War and Foreign Policy

Lincoln’s main objective was protectionism for Northern manufacturers and the creation of a massive spoils system, writes Thomas DiLorenzo

What causes an economic downturn? The business press keeps getting it painfully wrong, writes Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

While it did not make headway in this latest presidential campaign, events of the last year have weakened one of the longest-standing policies of the US government: the trade embargo with Cuba.

When, precisely, did a foreign power ever threaten to take it away? All threats to voting rights have been domestic, write Joseph Stromberg.

One of the pillars of an interventionist US foreign policy is foreign aid. Since World War II, the United States has dispensed billions of dollars in foreign aid to virtually every country on the planet. Foreign aid was lavished on our friends and our foes during the cold war and a decade after. It is extended to both sides of military conflicts. It is even accorded to countries that regularly vote against the US in the UN. The recipient countries are less likely to reform their economies once they get on the US dole.

Regulations don't consider that safety is not an absolute value that automatically trumps all others, writes Gene Callahan.

Almost everyone today thinks that America's war in Vietnam was a mistake. Whether leftists who revere Uncle Ho, rightwing hawks who regret that America was not allowed to win, or noninterventionists

The second edition of this outstanding book includes two new chapters, one of which merits extensive notice.  In "World War I: The Turning Point," Ralph Raico brilliantly encapsulates the origins of the Great War,

Both Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek were called upon during wartime to weigh in on the question: what is the best economic policy in the conduct of war? Both were opposed to using war as a device for socializing the economy. If a war must be waged, they argued in their roles as value-free economists, better to contract-out the building of munitions to private companies rather than attempt to do it through nationalization and administrative edict.

The Cold War was and is hugely expensive. The full economic cost of any policy must be considered before lending moral and financial support to it, argues Chris Westley.