Pacificism?

We have been reading Stanley Hauerwas and so inevitably we came upon the issue of pacificism, which he advocates strongly. In one of his toughest articles, Hauerwas argues that Just War theories are a failure of the Christian imagination, or of faith: that we fail to believe that God could bring about communities - and even countries - of peace on the earth, assuming that war is inevitable this side of Jesus' return. Assuming the inevitability of war dooms you to always pursue it and justify it.

The exegetical force of Hauerwas' argument (which he gets from Yoder of course) is that this is what Jesus himelf would have taught, and certainly what he would have enacted (notwithstanding that he doesn't call on soldiers in his audiences to leave the army but rather to be just soldiers...).

I am impressed but not convinced. I cannot see but that the kind of eschatological peace that Hauerwas hopes for is not given to nations in this way in this age, at least certainly not permanently. I cannot but see that we are left to make tragic calculations about the justice of the wars that might be pursued and that it is often our right calling to do so. We may so define just war so that it could never be pursued. But still we might retain the possibility that force may be needed to protect the innocent and pursue justice...