Blogs > Liberty and Power > Libertarian Foreign Policy, Yet Again

Aug 8, 2006

Libertarian Foreign Policy, Yet Again


by Liberty and Power


So here, in pertinent part, is Tyler Cowen’s attempted smackdown of coblogger Alex Tabarrok's defense of libertarian foreign policy :

Had Alex his way, the first Gulf War never would have happened. Saddam and his sons would rule Iraq, owning both Kuwaiti oil revenue and nuclear weapons, and probably itching for a rematch with Iran. Sound like fun?

Had the first Gulf War not happened, there would have been no mass presence of US troops on Saudi soil, and a good chance the Trade Towers would still be standing. If you've read much at all about Al Qaeda, you're aware of how important the Gulf War was as a recruiting device for AQ. If you've read Peter Bergen's first book on Al Qaeda, for instance, you know that he says that for Bin Laden, the presence of American troops on Saudi soil launching an attack against Iraq"was a transforming an event as the Russian invasion of Afghanistan had been a decade earlier." The bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Bergen notes, were carried out on August 7, 1998 because the first US troops for Desert Shield arrived on August 7, 1990. And here's shrill Bush-hater Paul Wolfowitz on the topic:

Sustained U.S. bombing of Iraq over those years, and the stationing of U.S. forces"in the holy land of Saudi Arabia," were"part of the containment policy that has been Osama bin Laden's principal recruiting device, even more than the other grievances he cites," Wolfowitz said.

And as far as Cowen’s Iraq Resurgent nightmare scenario goes, I thought the current crisis was that an unchecked nuclear Iran was going to dominate the Middle East. If I start thanking God for the Gulf War and shivering about the counterfactual of a powerful Iraq facing off with Iran, I feel like that's only going to get me all confused and distract me from what NRO tells me I'm supposed to be worried about this week.

I’m not saying it’s a sure thing 9/11 wouldn’t have happened if we never fought the Gulf War. I’m just saying it’s not as obvious to me as it clearly is to Tyler Cowen that “the first Gulf War never would have happened” is such a showstopper, debate-wise. if you can think through the possibility of unintended consequences in domestic policy, it's worth giving it a shot when it comes to foreign affairs as well, where our leaders are generally no more enlightened and prescient than they are on the home front.

It's interesting: I'm a big fan of MR, and from what I can tell, Tyler Cowen is smart enough to kill me with his brain, a la Scanners. Yet from what I can tell from today's indignant post (and the few other times he's blogged about war), he doesn't apply much of that brainpower to foreign policy, preferring to rely on gut reaction. Which is better for this kind of thing.


comments powered by Disqus

More Comments:

Craig J. Bolton - 8/8/2006

I guess I just don't understand the position people are taking in this "debate," just like I don't understand the position that people are taking with respect to the latest Israeli conflict. The underlying principles seems pretty straightforward in my simplistic black and white world:

(1) Nation states are not a desirable form of social organization. "We" should try to get rid of them ASAP.

(2) However, if we want to address the issues of an optimal foreign policy in a world inhabited by nation states then some pretty simple principles apply:

(a) You don't "pre-emptively" invade anyone or start a "precautionary" war.

(b) If another nation, or those who are proxies for another nation, attack your nation then you utilize all necessary means [note, I said "necessary" not "sufficient"] to make certain it doesn't happen a second time in the foreseeable future. Such means may be simple diplomacy backed up by the threat of force. Or, if, for instance, the other nation falsely contends that they don't have any control over whether it happens again, it may involve the use of overwhelming force to remove the means to attack your nation a second time.

(c) Under no circumstances do (a) and (b) EVER involve strategies such as long term occupation of another nation. The goal is defense, not imposing your values on another people.


David T. Beito - 8/8/2006

That's "likely would be the case."

Sheldon Richman - 8/8/2006

Oy vey!

David T. Beito - 8/8/2006

Since Tyler is imagining counterfactuals, how about going back even further in his time machine. Let's suppose we had not not bailed out Saddam when he was fighting Iran. The following would likely no be the case.

1. Saddam would have been overthrown (even before the first Gulf War). 2. Kuwait would probably never have been invaded. 3. The Iranians would have great internal influence in Iraq (much like they do now). 4. U.S. troops woud not be caught in a quagmire in Iraq.

Give a choice, that sounds like a lot more "fun" than the status quo. Then again, we could imagine an even better scenariou had we let Mossadeq stay in power in 1953.