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Babies, Bathwater and "Protectors"

Paul Gessing's short blog The importance of foreign policy and his reference to Robert Higgs's piece on the libertarian imperative for peace are helpful ideas.

Let's not, however, throw the baby out with the bathwater. Higgs makes the statement:

...even if we do need the government's protection from foreign attack, can the government deliver the goods? Did it prevent the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor? Did it prevent the terrorist attacks of 9/11? Of course, state officials constantly tell us that they are protecting us, but talk is cheap, and in their case, often untrue, especially when it pertains to matters outside our common experience and therefore beyond our power to verify easily.

Higgs is, of course, correct that government protection from invading hordes is basically impossible to verify. So we must resort, it seems to me, to common sense. If in the 1980s, the US ended all military spending, would the Soviet Union have attacked the US? If today we somehow did so, would -- perhaps -- China, or even Mexico, attack the US, depriving us of our life, liberty and property?

Me? I'd not be willing to take that risk. A very strong case can be made against most US military intervention and yet support a limited but powerful national defense. It won't be perfect. It may create a special interest group (the "military industrial complex") that seeks to broaden its turf and revenues. It's -- to me, however -- a risk that's worth taking, considering the alternative.

Call me a "tough dove."

-Robert Capozzi

Posted by Robert Capozzi on July 31, 2006 03:29 PM |

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