Archbishop Alfons Nossol, the father of reconciliation between Germans and Polish from Opole (Oppeln) in Upper Silesia, with Dr. Hubertus Hoffmann, Founder and President of the World Security Network Foundation in New York.

The Holiday Season is a time of reflection on that which is really important, including our families, neighbors and fellow men.

Those responsible for forming foreign and security policy should use this time to critically reconsider their peace strategy from the ground up and to ask how we can most effectively create and secure long-lasting peace in freedom.

Creating peace without armaments is impossible in a world with ideologically blinded terrorists and totalitarian regimes. Only a peace policy with the strength of freedom can keep the world safe from the wicked. “Provocative weakness” (Fritz Kraemer) encourages the wicked to aggression. Appeasement has always led to a dead end in war.

But:

The dominant Western policy of peace has an Achilles heel, a weak link, a design flaw:

All too often, in the midst of military and diplomatic planning and activities, it is forgotten that, “A war is only won after you have turned the enemy into a friend.” (Eric Hoffer) For the most part, a soul and a core of reconciliation are missing. In other words, the fundamental human issue of creating peace between former “so-called” archenemies is given far too little room. This cornerstone of true peace policy is simply forgotten and buried under traditional power and negotiating policies. Reconciliation has no lobby and does not have the necessary power of a strong ministry represented in a cabinet.

Because of this, we surrender this issue to dreamers and idealists. However, they lack the power and influence to turn the numerous grassroots projects into sweeping movements.

In a nutshell: the left surrenders power politics to the right, and the right peace policy to the left.

Therefore, every type of peace policy is doomed to failure in the end—it is a shell without a seed. The one side is missing the seed of power; the other is missing the seed of reconciliation.

This is true for Iraq. Where is reconciliation between enemy population groups being planned, preached, practiced, and with billions converted into thousands of individual projects?

This is true for Israel and Palestine. If an engaged peace policy is not placed on equal terms alongside the necessary power politics, a danger exists that this new homeland of the Jews will be destroyed within the next 100 years in a storm of hatred by its neighbors.

This is true for the Balkans, Sudan, or the Caucasus—or India and Pakistan in Kashmir.

The World Security Network Foundation’s working group Christian Peace Policy, Reconciliation and Tolerance—the International Advisory Board of which includes 10 well-known Generals and Admirals—presented the following two position papers to the Vatican in recent weeks, which highlights this critically important subject from the Christian point of view.

We kindly ask you to pass these thoughts on to many friends and acquaintances and to actively participate in the discussion on reconciliation and tolerance!

Please send us your opinion on this subject!

We wish you and your family a very pleasant Holiday Season, a peaceful Christmas and a successful New Year in 2006!