The Origin and Nature of International Conflict

0:00Thank you, Gary. Thank you, Lou. I'm greatly honored as a recipient of this prize that makes me join the ranks of Otto von Habsburg and Ralph Reiko, who is still outside and I've been smoking this cigarette for a while, I was contemplating talking about something about my intellectual biography but then I noticed that intellectual biographies are in the meantime written already by 25 year olds and I realized that I was already too old for that.

0:47And instead of doing this, I followed Lew Rockwell's advice and chose a subject that fits into the general theme of this conference, reflections on state and war. And I want to begin my speech by saying something that I have said many times before that will not be a surprise to anyone. I will start with a definition of a state and then continue from there on. The state is defined as an agency with two unique characteristics.

1:35First, the state is a compulsory territorial monopolist of ultimate decision making or of jurisdiction. That is, it is the ultimate arbiter in every case of conflict, including conflicts involving itself, the state itself. And second, the state is a territorial monopolist of taxation. That is, it is an agency that unilaterally fixes the price that citizens must pay for its provision of law and order. Now, predictably, if one can only appeal to the state for justice, justice will be perverted in favor of the state.

2:23Instead of resolving conflict, the state will provoke conflict in order to settle it to its own advantage. And worse, while the quality of justice will fall under monopolistic auspices, the price of justice will always rise. Now, instead of concentrating on the internal consequences of the institution of the state, however, I will focus on its external consequences, on foreign policy. For one, as an agency that perverts justice and imposes taxes, every state is threatened with exit. That is, especially its most productive citizens may leave the territory of the state.

3:16No state likes this, of course. Instead of seeing the range of control and its tax base shrink, every state prefers that the tax base and the range of control is expanded. Yet that brings a state into conflict with other states. And unlike the competition between natural persons and institutions, the competition between states is an eliminative competition. That is, there can be only one monopolist of ultimate decision making and taxation in any given area.

4:01Consequently, the competition between states promotes a tendency toward political centralization and ultimately a single world state. Furthermore, as a tax-funded monopolist of ultimate decision making, states are aggressive institutions. Whereas natural persons and institutions must bear the cost of aggression themselves, states can externalize this cost onto their taxpayers. Hence, state agents are prone to become provocateurs and aggressors, and the process of centralization can be expected to proceed by means of interstate war.

4:53Moreover, given that states must begin small, and assuming as a starting point a multitude of independent territorial units, something specific about the requirement of success can be stated. Victory or defeat in interstate warfare depends, of course, on many factors, but in the long run, the decisive factor is the relative amount of economic resources at a state's disposal. Now, in taxing and regulating, states do not contribute to the creation of economic wealth. However, state governments can influence the amount of existing wealth negatively.

5:39That is to say, the lower the tax and regulation burden imposed on the domestic economy, the larger will be the amount of wealth on which the state can draw in its conflicts. That is, states which tax and regulate their economies comparatively little, That is, liberal states in the European sense tend to defeat and expand their territories at the expense of less liberal states. Now, this explains why Western Europe came to dominate the rest of the world instead of the other way around. And more specifically, it explains why it was first the Dutch, then the British, and finally the United States, which became the dominant imperial power.

6:28And why the United States, which is internally one of the most liberal states, again in a good sense, has conducted the most aggressive foreign policy. While the former Soviet Union, for instance, which is entirely illiberal, repressive domestic policy, has engaged in a comparatively peaceful and cautious foreign policy. because the United States knew that it could militarily beat any other state and in contrast, the Soviet Union knew that it was bound to lose a military confrontation with any state of substantial size unless it could win within a few weeks.

7:14Now, historically, most states were monarchies, ruled by absolute or constitutional kings. And democratic states, including so-called parliamentary monarchies, such as Britain, for instance, headed by presidents, were rare until the French Revolution. And these democracies have assumed historical importance only after World War I. Now while all states must be expected to be aggressive, the incentive structure faced by traditional kings on the one hand and by modern presidents on the other is different enough to account for different kinds of war.

8:03Whereas kings viewed themselves as the private owner of the territory under their control, presidents consider themselves as temporary caretakers. The owner of a resource, of a country, is concerned about the current income that is to be derived from the resource and about the capital value embodied in a country. His interests are because of this long run, with a concern for the preservation of the capital values embodied in his country. In contrast, the caretaker of a resource is concerned about his current income and pays little or no attention to capital values.

8:52The empirical upshot of this different incentive structure is that monarchical wars tended to be moderate and conservative as compared to democratic warfare. Monarchical wars typically arose out of inheritance disputes. They were characterized by tangible territorial objectives and not by ideological motives. The public considered the war, the king's private affair, to be executed with his own money and his own military forces. Moreover, as conflicts between different ruling families, kings felt compelled to recognize a distinction between combatants and noncombatants and target their war efforts exclusively against each other and their family estates.

9:51In contrast to the limited warfare of the Ancien Regime, the era of democratic warfare which began with the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, which then continued during the 19th century with the American War of Southern Independence and which reached its apex with World War I and World War II, this era has been the era of total war. In blurring the distinction between the rulers and the ruled under democracy, we all rule ourselves, as you know, democracy has strengthened the identification of the public with a particular state, Rather than dynastic property disputes which could be resolved through conquest and occupation, democratic wars became ideological battles which could only be resolved through cultural, linguistic or religious domination and, if necessary, extermination.

10:53It became increasingly difficult for members of the public to extricate themselves from personal involvement in a war. Resistance against higher taxes to fund a war was considered to be treason. Because the democratic state, unlike a monarchy, was owned by all, conscription became the rule rather than the exception. and with mass armies of cheap and hence easily disposable conscripts fighting for national goals backed by the economic resources of the entire nation, all distinctions between combatants and non-combatants disappeared.

11:40Collateral damage was no longer an unintended side effect but became an integral part of warfare. Now so far I have explained how the institution of a state leads to war. Why, seemingly paradoxical, internally liberal states tend to be imperialist powers and how the spirit of democracy has contributed to the de-civilization in the conduct of war. More specifically, I have explained the rise of the United States to the rank of the world's foremost imperial power and as a consequence of its transformation, the transformation of the United States from the beginnings as an aristocratic republic into a mass democracy, the role of the United States as an increasingly arrogant warmonger.

12:37Now, what appears to be standing in the way of peace and civilization, then, is above all the state and democracy, and specifically, of course, the world's model democracy, the United States. But ironically, if not surprisingly, it is precisely the United States which claims that it is the solution to the quest for peace. The reason for this claim is the so-called doctrine of democratic peace, which goes back to the days of Woodrow Wilson and World War I, and has been revived in recent years by George Bush and his neoconservative advisors. Now, this theory of democratic peace claims the following. First, democracies do not go to war against each other.

13:31Second, hence, in order to create lasting peace, the entire world must be made democratic. And as a largely unstated corollary, three, today many states are not democratic and resist internal democratic reform. And fourth, hence war must be waged on those states in order to convert them to democracy and thus create lasting peace. Now, I do not have the patience for a full critique of the theory, but I shall provide a brief critique at least of the theory's premise and of its final conclusion.

14:16First thing, do democracies not go to war against each other? Now, since almost no democracies existed before the 20th century, the answer must obviously be found within the last 100 years or so. And in fact, the bulk of the evidence that is offered in favor of this thesis is that the countries of Western Europe have not gone to war against each other in the post-World War II era. Likewise, in the Pacific region, Japan and South Korea have not warred against each other. Now, does this evidence prove the case? Now, the democratic peace theorists obviously think so. As they see it, there are plenty of cases on which they can build their case.

15:05Germany did not war against France, Italy and England. France did not war against Spain, Italy and Belgium. Belgium and moreover there are permutations involved also. Germany did not attack France and France did not attack Germany. Thus we have seemingly dozens of confirmations and not a single counter example for more than 60 years but do we really have that? And the answer is of course no. What we actually have is no more than one single case. With the end of World War II, all of Western Europe and Japan and Korea in the Pacific region became part of the United States Empire, as is indicated by the presence of United States troops practically everywhere in these countries.

15:53Now, what the post-World War II period of peace then proves is not that democracies do not go to war against each other, but that an imperialist power such as the United States did not let its various colonial parts go to war against each other. You also did not see, by the way, any wars breaking out between all those countries that were dominated by the Soviet Union as long as the Soviet Empire existed, from which we also do not draw the conclusion that communist dictatorships under Russian control do not go to war against each other, so because of that we have to introduce something like this.

16:36So then, second point is, what about democracy as a solution to anything? First point, the theory involves a conceptual conflation of democracy and liberty or freedom that one can only call scandalous. The foundation of liberty is private property and private or exclusive property is incompatible with democracy which is nothing else but majority rule. Democracy is a soft variant of communism, and rarely in the history of ideas has it been taken for anything else but this, except of course Mr. Bush. Second, the theory of democratic peace distinguishes only between democracy and non-democracy, which it all summarily labels as dictatorships.

17:33Everything that is not a democracy is a dictatorship for them. Thus not only disappear all aristocratic republican regimes from its view, but also all traditional monarchies. They all are equated with dictatorships a la Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin and Mao. In fact, however, traditional monarchies have little in common with dictatorships. Monarchies are the semi-organic outgrowth of hierarchically structured, natural, stateless societies. Kings are the heads of extended families, tribes and nations. They command a great deal of voluntarily acknowledged authority, which was accumulated over many generations.

18:21and it is within the framework of such orders that liberalism in the European sense first developed and flourished. And in contrast democracies are egalitarian in outlook. Characteristically the transition from the monarchical age to the democratic age beginning in the second half of the 19th century has seen the steady decline of liberal parties again in the European sense of the term liberal and a corresponding strengthening of socialists of all stripes. Democracy and socialism go hand in hand. Third, it follows from this that the view democratic peace theorists have of conflagrations such as World War I must be considered to be grotesque.

19:12For them, World War I was essentially a war of democracy against dictatorship And hence, it was progressive, peace enhancing and ultimately a justified war. In fact, however, matters are very, very different. To be sure, pre-war Germany, pre-World War I Germany and Austria may not have been as democratic as England or the United States. But Germany and Austria were not dictatorships but increasingly emasculated monarchies and as such arguably as liberal, if not more so than their counterparts, the United States and England. For instance, in the United States, anti-war proponents were jailed.

20:01The German language was essentially outlawed and citizens of German descent were harassed. Nothing comparable occurred in Austria and Germany at that time. In any case, however, the result of the crusade to make the world safe for democracy was less liberal than what had existed before and the Versailles Peace Dictate precipitated, as we all know, World War II. Not only did state power grow faster after World War I, after the democratization taking place, than before, in particular the treatment of minorities deteriorated in the democratized post-World War I period.

20:46In the newly founded Czechoslovakia, for instance, the Germans were systematically mistreated until they were finally expelled by the millions and butchered by the tens of thousands after World War II by the majority Czechs. Nothing remotely comparable had happened to the Czechs during the Habsburg reign, for instance. And the situation regarding the relations between Germans and South Slavs in pre-war Austria versus post-war Yugoslavia was quite similar. Democracy then, and this is something that Mises recognized in his 1919 book on nation economy and state, Democracy does not work in multi-ethnic societies. It does not create peace there, but promotes conflict and has potentially genocidal tendencies.

21:44Fourth point, the democratic peace theorists claim that democracy is a stable equilibrium. This has been stated most clearly by Francis Fukuyama who labeled the New Democratic World Order as the end of history. However, evidence exists that this claim is patently wrong on purely theoretical grounds. Now, how can democracy be at equilibrium if it is possible that democracy can be transformed democratically into a dictatorship, that is, a system which is considered to be not stable? The answer is that makes, of course, no sense whatsoever. In addition, empirically democracies are anything but stable.

22:37As indicated before in multicultural societies, democracy regularly leads to the oppression or even expulsion and extermination of minorities. That seems to be hardly a peaceful equilibrium. And in homogeneous societies, democracy regularly leads to class warfare, which leads to economic crises, which leads to dictatorship. Think for example of post-Zarist Russia, or think of post-World War I Italy, or of Weimar Germany, or of Spain or Portugal in more recent times, Greece, Turkey, Guatemala, Argentina, Chile and Pakistan.

23:23Not only is this correlation between democracy and dictatorship troublesome for democratic peace theorists. Worse, they must face the fact that the dictatorships emerging from crisis of democracy are not always worse from a libertarian point of view than what would have resulted otherwise. Cases can be cited where dictatorships were preferable. Think of Italy and Mussolini. Definitely preferable for having a democratically established communist Italy or Spain and Franco. In addition, how is one to square the advocacy of democracy with the fact that dictators, quite unlike kings, who although are ranked to an accident of birth, are often favorites of the masses.

24:13Just think of Lenin and Stalin, who were certainly more democratic than Tsar Nicholas II, or think of Hitler, who was definitely more democratic than Kaiser Willem or Franz Josef. According to the democratic peace theorists then, it would seem that we are supposed to war against foreign dictators, whether kings or demagogues, in order to install democracies which then turn into modern dictatorships until finally, one supposes, the United States itself has turned into a dictatorship owing to the growth of the internal state power which results from endless emergencies engendered by foreign wars.

24:58Now, better I dare say to heed the advice of Eric von Kühnel-Ledin and instead of aiming to make the world safe for democracy, we try making it safe from democracy everywhere, but most importantly, of course, in the United States. Now, after this excursion into the theory of democratic peace, I'm back to the proposition that there is no greater threat to lasting peace than the democratic state and in particular the United States. and the question thus is how to defend oneself against the United States. Now incidentally this is not only a question for foreigners but a question for Americans as well. After all the territory constituting the United States too is occupied territory conquered by the United States government.

25:50Now let us assume then that a small territory within the borders of the current United States A village, or a town, or a county declares its independence and secedes from the United States. What can and will the United States do in response to this? It is certainly possible that the United States will invade the territory and crush the secessionists. This is what the French Republic did to the Vendée during the French Revolution. This is what the Union did to the Confederacy and on a much smaller scale this is what the United States government did in Waco. But history also provides examples to the contrary. The Czechs and the Slovaks separated peacefully.

26:41Russia let Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia go. The Slovenes were let go by Yugoslavia at that time. Singapore was often even expelled from previous union with Malaysia. Now obviously the relative population size matters in the decision to war or not to war. Likewise it matters what resources are at the sessionist disposal. Also the geographical location can weigh in favor or against intervention. But this cannot be all. For how is one to explain, for instance, that France has not long ago conquered Monaco, or Germany, Luxembourg, or Switzerland, Liechtenstein, or Italy, the Vatican City, or the United States, Costa Rica?

27:36Or how is one to explain that the United States does not finish the job in Iraq by simply killing all Iraqis? Surely in terms of population, technology and geography, such are manageable tasks. Now the reason is not that French, German, Swiss, Italian or United States state rulers have scruples against conquest, confiscation and the imprisonment or killing of innocents. They do these things all the time on a daily basis, basis to their own population. Bush, for instance, has no compunction ordering to kill innocent Iraqis. He does so every day. Rather, what constrains the conduct of state rulers is public opinion.

28:23As Laboi, Ti, Rium, Mises, Rothbard have explained, government power ultimately rests on opinion and not on brute force. Bush does not kill himself or put a gun to the head of those he orders to kill. Generals and soldiers follow his orders on their own. Nor can Bush force anyone to continue providing him with the funds needed for his aggression. The citizenry must do so on its own. On the other hand, if the majority of general soldiers and citizens stop believing in the legitimacy of Bush's command, his commands turn into nothing more than hot air.

29:13It is this need for legitimacy that explains why state governments itching to go to war must offer a reason. The public is not typically in favor of killing innocent bystanders for fun and profit. Rather, in order to enlist the public's assistance, evidence must be manipulated so as to make aggression appear as defense. For what reasonable person could be against defense? Now, and we know, of course, the catchwords in all of this. They are Fort Sumter, the USS Maine, the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor and 9-11.

29:58It just turns out that not even an overwhelming size advantage is decisive in determining the course of action. That David Koresh and his followers in Waco could be brutally killed by the United States government was due to the fact that they could be portrayed as a bunch of crazy child molesters. Had there been normal people, an invasion might have been considered a public relations disaster. Moreover, regardless of whatever disadvantage that the secessionists have in terms of size, resources or location, this can all be made up by a favorable international public opinion, especially in the internet age when the spread of news is almost instantaneous.

30:45Now these considerations then bring me to my final points. The new secessionist country can be either another state or it can be a free stateless society. And I want to argue that the likelihood of successful defense against the United States is higher if the secessionists form a stateless society than if they opt for another smaller state. For whether large or small, states are always good at aggression, but always bad at defense. A society remark granting maybe prematurely that the United States had nothing to do with 9-11 directly.

31:37The events of that day certainly show that the United States was not good at defending its own citizens, first, by provoking the attacks, and secondly, in having its population disarmed and defenseless vis-à-vis box-cutting, wielding foreign invaders. Now, how would the defense of a free society differ from that of a state? As I explained, the likelihood of an attack depends essentially on the ease of manipulating the evidence so as to camouflage aggression as defense. And to discover such evidence is much easier in the case of a state. Even the most liberal state has a monopoly of jurisdiction and taxation and thus cannot but create victims who can be properly stylized as victims of human rights violations and thereby then provide an excuse for an invasion.

32:41Worse, if the new state is a democracy, it is unavoidable that one group, the Catholics or the Protestants, the Shiites or the Sunnis, the Whites or the Blacks, will use its power to dominate another, and again there exists then an excuse for invasion, namely to free the oppressed minority. Better still, the oppressed are incited to cry out for help. Moreover, in reaction to domestic oppression, terrorists may grow up who try to revenge the injustice. Just think of the Red Brigades, the RAF, the IRA, the ETA in bus country, and both the continued existence as well as the attempt of eradicating these terrorist organizations may provide reason to intervene, namely on the one hand to prevent the spread of terrorism or on the other hand to come to the rescue of freedom fighters.

33:46In contrast, in a free society, only private property owners and firms, including insurers, police and arbitration agencies, exist. And if there are any aggressions, they are those of criminals, of murderers, rapists, burglars and plain frauds. And it is very difficult to portray the treatment of criminals as criminals, as a reason for an invasion. and invasion. Now what if an attack does occur after all? In that case it might well be best to give up quickly, especially if the secessionist territory is very small. Thus Morgens Glistrup, the founder of the Danish Progress Party, he once recommended that the defense department of teeny Denmark be replaced with an answering machine announcing at that time to the Russians that we surrender. This way no destruction would occur and yet the reputation of the

34:56invading government as a defender and promoter of liberty would be soiled forever. Now this Now this leads then to our central question regarding the effectiveness of states versus free societies in matters of defense. Now as a monopolist of ultimate decision making, the state decides for everyone bindingly whether to resist or not to resist. If to resist, whether in the form of civil disobedience, armed resistance or some combination of these things. And if armed resistance of what form? If the state decides to put up no resistance, this may be a well-meaning decision, or it may be the result of bribes or threats by the invading state, but in any case, it will be contrary to the will of many who would have liked to resist and who are thus put in double jeopardy, because as resistors they now disobey their own state as well as the invaders.

36:00And on the other hand, if the state decides to resist, this again may be a well-meaning decision or it may be the result of pride or fear. But again, in any case, it too will be contrary to the preferences of many who would have liked not to resist or to resist by different means and who are now entangled as accomplices in the state schemes and subjected to the same collateral fallout and victor's justice as everyone else. The reaction of a free territory would be distinctly different. There is no government which makes one decision. Inside there are numerous institutions and individuals who choose their own defense strategy, each in accordance with one's own risk assessment.

36:54Consequently, the aggressor has far more difficulties conquering the territory. It is no longer sufficient to know the government, to win one decisive battle, or to gain control of Government Headquarters. Even if one opponent is known, one battle is won and one defense agency is defeated, this has no bearing whatsoever on others. Moreover, the multitude of command structures and strategies as well as the contractual character of free societies affect the conduct of both armed and unarmed resistance. As for armed resistance, in state territories the civilian population is typically unarmed and heavy reliance exists on regular tax and draft funded armies and conventional warfare. Hence the defense force create enemies even among are its own citizenry which the aggressor then can use to its own advantage and in any case there is little to fear for the aggressor once the regular army is defeated.

38:15In contrast, the population of free territories is likely heavily armed and the fighting is done by irregular militias led by defense professionals and in the form of guerrilla or partisan warfare. All fighters are volunteers and all of their support, food, shelter, logistical help and so on, is also voluntary. Hence, guerrillas must be extremely friendly to their own population. But precisely this, their entirely defensive character and their near unanimous support in public opinion can render them nearly invincible. Even by numerically far superior invading armies. History provides numerous examples for this. Napoleon's defeat in Spain against guerrillas fighting him.

39:12France's defeat in Algeria, for instance. The United States' defeat in Vietnam and Israel's defeat in South Lebanon. This consideration leads immediately to the other form of defense, namely civil disobedience. Provided only that the secessionists have the will to be free, the effectiveness of a strategy of civil disobedience can hardly be overestimated. Recall that power does not rest alone on brute force but must rely on opinion. The conquerors cannot put one man next to each secessionist and force him to obey their orders. The secessionists must obey by their own free will. However, if they do not, the conquerors will fail.

40:03Most importantly, civil disobedience can occur in many forms and degrees. It can range from ostentatious acts of defiance to entirely unobtrusive ways, thus allowing almost everyone to participate in the defense effort. effort, the courageous and the timid, the young and the old, leaders and followers. One may hide armed fighters or not hinder them. One may publicly refuse to obey certain laws or evade and ignore them. One may engage in sabotage, obstruction, negligence or simply display a lack of diligence.

40:49One may openly scoff at orders or comply only incompletely. Tax payments may be refused or evaded. There may be demonstrations, sit-ins, boycotts, work stoppages or plane slacking off. The conquerors may be maltreated, molested, ridiculed, laughed at or simply ostracized and never assisted in anything. In any case, all of this contributes to the very same result, namely to render the conquerors powerless, to make them despair and finally resign and withdraw. Now, as is often the case, the first step in the anti-imperialist, anti-democratic struggle is always the most difficult one.

41:37Indeed, the difficulties are enormous. I do not want to just minimize this. But once the first step has been successfully taken, however, things get successively easier. Once the number of secessionist territories has reached a critical mass, and every success in one location will promote imitation in other localities, then the difficulties of crushing the secessionists will increase exponentially. In fact, the more time passes, the greater will be the comparative economic and technological advantage of free territories. And in light of the ever increasing attractiveness and economic opportunities offered by free territories, The imperialist powers will be increasingly happy if they can hang on to their power rather than risk whatever legitimacy they still have in an attack.

42:39So there is some hope at least. Thank you very much.