onflicting desires are a fact of human life - not resolved, unfortunately, by wishing them away. Loving one's neighbour, or even one's life partner and mate, does not eliminate the numerous occasions on which desires point in opposite directions, leading to active conflict to the extent the parties are serious in meaning to have their way. Granted that much conflict can be avoided by leading a simple life and keeping one's desires to a minimum. Granted that still more conflict can be avoided by deciding that many of the things one really wants are not worth fighting for. Our predicament still remains that freely available resources soon become scarce, that some goods are incompatible with other goods, and that in the last resort, all life thrives at the expense of other life. My conclusion is that it is not feasible to love one's enemies without some highly developed skills for conflict with one's friends. Recognizing how destructive conflict must be with the weapons now available, the challenge is to be a pacifist without being a patsy: without being brushed aside - ultimately enslaved or killed - by groups that have not renounced the use of violence.
We might begin by distinguishing a limited "preference-for-peace" pacifism - which holds and seriously means that violence must be a last resort only - from the absolute pacifism which holds that violence is never justified under any circumstance. Drawing this distinction, and describing myself as a limited pacifist, I find myself owing some account of ethical conflict and the ethical uses of violence.
In common with most of humanity, I think, we must accept a qualified right to use violence in self-defence, or in the defence of others, when non-violent means will not suffice. It is feasible, even advantageous sometimes, especially with a certain kind of adversary, to "turn the other cheek," and return good for evil. One should certainly be aware of this possibility, and Jesus was quite right to suggest it as a possibility. But to make this a rule of conduct is, I think, to miss the point of the teaching. Even Jesus could be violent on occasion, as the stories of the fig tree and the money changers suggest.
But a viable pacifism must go further. Conflicting desires are inevitable, and not all uses of power are wicked. The use of power, and even coercive force, by a parent or police officer can be benign and necessary - though they can be abusive too, of course. What makes the difference are qualities of intention, proportionality, self-restraint and skill. Combat itself can be non-violent or nearly so, provided the adversaries do not over reach themselves but stay responsive to each other's intentions and capabilities, and share a willingness to accommodate one another - to negotiate - once the balance of power has been established. Ueshiba's martial art of aikido - the way of harmonized energy (or reconciled spirit) was designed to show how this is possible.
Thinking along these lines, what I find objectionable about the impending invasion of Iraq is not that the use of military force against a criminal regime is necessarily wrong, but that the United States long ago forfeited any legitimate standing it might have had (or thought it had) as the world's policeman. Yet some policing is badly needed, in the Middle East and elsewhere - and was needed back in 1914 when a squabble in the Balkans ignited a civil war of western civilization that brought the world to its present pass. To my mind, the central dilemma confronting the United States administration, and all the rest of us who now have to decide whether to support its self-appointed mission, is just this: For many reasons, it is no longer feasible, if it ever was, to keep the world's peace through an adroit use of imperial power. Yet, as the fundamental irresponsibility of the United Nations makes clear, the world is not ready for international government. The heart-breaking prospect is that a Pax Americana may be the best we can hope for now - and that the United States will go the way of the Roman empire in attempting to impose it.