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At the same time war is needed to create wealth and prosperity, because war is a time of great challenges. If only we had many more wars like the one Krishna led!
Let us look at this thing from another angle. Today the West has achieved the same height of growth that India had achieved at the time of the Mahabharat. Almost all the highly sophisticated weapons of war that we now possess were used in the Mahabharat in some form or other. It was a highly developed, intelligent and scientific peak that India had scaled at the time of that historic war. And it was not the war that harmed us. Something else harmed us. What really harmed us was the fit of frustration that came over us in the wake of the war, and its exploitation by the teachers of those times. The same fit of frustration has now seized the West, and the West is frightened. And if the West falls, the pacifists will be held responsible for it. And its fall is certain if the West follows the pacifists. Then the West will be in the same mess that India found herself in after the Mahabharat.
India listened to her pacifists and had to suffer for it for five thousand years. So this matter needs to be considered fully.
Krishna is not a hawk, not a supporter of war for war's sake. He, however, treats war as part of life's game. But he is not a warmonger. He has no desire whatsoever to destroy anyone; he does not want to hurt anyone. He has made every effort to avoid war, but he is certainly not prepared to escape war at any cost -- at the cost of life and truth and religion itself. After all, there should be a limit to our efforts to avoid war, or anything else for that matter. We want to avoid war just for so it does not hurt and harm life. But what if life itself is hurt and harmed by preventing war? Then its prevention has no meaning. Even the pacifist wants to prevent war so that peace is preserved. But what sense is there in preventing a war if peace suffers because of it? In that case, we certainly need to have the strength and ability to wage a clear war, a decisive war.
Krishna is not a hawk, but he is not a frightened escapist either. He says it is good to avoid war, but if
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