Having set forth the libertarian creed and how it applies to vital current problems, and having sketched which groups in society that creed can be expected to attract and at what times, we must now assess the future prospects for liberty. In particular, we must examine the firm and growing conviction of the present author not only that libertarianism will triumph eventually and in the long run, but also that it will emerge victorious in a remarkably short period of time. For I am convinced that the dark night of tyranny is ending, and that a new dawn of liberty is now at hand.

Many libertarians are uncomfortable with foreign policy matters and prefer to spend their energies either on fundamental questions of libertarian theory or on such “domestic” concerns as the free market or privatizing postal service or garbage disposal. Yet an attack on war or a warlike foreign policy is of crucial importance to libertarians. There are two important reasons. One has become a cliche, but is all too true nevertheless: the overriding importance of preventing a nuclear holocaust.

In a previous chapter, we have already dealt with the problem of national defense, abstracting from the question of whether the Russians are really hell-bent upon a military attack upon the United States. Since World War II, American military and foreign policy, at least rhetorically, has been based upon the assumption of a looming threat of Russian attack — an assumption that has managed to gain public approval for global American intervention and for scores of billions in military expenditures. But how realistic, how well grounded, is this assumption?

There is still one thesis common to Americans and even to some libertarians that may prevent them from absorbing the analysis of this chapter: the myth propounded by Woodrow Wilson that democracies must inevitably be peace-loving while dictatorships are inevitably warlike. This thesis was of course highly convenient for covering Wilson’s own culpability for dragging America into a needless and monstrous war. But apart from that, there is simply no evidence for this assumption.

To conclude our discussion, the primary plank of a libertarian foreign policy program for America must be to call upon the United States to abandon its policy of global interventionism: to withdraw immediately and completely, militarily and politically, from Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, from everywhere. The cry among American libertarians should be for the United States to withdraw now, in every way that involves the U.S. government. The United States should dismantle its bases, withdraw its troops, stop its incessant political meddling, and abolish the CIA.

Strict isolationism and neutrality, then, is the first plank of a libertarian foreign policy, in addition to recognizing the chief responsibility of the American State for the Cold War and for its entry into all the other conflicts of this century. Given isolation, however, what sort of arms policy should the United States pursue?

“Isolationism” was coined as a smear term to apply to opponents of American entry into World War II. Since the word was often applied through guilt-by-association to mean pro-Nazi, “isolationist” took on a “right wing” as well as a generally negative flavor. If not actively pro-Nazi, “isolationists” were at the very least narrow-minded ignoramuses ignorant of the world around them, in contrast to the sophisticated, worldly, caring “internationalists” who favored American crusading around the globe.

Libertarians favor the abolition of all States everywhere, and the provision of legitimate functions now supplied poorly by governments (police, courts, etc.) by means of the free market. Libertarians favor liberty as a natural human right, and advocate it not only for Americans but for all peoples. In a purely libertarian world, therefore, there would be no “foreign policy” because there would be no States, no governments with a monopoly of coercion over particular territorial areas.

We have seen that libertarians have as their prime responsibility the focussing on the invasions and aggressions of their own State. The libertarians of Graustark must center their attentions on attempting to limit and whittle down the Graustark State, the Walldavian libertarians must try to check the Walldavian State, and so on. In foreign affairs, the libertarians of every country must press their government to refrain from war and foreign intervention, and to withdraw from any war in which they may be engaged.