War and Foreign Policy

As all readers of The Mises Review know, I always endeavor to avoid saying something bad about a book. But I cannot forbear from stating that Professor Honderich's book is a cheap and tawdry affair.

This book frightens me. The authors do not confine themselves to a justification of the American invasion of Iraq, which began shortly after their book was published.

In the games planners play, the model builder wins by outsmarting an opponent programmed to react in predictable ways. The conclusion is decided by the assumptions built into the system. If this is true in peace, it is all the more true in war. The game called "war" is no better at preparing central planners for real life than the game called "market."

When assessing the costs of the war in Iraq, the full costs, including the costs on the home front, must be considered every bit as much as the money costs. Sadly, the most expensive aspects of war, especially in terms of lost liberties and cultural decline, are usually the hardest to measure, and are therefore more easily ignored.

Our age is dominated by the state and its errors. The state has given us recession and war, while liberty has given us prosperity and peace. Which of the two paths prevails in the end depends on the ideas we hold about freedom, capitalism, and ourselves. May we never forget the great truth: tyranny destroys, while liberty is the mother of all that is beautiful and true in our world.

"War... is harmful, not only to the conquered but to the conqueror... Peace and not war is the father of all things. Only economic action has created the wealth around us; labor, not the profession of arms, brings happiness. Peace builds, war destroys."

Ah, the simplicity of demagogic populism, especially that of Bill O'Reilly and Stephen Moore. They haven't even bothered to notice that Dannon yogurt produces products in three U.S. plants (in Ohio, Texas, and Utah) and distributes them from five U.S. facilities (in Texas, California, Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania).

The looming war with Iraq raises concern among US economists that this could trigger a recession. The possible war, it is said, generates uncertainty, which in turn paralyses business and consumer expenditure. Frank Shostak puts the theory of the "exogenous shock" into perspective; there is a basis for recession with or without war.

In deciding whether to wage war against yet another regime that has fallen into disfavor with DC, the United States must make some hard choices. Gregory Bresiger asks: will we follow the traditions of George Washington or those of Woodrow Wilson? "War," wrote Mises, "is harmful not only to the conquered but to the conqueror."
 

It is natural that liberty and peace go together, writes Lew Rockwell. Liberty makes it possible for people from different religious traditions and cultural backgrounds to find common ground. Commerce is the great mechanism that permits cooperation amidst radical diversity. It is also the basis for the working out of the brotherhood of man. Trade is the key to peace. It allows us to think and act both locally and globally.