The Fatal Conceit of Nation-Building and Empire

American conservatives often pride themselves as supporters of "free-market capitalism" (thought this claim by conservatives can be challenged). Conservatives and their much more radical libertarian counter-parts often rail against socialism, and the negative effects socialism and the welfare state has on the economy, liberty and the Constitution. But when it comes to the warfare state, militarism and a foreign policy of interventionism and empire, those same conservatives will support and in some cases cheer for the socialism and tyranny that comes from such a reckless and belligerent foreign policy.

There should (note: "should") be no doubt that the U.S. has a global empire that spans the entire world. The drums of war against Syria and Iran are growing louder by the day. To enter into wars against both Syria and Iran would put the United States at war with at least 6 countries. And just recently, on September 12, 2012, U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens was killed, along with 3 consulate staffers during an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi after a protesting mob in Cairo, Egypt scaled the wall of the U.S. Embassy, ripping down the U.S. flag in response to a video produced in the U.S. that mocks the prophet Muhammad.

Strangely enough, opponents of President Obama still portray him as an anti-colonialist who is "soft" on foreign policy and is scaling back American military presence in the world. The fact that the war in Afghanistan continues and was expanded, a drone war in Pakistan has been expanded, the U.S. is not completely withdrawing from Iraq, and a war was waged in Libya to overthrow Qaddafi's regime should signal some red flags to this claim. The reality is that President Obama's foreign policy is a continuation of the foreign policy of George W. Bush. And in some ways, Obama is worse that Bush when it comes to war. Daniel J. Sanchez is right when he wrote the following for the Circle Bastiat: "Obama’s foreign meddling will sow the seeds of further conflict and global instability, and yet this failure will be blamed on his allegedly “soft” foreign policy, and thereby give peace a bad name."

What we are seeing in Libya right now is another obvious case of blowback. Daniel Sanchez further notes, "The series of events that began just 4 day later showed how such “long-term” effects can occur even in the short term. The current unrest in the Arab world is due largely to Obama’s recent meddling in Libya, Egypt, and elsewhere. It is a violent recoiling of the U.S.-sponsored “Arab Spring”. Yet it is being blamed by many (not just in the leadership of the Neocon right, but also for many swing voters, as evidenced by the fact that Obama’s lead over Romney has subsequently evaporated) as a result of a America’s recent failure to “lead”: in other words, not meddling enough."

All these events expose the fatal conceit of interventionism, nation-building and empire. John Stossel put it this way: "Advocates of America-as-world-policeman rarely grasp that their conception of "defense" endangers us by creating new enemies. Fired Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who led NATO forces in Afghanistan, once said, 'For every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies.' Bombing Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia with drones creates new terrorists — some of whom may seek revenge. " The belief among the Washington elite is that they have the knowledge and the ability to remake foreign societies in the image of America (its more like the image of the Soviet Union). But as Austrian economist Frederick Hayek understood, the fatal conceit of central-economic planning is that the State somehow can comprehend and know all the knowledge necessary to running an economy. Hayek was proven right when the Soviet Union collapsed: centrally planning an economy is impossible because the central planners do not have and cannot attain all the ever-changing economic facts necessary to making an economy work.

The same can be said in the realm of foreign policy. Operating on the pretense that with limited knowledge and unlimited power they can remake the world according to their own wishes, the U.S. government continues to wage wars of aggression that have nothing to do with national defense which harms the free-market economy, weakens our national defense, assaults civil liberties, and warps the Constitution. But as resistance to American imperialism around the world grows, the plans of the central planners will ultimately fail in the end, and America will suffer for the sins of the American empire.

Conclusion

 

What should the U.S. government do in response to all these problems of foreign policy? Simple: neutrality and noninterventionism. All foreign military bases need to be shut down immediately; all foreign aid to all countries must cease; all U.S. troops need to be withdrawn from the business of empire and reoriented to defending AMERICA; American membership in NATO, the UN and all other military and economic alliances must be terminated; and policy of peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations with no entangling alliances with any country must be followed. Also, the only wars America should ever fight are those of self-defense and constitutionally declared. Of course, a noninterventionist foreign policy will be derided as "isolationist". But as Thomas DiLorenzo has observed, the real isolationists are the proponents of war, interventionism and empire, whether they be leftist internationalists like Obama or neoconservatives like Bush. The instigationists are isolating America from the world with their wars and imperialism. Peace, free enterprise, and free international trade is not isolationism