We all have a duty to protect our own, and it is the charge that pacifism is blind to this that highlights its greatest weakness - although I agree the stance can often require great bravery. But just as we need a police force because the world is far from perfect, so too we will require an army with men ready to die for their country. There will always be aggressors, and we cannot allow them to trample our freedoms. All that is required for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing. No single group creates wars.
Pacifists try to change things.
I meant that, in battle, individual soldiers never know enough about the individuals they kill, to justify their killing. Yet those enemy individuals are all people, with a moral right to the same justice as citizens. You liken the army to a police force. As a pacifist, I support the introduction of a system of international law equipped to bring wrongdoers to justice wherever they are found. Police act within the law.