Conscientious Objection, Former Combatants and Democratic Security: Preventing the Reproduction of War in Eastern Europe
Context
Core challenge: War creates not only destruction, but also the people through whom it can return.
Security rationale: Supporting conscientious objectors, deserters and former combatants is not only a humanitarian or social policy concern. It is an investment in preventing future violence and reducing the risk of renewed escalation.
Target groups: Former combatants, conscientious objectors, deserters, foreign volunteers, Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian communities in exile, including women peace activists, as well as religious and interfaith communities.
Comparative experience: Northern Ireland peace process; Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
Role of peace, religious and interfaith actors: Moral transformation, identity reconstruction, accountability, reconciliation and civic reintegration.
The most cost-effective form of security is to prevent the next war before it begins.
Achieving this requires working not only with states and military institutions, but also with the people through whom war can re-enter society.
The central question is not whether the war in Ukraine will end. Sooner or later, it will. The real question is what will happen to the people it has shaped and the legacies it will leave behind.
Wars create more than physical destruction. They produce former combatants, conscientious objectors, deserters, veterans and people carrying direct experience of violence. Once armed conflict ends, these individuals become part of a new political and social landscape.
Their experience can become a source of renewed violence and instability. Equally, it can become a resource for peacebuilding, democratic resilience and the prevention of future conflict.
For this reason, we view former combatants, conscientious objectors, deserters and transnational veterans not merely as beneficiaries of humanitarian assistance, but as actors of strategic importance for democratic security.
Our concern is not only with the consequences of war, but with the conditions through which war reproduces itself after the fighting ends.
Sustainable security begins when people are given meaningful opportunities to leave war behind without carrying its logic into the future.
The reintegration of former combatants, conscientious objectors and deserters is not a by-product of security. It is one of its foundations.
States can provide legal frameworks and social support. Yet questions of responsibility, reconciliation, dialogue, meaning and post-war identity often extend beyond the reach of state institutions alone.
This is why peacebuilding, religious and interfaith organisations constitute an essential part of post-war transformation. They create spaces where individuals can move from the logic of war toward civic participation, responsibility and peaceful coexistence.
Our concept explores how the transition out of war can be understood not merely as a humanitarian task, but as a strategy for democratic security.
Why This Approach Matters
There is substantial historical experience supporting this perspective.
The Northern Ireland peace process demonstrated that reintegration is not simply a matter of welfare or post-conflict recovery. It is a long-term investment in stability and violence prevention.
Peace agreements can stop armed confrontation. They cannot, by themselves, prevent the social reproduction of war. When individuals emerge from conflict without a new role, a new identity or a meaningful place in society, violence often reappears in different forms — through radicalisation, organised crime, domestic violence and renewed conflict.
The challenge, therefore, is not only demobilisation. It is transformation: enabling people who participated in war to become participants in peace. Living peacefully often requires no less courage than participating in armed conflict.
A similar lesson emerges from the experience of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. People who have experienced war firsthand frequently become some of the most credible voices against its romanticisation. They can engage fellow combatants through the authority of lived experience, where political rhetoric and conventional peace messaging often fail.
War does not end when weapons fall silent. It ends when individuals and societies cease to live according to its logic.
Transnational Veterans and Democratic Security
Europe is already facing the emergence of a new category of actors: transnational veterans of contemporary wars.
According to Ukrainian sources, more than 20,000 foreign volunteers from over 75 countries have participated in the war, while approximately 600 foreign nationals continue to sign contracts with Ukrainian forces every month.
These individuals often remain largely invisible within public debate. Yet they possess combat experience, transnational networks, high mobility and, in many cases, uncertain legal status.
They are not a temporary consequence of the war in Ukraine. They represent a new reality of European security.
The question is not whether they will appear in the European space after the war. They are already part of it and will continue to live, work and move across Europe for decades to come.
The key challenge is whether their experience becomes a resource for democratic resilience or a source of future instability.
For this reason, the reintegration of former combatants, conscientious objectors, deserters and transnational veterans should be understood not only as a human rights or social policy issue, but as a core component of democratic security.
Transnational veterans are not merely a legacy of the current war. They are becoming part of Europe’s security future.
Political Significance
For Eastern Europe, this concept proposes a different understanding of security.
It is not centred on military capabilities alone, nor does it rest on abstract appeals to peace. It begins from the recognition that wars do not end when armed confrontation ceases. They continue through the social, political and psychological legacies they leave behind.
The central challenge is therefore not only how to stop violence, but how to prevent its reproduction.
Former combatants, conscientious objectors, deserters and transnational veterans should be understood not only as recipients of humanitarian assistance or subjects of social policy. They constitute a category of strategic importance for democratic security. The ways in which societies engage with people emerging from war can either reduce the likelihood of future violence or contribute to its continuation in new forms.
This perspective becomes particularly important in contemporary Europe. The war in Ukraine has already produced large numbers of former combatants, conscientious objectors, deserters and transnational veterans whose future trajectories will influence the political and security landscape of the region for decades to come.
We therefore proceed from a simple premise: people shaped by war are already part of Europe’s future.
The question is whether their experience will become a resource for peace, democratic resilience and civic responsibility, or a resource for radicalisation, exclusion and renewed violence.
The twentieth century taught Europe how to win wars.
The twenty-first century requires Europe to learn how to win peace.
People who have lived through war can become its continuation. Or its overcoming.
The future security of Europe may depend on that choice.
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