Social defence would be either a full replacement for the army or a supplement to it. In practice, different people in the Dutch network have different ways of defining social defence. Some prefer a broader conception, bringing it closer to nonviolent action generally, whereas some see it exclusively as an alternative or supplement to military defence. Support in the Netherlands for the peace movement is impressive. Although activity is far less now than in the mid 1980s, membership in groups remains high.
Churches play an important role in the peace movement as they do elsewhere in Dutch society.
Pax Christi has some 16,000 members, mostly Catholics. It includes many articulate people but is organised hierarchically, and at the top there is some resistance to nonviolence because it is seen to have a low political impact. It produces a newsletter of forty A5 pages six times per year, which goes to 3000 members. This is not to mention other groups. The nonviolent action training network seems similar in activity to Australia, with perhaps five to ten active trainers in the country.