At the end of the Cold War, the U.S. had the opportunity to reclaim its heritage as a commercial republic, trading and pursuing peaceful international relations with all nations. That path would have made possible a massive cut in the size of government.
Alas, special interests would not allow it to happen, and now both parties are searching for an enemy to justify military spending that exceeds that of all other developed nations combined.
As Mises writes in Liberalism, a classical liberal makes no distinction between foreign and domestic policy. Strict limits on the power of government to intervene apply in either case. Liberty and empire are incompatible. A government powerful enough to wage aggressive war on foreign peoples will also aggress against its own people.
As the Clinton administration pursues a policy of war in its relations with Iraq and Serbia, and the Congress continues its frenzied hysteria against China and Russia, it is the obligation of every classical liberal, in the interest of liberty, to throw himself into the battle against the warfare state.
Two outstanding news and commentary sites that deal with current issues are: Antiwar.com and Iraqwar.org
The book that has been hailed as the most comprehensive attack on the warfare state to appear in decades is co-published by the Mises Institute and Transaction Publishers. It is John V. Denson’s edited volume The Costs of War, now available in a new and expanded 2nd edition.
You can receive continual updates on the war from a non-interventionlist perspective at Chronicles Magazine and at Justin Raimondo’s Wartime Diary.
Read (in PDF) Jeffrey Rogers Hummel’s RAE essay on the problem of defense in a free society.
Mises’s own writings bristle with opposition to aggressive war. Read selections here.
Some of the best attacks on this war come from the Left: read Znet.org.
Not to be missed: a speech given one-hundred years ago on True Patriotism. Read prophetic editorials from the Orange County Register, the Manchester Union Leader, Robert Novak, and Lew Rockwell.
Finally, read A.N. Wilson on Rethinking War and view some war propaganda posters from the Second World War.
