As a product of pacifist upbringing and Quaker schooling, I've had this discussion many times. People often point-out to me a specific moment in history and ask "what other than war would have worked here?"

Well it's all in how the question is framed. At that point, war may have been inevitable. BUT, what transpired that led to that point? Was there no moment when a different decision or action could have averted arrival at that inevitable moment of violence?

Of course there always is a prior defining moment. Thoughtful people averse to war could make every decision based on whether their current actions were more or less likely to cause eventual violence. Arrival at moments of inevitable violence can be avoided if we care to (yes, even in a world with occasional madmen/madwomen).

Yeah, yeah, yeah TIA is a looney dreamer. The real world doesn't work like that.

BS! I'm not trying to brag (there is a world full of people more virtuous than me, who have contributed more to the betterment of humankind), but the ONE thing I pride myself on is that I have made it nearly half a century without ever striking anyone, nor being struck. And, no, I don't live in a monastery. I live in the same world you do, and visit the same ugly places, but I have decided to die without having participated in violence.

If we arrive at a point of inevitable violence, it is because someone, somewhere, who could have prevented it, failed to.

Rant off.

(Sorry)