War is the immoral equivalent of...

...whatever you want to market as the moral equivalent of war. That's clearly what William James meant in 1906 in the first place, when he was talking about a "war against war" (the idea Woodrow Wilson would later blow up into the Thanksgiving parade balloon of a war to end war). If that isn't what you mean--if you don't mean to suggest that war is immoral, but something like "my idea is the equivalent of war in the moral, as opposed to practical or political or aesthetic, sense", you should stay away from the phrase altogether. So consider yourself warned. Incidentally, note (I saw it in the URL for James's essay) that it has a very cute algorithm* acronym: MEOW.

*Whoever looked at this today (October 2 2012), thanks, I never would have found this bit of aphasia without you.