Are questions of war and peace merely one issue among many for libertarians?

• Author: Higgs, Robert
• Position: Etceteras ... - Essay

Most Americans express support for private enterprise. Outright socialists are rare in this country, except on university campuses, and even progressives, who favor pervasive regulation and heavy taxation, often declare that they support a free-enterprise economy--they simply oppose "unbridled capitalism." For many sincere friends of the free market, however, it shines as only one star among a host of others in their ideological firmament, and with regard to one critically important service--protection from foreign threats--they favor a government-monopoly supplier with an established reputation for recklessness and unnecessary ferocity. Thus, notable free enterprisers include both hawks (for example, Thomas Sowell, George Shultz, and Walter Williams) and doves (for example, Thomas Gale Moore, David Henderson, and Donald Boudreaux) in their views about U.S. foreign and military policy.

Among libertarians in particular, the U.S. invasion of Iraq brought this difference to the fore more visibly than any previous event. Some professed libertarians supported the U.S. attack and the ensuing occupation; others opposed these actions; and still others hedged somewhere in between. On October 22, 2004, for example, a well-publicized and well-attended libertarian conference at the Cato Institute, "Lessons from the Iraq War: Reconciling Liberty and Security," gave the podium to advocates of each of these positions. (I was one of the invited speakers.) Supporters of "big-tent" libertarianism counseled that libertarians ought to steer clear of fratricidal conflict over this issue. After all, they say, we still agree on many other issues, and we should not allow ourselves to be divided by a difference over a single issue.

Although I generally eschew quarrels with fellow libertarians over doctrinal matters--my crucial dispute is with the government, not with other libertarians--I draw the line at the question of war and peace. In my judgment, this issue is fundamental; it well nigh defines a genuine libertarian ideology. Professed libertarians who support an aggressive warfare state are in effect giving up the ship without a fight. They are making the same mistake that has long condemned conservatives to serving as de facto buttresses of Leviathan, no matter how much they might complain about high taxes and excessive regulation.

My claim is that those who give a free hand to the government in its foreign and defense policymaking will ultimately discover that they have handed their rulers the key that opens all doors, including the doors that might otherwise obstruct the government's invasion of our most cherished rights to life, liberty, and property. The war-making key is, so to speak, any government's master key because when critical trade-offs must be made, war will override all other concerns, and as an ancient maxim aptly warns us, inter armas silent leges. Anyone who has looked into the U.S. Supreme Court's history, for example, knows that during wartime the justices have placed themselves on the casualty list by effectively rolling over and playing dead. Without at least a semblance of the rule of law and an independent judiciary, all hopes for...