It's time for pacifism!

War is, at first, the hope that one will be better off; next, the expectation that the other fellow will be worse off; then, the satisfaction that he isn't any better off; and, finally, the surprise at everyone's being worse off. 

Karl Kraus (1874-1936) Austrian writer. He was the most critical, satirical and scathing intellectual in Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century. He condemned the failings of the middle classes and of hallowed artistic and literary media. 

With Barack Obama's election we have a great deal of reason to expect that war will further loose credibility in our world.  That it will be further discredited as a means to achieve whatever legitimate or illegitimate interests a nation, government, group or movement might pursue. I recently visited with a group the library of the small town La Chaux-de-Fonds in the Jura Neuchâtelois, a city above 1000m altitude, supposedly the highest in Europe. It is known as the watch making capital - Geneva only became famous for watches since there is air traffic and since the luxurious segment has gained significance. La Chaux-de-Fonds is not only the cradle of clock-making (it has an interesting museum of watch making) - aside from having one of the best coffee breweries if you ask me - is is the home of Le Corbusier, of Louis Chevrolet, and of the guy who invented the tasty apéritif Suze, and it was also a hub of the anti-war movement of the 19th and the early 20th century. Mahatma Gandhi visited and was in correspondence with the movement. That movement had significant political clout. Albert Gobat from Tramelan (also a watch making town) and Elie Ducommun from Geneva, were co-winners of the Nobel Peace  Prize in 1902. Gobat was a successful lawyer and was a member of the Swiss parliament and eventually the leader of the International Peace Bureau. The pacifist movement was well connected and represented in politics. For bios see the Nobelprize site

It seems that with and after the two world wars, pacifism lost profile and pacifists came to be seen as illusionists whom you could not trust. You could trust generals and bankers. Has the time come for a re-emergence of pacifism as a real, politically correct and credible way forward in the 21st century? We have reasons to hope so - and we better do what we can to make it happen!