Some foreign states will act against a dictatorship only to gain their own economic, political, or military control over the country.
Gene SharpFurther, democratic negotiators, or foreign negotiation specialists accepted to assist in the negotiations, may in a single stroke provide the dictators with the domestic and international legitimacy that they had been previously denied because of their seizure of the state, human rights violations, and brutalities. Without that desperately needed legitimacy, the dictators cannot continue to rule indefinitely.
Gene SharpBy placing confidence in violent means, one has chosen the very type of struggle with which the oppressors nearly always have superiority.
Gene SharpThere should be no romanticism that international public opinion or even international diplomatic and economic pressure can defeat a coup without determined and strong defense by the attacked society itself
Gene SharpNonviolent struggle is the most powerful means available to those struggling for freedom.
Gene SharpNonviolent action involves opposing the opponent's power, including his police and military capacity, not with the weapons chosen by him but by quite different means. Repression by the opponent is used against his own power position in a kind of political "ju-jitsu" and the very sources of his power thus reduced or removed, with the result that his political and military position is seriously weakened or destroyed.
Gene Sharp