Musings Of An Indie WriterScreeds
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
A Heretic Twice Over
June 9, 2004
Your Curmudgeon, once a Libertarian Party activist, has saddened some of his friends and colleagues from those days by departing from “pure” libertarian doctrine in several regards. Probably the worst of the breaches that have developed is over foreign policy and international dealing.
The LP is one of the few organizations in the United States to take the position that Operation Iraqi Freedom was wrong. The foundation of its stance is in the notion of noninterference with the internal affairs of other nations. It’s a dictum your Curmudgeon once held with few reservations, if any. The inverse position—blanket license for international interventions whenever one can get away with them—has written great sweeps of history in human blood.
But a middle ground is available, and is far more defensible than either of the poles: A nation may justly make war when:
- The intended enemy has committed an act of war against it, or has committed other deeds, such as mass murder, that are clearly “outside the pale” of acceptable behavior, and:
- No other higher priorities preclude the war on practical grounds, and:
- There is a good prospect of success at a cost that will not exceed the evils to be remedied. That is, victory will not be Pyrrhic.
Libertarians find this approach distasteful because it’s not hard-edged. It relies upon the judgment of statesmen rather than upon an unambiguous principle of moral evaluation. Truth be told, that’s a strong argument…when it can be made to apply.
The heart of the problem lies in the nature of the State, the organization granted the unique privilege of coercing individuals and voluntary organizations, under delimited conditions, without incurring a penalty. There’s no getting around it: once the State is permitted to exist on any basis other than 100% voluntary compliance, some will be permitted to use force or its threat to shape the actions of others. So dealings between States, whether peaceful or otherwise, will always partake of the moral ambiguities and contradictions of collective decision-making and coercive action.
Put another way, no country will ever negotiate a treaty or mount an invasion which 100% of its subjects endorse.
A war undertaken, not to answer a bellicose act against one’s own nation, but to bring a benefit to the people of other nations, makes libertarians extremely uneasy. The main thrust of libertarian political thinking, the Nonaggression Axiom, stands against such a “crusaders’ war.” But the Nonaggression Axiom has limitations. It copes well with interactions between individuals, but poorly with situations in which collectives must deal with one another as collectives. (A more extended examination of this question may be found here.)
There is danger in permitting the State any great latitude of action; this is undeniable. The war-making power, the most serious of all the privileges of the State, is also the most dangerous. If used wrongly, it could involve us in horrors beyond imagination, whether by annihilating another people unjustly or provoking a military response that ultimately compels us to bend our necks in defeat. Such possibilities must always be given the most thorough consideration. Of course, that’s a far cry from the demand that the United States never go to war except in retaliation for a blow struck against it.
These arguments don’t persuade everyone. Your Curmudgeon has discovered that, in dissenting from the universal applicability of the Nonaggression Axiom, he’s committed a political heresy. His more orthodox libertarian acquaintances have begun to shun him. Sad, but true.
A religious heresy separates one from his church. A political heresy separates him from those he had taken as his allies and comrades. Heretics often feel quite alone in the world. That sense of isolation is one of the most important shafts in the quiver of the orthodox.
In the final years of World War II, when the heads of the Allied nations first began to contemplate the shape of the postwar world, the notion of a supranational body that would exercise restraint over national governments was widely deemed attractive. However, the potentates involved considered it attractive for divergent reasons. Franklin D. Roosevelt saw it as an additional instrument with which to curb other states away from unilateral war-making, and toward American notions of international peace and stability. Josef Stalin saw it as a means whereby he could legitimize his own aggressive program for Eastern Europe, while obstructing other nations’ attempts to stop him. Despite such divergences, and despite the conspicuous failure of the earlier League of Nations, the sales campaign for the United Nations proved very successful. Americans bought into the moral validity and practical desirability of such a body by an overwhelming preponderance.
In the six decades since, the UN has proved to be of no use in its original role. Peace between the superpowers was maintained by deterrence. Peace among the lesser powers has hardly existed. The UN’s deliberations have increasingly been characterized by vilification of the United States and its closer allies. This ought not to be surprising, since two-thirds of the governments of the world are villain-States, openly hostile toward the ideals of freedom, the free market, and the rights of individuals to do as they please with that which is rightfully theirs.
Yet elite opinion regards UN approval for military initiatives as indispensable…sometimes. To suggest that the UN is an actual detriment to freedom, justice, and world peace is as much a heresy to them, as your Curmudgeon’s endorsement of “aggressive” American military action to depose Saddam Hussein is to his more libertarian pals.
To your Curmudgeon, the logic of the thing is simple: The UN was formed for a purpose it does not serve. Deferring to it assists villains and tyrants in perpetuating their villainies and tyrannies. Therefore, America ought not to defer to it; indeed, America ought to disaffiliate from it entirely. But the opinion elite’s one-world dogma puts the UN at the pinnacle of all authorities; therefore, to disparage the UN is to put oneself outside the church.
As it’s a church your Curmudgeon would prefer not to attend, he finds that less than troubling. What he’s trying to figure out is why so many in the State Department and elsewhere in the federal government still venerate it, pretend its services really matter, and perform obsequies toward it at great detriment to the United States.
Given the circumstances under which we went to war in Iraq, the UN’s endorsement of our transfer of sovereign authority to the interim Iraqi government—a matter over which the UN has no effective sway—seems merely a face-saving opportunity for those nations that opposed Operation Iraqi Freedom a year and a half ago. That our own authorities should make a big deal out of it defies comprehension. But perhaps trying to understand the mindset of American diplomats, who often seem to be working for countries other than ours, is a waste of effort that could be put to more constructive use.
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