Since 1945, however, modern weapons technology has threatened world wide destruction and has stimulated widespread protests. This book sketches in the background of thinking about peace and resistance to war before 1945, and then examines how public opposition to nuclear weapons and testing grew in the 1950s and early 1960s. Later chapters cover the major ressurgence of nuclear disarmament campaigns in the 1980s. The book also looks at how peace protest has spread from its origins in North America and North West Europe to embrace many parts of the world; opposition to nuclear testing has indeed been particularly strong in Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands. The period 1945 to 1990 was dominated by the Cold War between the USA and USSR, and the role of the Soviet-sponsored World Peace Council caused difficulties for indeptendent peace groups in the West. During the 1980s the emergence of autonomous peace activity in a number of East European countries, and even on a very small scale in the USSR itself, transformed the possibilities for East-West co-operation between citizens to urge disarmament and political change. A chapter examines these developments. Opposition to all forms of militarism has spread in the last 30 years. This book charts the struggles to extend the right to conscientious objection to military service, and draft resistance to particular wars - for example in Southern Africa and Israel. It also looks in some detail at the growing opposition to the war in the Vietnam. The recent protests against the Gulf War are surveyed briefly in an epilogue.