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I'm puzzled by Justin Logan’s reference to public choice economists. He writes thus:
"Nation-states are self-interested collective organizations, both at home and abroad. As public choice economists tell us, the first interests the state looks after are the state's -- not the people's."
Public choice economics seeks to explain how special interests capture the state and use government power for their own ends and how state agents —- legislators, bureaucrats, and the rest of those scoundrels -— look after themselves rather than pursue the public interest whatever that may be. But that isn't really the same exercise as seeking to explain how the state itself looks after its own interests.