Published near the beginning of the Cold War, "The Pacifist" satirizes the military-industrial complex (although the term would not come into wide use for another five years.) The involvement of civilian scientists in military projects was familiar to the reading public, notably the involvement of J. Robert Oppenheimer's team of nuclear scientists in the Manhattan Project, under the military leadership of General Leslie Groves.
A notable failing was his entrapment of Ben Greene, the pacifist Quaker refugee worker who was interned by the then Home Secretary, Sir John Anderson, as result of false evidence from Knight's agent provocateur Harald Kurtz.
Military general Yeon Gaesomun wants to go to war with the Tang Dynasty, but the pacifist King Yeongnyu opts for diplomacy and national stability, and in their battle of wills the palace council is divided between the "hawks" and the "doves."
In 1998, Gary Swing ran in the 1998 Colorado Senate election as a member of the Pacifist Party but got the fewest votes of any candidate.