Lawrence S. Wittner’s essay, “How the Peace Movement Can Win” kicks off a very important conversation. Unfortunately, Wittner’s conclusion -- that to succeed “the movement needs a powerful national peace organization with a mass membership” -- could alienate a large portion of the peace movement. It also ignores successful strategies that the movement has already developed.

To begin with, the “peace movement” is broader than those organizations that focus primarily on responding to U.S. militarism and disarmament. How often have you heard, “Peace is not the absence of war but the presence of laws and justice?” Included in any such movement must be those activists and organizations that focus on international laws and human rights such as Citizens for Global Solutions, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. What about those who work on conflict prevention and peacebuilding like Refugees International and the International Crisis Group? Are they not part of the “peace movement?” Nations emerging from a conflict have a much greater risk of devolving into war than more stable societies. And what about the development and humanitarian communities? There is a clear link between global poverty, failed and failing states, and war. Organizations like CARE and Oxfam, that provide lifelines to the victims of war, are also on the frontlines of the peace movement.

Wittner laments that the “peace movement is not united. Indeed, it suffers from the great American disease of individualism, atomization and sectarianism.” Yes it is disorganized, but the entrepreneurial nature of this very diverse collection of civil society groups allows for a greater degree of expertise in a broader range of issues than a centralized large organization could ever permit.

Although, Wittner is correct that in many important ways the peace movement is not succeeding, the answer is not to build a new powerful peace organization. We have more than enough peace organizations already. The answer lies in more effectively networking these organizations together in ways that allow them to share common messaging and coordinate their activities between organizations and across sectors when the situation calls for it.

Messaging matters. One of the important lessons learned from the far right is that you can influence policy by creating an echo chamber that makes a message appear as if “everyone is saying it” even if only a few are. For example, Grover Norquist, of Tax Payers for Common Sense, has held a weekly breakfast meeting in Washington, DC, that includes a wide variety of organizational representatives, lawmakers and staff, as well as reporters and pundits. This informal group has been able to control weekly messages across a broad array of issues ranging from abortion to war. Progressives have never managed to create a similar capacity … but we should because when we all say the same thing, we usually win.

A recent example was the John Bolton nomination for ambassador to the U.N. A wide variety of groups agreed to use one basic message, “wrong man for the job.” Whatever else we said supported this message and as a result we won. No matter how hard the administration tried to change this frame, including using the war in Lebanon to bolster the need for Bolton, our core message held and the White House was forced to let him go.

In addition to messaging we need to better coordinate our actions on key issues. There are moments when all sectors of the movement should be able to combine the efforts of our grassroots, our lobbyists, our PACs, and other resource to accomplish urgent goals. But we lack a common meeting place to determine when we have arrived at these moments. Some funding foundations like Connect US, a joint foundation/NGO initiative supported by the Open Society Institute, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, are seeking ways to encourage groups to work together more effectively with a strong focus on using new interactive tools.

Looking forward I believe that organizations and funders must build on these initial steps to build a virtual meeting hall for the peace movement that has an accepted set of rules and procedures, that gives us the structure to work together when needed, and that preserves the autonomy to engage and develop the issues that impassion us. When we have this necessary apparatus in place, the peace movement will win.

Don Kraus the CEO of Citizens for Global Solutions.