Morality Is the Enemy of Peace

Pacifism seems to place infinite weight on sins of commission and none whatsoever on those of omission. It is a counterfeit ethics: for instead of grappling with the hard realities of our world, pacifism takes as its focus the imagined moral purity of the pacifist himself—who merely pretends to be good while others do the dirty work of defending ci

If a people are free to initiate warfare, sue for peace when they lose, then expect to be treated at the negotiating table as the moral equals of those they attacked, there will be little disincentive to aggression. Why not start a war?

peace can come to seem to be a kind of betrayal. It involves compromise and settling for less than one would like. It has none of the purity and clarity of war, in which the issues – self-defence, national honour, patriotism, pride – are unambiguous and compelling. War speaks to our most fundamental sense of identity: there is an ‘us’ and a ‘them’,