If there is such a thing as a just war, then there must be also such a thing as an unjust peace (or, at least, an unjust policy of non-military intervention).

I am a pacifist by moral conviction but not, alas, by nature: if you come at me with a knife while I have a firearm, you'll be the first in kingdom-come.

My difficulty with the very idea of just war is that its intellectual and moral integrity depends upon the (to my mind) altogether dubious premise that there is a moral imperative to kill, or to be willing to kill. And this, for me as a Christian, is where the whole complex and nuanced weave of Just War Theory unravels spectacularly.

Try as I might, I could not find anywhere in the Gospel even the vaguest ground for such an imperative. So while I shall kill if I have to, to protect my life or the lives of others, I really don't want to appeal to unconvincing Augustinian notions of  justice to assuage my conscience. "I did what I had to do" would be my best defence.