( CNN ) -- It 's been a bad year for bad guys . Twelve months ago , no one could have guessed that Libya 's Moammar Gadhafi , North Korea 's Kim Jong Il and al Qaeda 's Osama bin Laden would be dead ; Egypt 's former president Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia 's former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali prosecuted and former Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic in jail . Further , Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh and Syria 's president Bashar al-Assad are under intense pressure both internationally and within their own countries . Top aide : Gadhafi 's 'suicidal ' flight to birthplace . The Arab Spring , that led to the fall of so many of the region 's leaders , sent shockwaves around the world , leaving major powers struggling to make sense of the changing landscape -- and ensure their interests are preserved . The dramatic events , followed by unrest in societies considered `` dormant '' in terms of traditional activism -- including Spain and Russia -- leave one curious to discover the `` common denominator . '' The obvious but unexpected answer is : People power , in all of these cases carried largely by non-partisan youth movements . Much has been written on the revolutions driven by people power youth movements in Tunisia and Egypt . Their unity , planning and nonviolent discipline has inspired the world and given more than 100 million people a chance to change from dictatorship to democracy . The revolutions inspired similar movements . Now leaders of Morocco , Jordan , and even Myanmar are promising reforms . The government of Algeria has emerged from its state of emergency after 19 years . Syrians have risked , and sacrificed , their lives in peaceful demonstrations for freedom and democracy . Let me also note my own country -- Serbia . People power and nonviolent struggle driven by OTPOR , the resistance movement , brought an end to the rule of Slobodan Milosevic on October 5 , 2000 . OTPOR -- which grew from 11 founders to 70,000 supporters over its two-year struggle -- is credited for stripping away the fear and passivity that keep a dictator 's subjects under oppression . During the presidential campaign of September 2000 , OTPOR launched its `` gotov je '' ( he 's finished ) and the `` vreme je '' ( it 's time ) campaigns , which galvanized national discontent with Milosevic and eventually resulted in his defeat . OTPOR became one of the defining symbols of the anti-Milosevic struggle and his subsequent overthrow . Milosevic was delivered to Hague in 2001 , followed by former Serbian leader Radovan Karadzic , then Mladic . This has enabled Serbia to lift the burdens from the past and push towards European Union membership . Srebrenica : Worst European atrocity since WWII . People power has been a phenomenon throughout history . It is credited with successes including India 's independence movement , led by Mahatma Gandhi , the battles against racism led by Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela , and the agitations of Polish activist Lech Walesa during the early stages of the Soviet Union 's downfall . Policymakers often overlook the strategic value of supporting non-violent movements . Fifty out of 67 transitions from dictatorships to democracies in the last 35 years came from non-violent struggle . Armed intervention was not the driving force . The new book `` Why Civil Resistance Works : The strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict , '' written by Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan , studies 323 violent and non-violent campaigns from 1900 to 2006 . It finds nonviolent campaigns are more than twice as likely to succeed as violent campaigns . They also found non-violent uprisings are 10 times more likely to end in stable and durable democracies . The last year taught us an important lesson : What used to be called `` realpolitik '' is not actually `` real '' any more . There is a force more powerful at work shaping the new reality : Strategic nonviolent struggle . Consider what would happen if 1 % of the billions of dollars spent on foreign military interventions in Serbia , Afghanistan , Iraq and , more recently , Libya , went to nonviolent pro-democracy movements . This could be done through education , the translation of books , movies and video clips , developing innovative uses for new media like Facebook or Twitter , and training in nonviolent , civic mobilization . Rebuilding the ruins of Gadhafi . My organization , CANVAS , has worked with activists from more than 40 different countries -- and we have seen the power of such education at work in places including Georgia , Ukraine , the Maldives , Tunisia , Egypt and Myanmar . Brave , young and oppressed people around the world are realizing there is immense power in nonviolent struggle . I know this , because they are calling me every day for help . We must recognize the power of nonviolent struggle in promoting what some call the `` fourth wave of democratization . '' We should commit these kinds of resources to show we have learnt the most important lesson from these revolutionary months . That would mark 2011 as more than the `` worst year for bad guys , '' but encourage and remind millions of oppressed in places like North Korea , Myanmar , Zimbabwe and Iran that power ultimately belongs to the people . The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Srdja Popovic .
Srdja Popovic says people power was the driving force behind the falls of dictator regimes . He says policymakers often overlook the strategic value of supporting non-violent movements . Popovic says the world should commit resources away from violent campaigns into non-violent pro-democracy movements .