I want to join with Lew Rockwell in welcoming all of you to the Mises Institute Conference on the Cost of War.
Lew and I first began to discuss this subject probably almost two years ago, and since then,
Lew has worked very hard and has assembled a truly outstanding group of speakers and scholars
to address a subject which is extremely timely and important to American freedom.
During the Persian Gulf War, President Bush announced that we were approaching the New
World Order. It is becoming clear that part of what is meant by that is that America is
to become a permanent Garrison state and also the world policeman, sometimes under the cloak
and command of the United Nations and sometimes NATO or some other regional alliance. America
The New World Order could be at war constantly without a declaration of war by Congress.
And if this New World Order is fully realized, American sovereignty will be destroyed.
The historian Charles Beard warned us that this would mean perpetual war for perpetual peace.
And of course, this is the theme of George Orwell's prophetic novel, 1984.
So we need to understand the total cost of war in order to appreciate the dangers that war in general, but the New World Order in particular, posed from individual liberty.
One of my favorite writers is Albert J. Knot. He was a great individualist and a classical liberal. And he wrote, or you might say, a liberal in the classical sense.
He wrote an essay entitled Isaiah's Job. In this he tells a story of the biblical prophet Isaiah who was instructed not to try to convert the masses, but to try to speak to the remnant defined as that small group of people who would understand and appreciate his message and would be there to put things back together when the time was right.
Nock wrote to and for that remnant, which he recognized as being a small group of people who were interested in preserving liberty in America and were working towards that end.
This conference, I think, brings together a part of that remnant, which has been working to keep the torch of liberty lit since the chaos of World War I,
ushered classical liberalism or the philosophy of freedom off center stage and out of the theater.
Collectivism in various forms has taken its place. This philosophy I define as classical liberalism,
Ralph Reiko calls it the signature political philosophy of western civilization. An important
part of the remnant has preserved much of this philosophy under various labels including the
The Old Right, Paleo-Conservatism and Libertarianism Non-Interventionism has always been the cornerstone
of classical liberalism and the remnant, not recognized that American citizens had far
more to fear from the rapidly increasing powers of our own central government than from any
threat of a foreign invasion. He further recognized that it is through the war powers granted
and to the president that our freedom is primarily jeopardized, not address the subject of the
total cost of war by stating, I am coming to be much less interested in what war does
to people at the time of the war and much more in what it does to them after it is over.
Of course, the starting point in understanding the total cost of war is the well-known axiom
that when war is declared, truth is the first casualty. History shows us that even in the
that just war fought to oppose the clear and present danger to life, liberty and property
still causes a severe loss of freedom. Even in a successful war, the result is one step
being put forward to defend freedom and then two step backwards to centralize the government
to raise taxes in order to fight the war. This net deficit must be made up after the
war in order to have a net gain for freedom. How many times do we see taxes raised? Governmental
In his book, The Lost Cause states that war is like that cave of bones and carcasses in mythology, into which led many tracks and out of it none.
On the other hand, we are told by the court historians and many political leaders that
war is simply an instrument of progress, that it is similar to the purpose of a summer thunderstorm
which clears and cools the air. Those who love freedom must never cease to challenge
that idea. Ludwig von Mises opposed the unjust war, but he was no pacifist. His conference
This conference is not truly an anti-war rally. There are just wars rightfully fought for
honorable purposes of protecting our families, our lives, our liberty and property. For instance,
I think that in this room today there would be a consensus that the American Revolution
was such a war fought for the right purposes. Nor should this conference be construed as
an attack upon any American soldier, or any soldier for that matter. One of the great
One of the main injustices of the Vietnam War was that the abuse was heaped upon the returning veterans rather than criticism being directed to the politicians who caused that war, America's only military defeat.
While I consider World War I the greatest tragedy of the 20th century, in no way do I condemn my father who fought for the American forces in France, nor Ludwig von Mises who fought on the opposing side for Austria on the Russian front.
These two men remain two of my heroes and I admire the individual courage they demonstrated in those wars.
Nor should this conference be understood to advocate isolationism, that pejorative term used by the Roosevelt administration to condemn its critics.
In fact, one of the arguments made by Mises in advocating a non-interventionist foreign policy is that no nation is entirely self-sufficient.
And because of the division of labor and the scarcity of resources, we must have world trade, and war is its greatest enemy.
The great writer of the Revolutionary War period, Thomas Paine, gave a similar economic reason when he stated,
War can never be in the interest of a trading nation, any more than quarreling can be in
the interest of man in business. But to make war on those who trade with us is like setting
a bulldog upon a customer in the shop door." This conference is rather a reaffirmation
of the original and historically unique premises upon which America was founded. Thomas Jefferson,
In his first inaugural address, succinctly restated the American foreign policy first
outlined by the farewell address of George Washington, Jefferson stated peace, commerce,
honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.
This conference is also a reaffirmation of Ludwig von Mises' philosophy, which he stated
clearly in 1927 in his book entitled Liberalism, wherein he advocated a non-interventionist
Foreign Policy with Trade and Friendship with All Nations. Today, as we stand at the
end of the 20th century in America, we can look back and see that it has been a century
of constant assault on individual freedom, a century of big government and collectivism
under various labels including communism, Nazism, fascism, socialism and the New Deal.
It is the war and welfare century. Now we finally reach the end of the Cold War between
between the two great superpowers, the Soviet Empire and America, a war which lasted 45 years.
Mises had predicted, soon after communism took over Russia during World War I, that it would eventually collapse without market prices with which to calculate supply and demand.
This final collapse of the Soviet Empire leaves America as a staggering giant, weighed down by excessive government.
Taxes have been drastically raised and America has become the world policeman, sending her
sons and daughters to police the Persian Gulf by charging rent for that army from other
countries.
We've sent our young people to Somalia and Africa as an armed welfare agency.
America's armed forces have been stationed in Europe since the end of World War II and
What has become of America in the 20th century?
Let me quote to you the words of the great English historian Arnold Toynbee, reported
in the New York Times on May 7, 1971 as follows, quote, To most Europeans, I guess, America
now looks like the most dangerous country in the world.
Since America is unquestionably the most powerful country, the transformation of America's
image within the last 30 years is very frightening for Europeans. It is probably still more frightening
for the great majority of the human race who are neither Europeans nor North Americans
but are Latin Americans, Asians and Africans. They, I imagine, feel even more insecure than
we feel. They feel at any moment America may intervene in their internal affairs, with
The same appalling consequences have followed from the American intervention in Southeast Asia.
For the world as a whole, the CIA has become the bogeyman that Communism has been for America.
Wherever there is trouble, violence, or suffering, or tragedy, the rest of us are now quick to suspect that the CIA had a hand in it.
Our phobia about the CIA is no doubt as fantastically excessive as America's phobia about World Communism.
But in this case, too, there is just enough convincing guidance to make the phobia genuine.
In fact, the roles of America and Russia have been reversed in the world's eyes.
To date, America has become the nightmare. End quote.
This conference will address the question of how American foreign policy has been transformed
and the dangerous present status poses to our freedom.
We need to revisit briefly our original principles of foreign policy.
I've already alluded to the non-interventionist foreign policy statements of Presidents Washington and Jefferson.
Listen to John Quincy Adams, quote,
America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.
She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.
She's the champion and vindicator only of her own.
She will recommend the general cause by the countenance of her voice and by the benign sympathy of her example.
She well knows that by once enlisting under the banners of others than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence,
she would involve herself beyond the power of explication in all the wars of interest and intrigue,
of individual avarice, envy, ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standards of freedom.
The fundamental maximum of a policy insensibly would change from liberty to force, end quote.
Of course, before he became president, he served as Secretary of State to President Monroe,
and thereby played the major role in forming the Monroe Doctrine.
This doctrine told Europe and Asia alike to stay out of our hemisphere, and we in turn would stay out of theirs.
President James Madison explained why a non-interventionist policy was necessary in order to preserve freedom in America at home.
And he addressed the cost of war with the following statement, quote,
Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
War is the parent of armies. From these proceed debts and taxes, and armies and debts and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few."
Finally, toward the end of the Old Republic in America in 1852, Henry Clay stated,
By following the policy we have adhered to since the days of Washington, we have prospered
beyond precedent. We have done more for the cause of liberty in the world than arms could
effect. We have shown to other nations the way to greatness and happiness. But if we
should involve ourselves in the web of European politics, in a war which could effect nothing,
where then would be left the last hope of the friends of freedom throughout the world?
More better it is that adhering to our wise pacific system and avoiding the distant wars
of Europe, we should keep our own lamp burning brightly on this western shore and as a light
to all nations than to hazard its utter extinction amidst the ruins of fallen or falling republics
in Europe.
Our founding fathers understood the non-interventionist foreign policy to be a lesson learned by
by History and it was a lesson to preserve individual freedom at home.
They were familiar of course with the first historian Herodotus who wrote about the Persian
armies invading Greece and he marveled at the heroic efforts of the Greeks who were
outnumbered by a ratio of ten to one but still defeated the invaders while at the same time
they resisted any impulse toward empire themselves.
He was repulsed by the arrogance of the Persian leader Xerxes who conducted these imperialistic wars.
The founders of America were also familiar with the great historian Thucydides, who was a warrior himself.
And he tells about the famous Peloponnesian wars, which destroyed the great Greek civilization.
He teaches us the lesson that the love of freedom and justice by the Athenians could not survive their continual warfare with Sparta.
He shows that the Athenians, through their newfound imperialistic tendencies, became as cruel and arrogant and tyrannical as had been the invading Persians or their Grecian enemies far.
He taught that through the constant wars, Athens lost her soul.
He points out that the turning point of the Peloponnesian Wars was the destruction of the great Athenian navy,
which at the time was not defending Athens, but was lost in the harbor of Syracuse while trying to conquer Sicily.
These and many other lessons of history were known and understood by our founding fathers who set out our original policy.
Now let's look at what happened briefly when we abandoned those principles.
This conference will look at the cost of war with special emphasis to be given to three wars, all won by America.
These were the American Civil War, which, more correctly labeled, would be the War for Southern Independence.
Then the Spanish-American War, and finally World War I.
The combination of these three wars repudiated many of the most important principles upon which America was founded.
It changed the structure of the American government.
The destruction of the South, both politically and economically during the Civil War, also abolished the ideas of Jefferson of maintaining a decentralized federal government, and instead allowed the centralizing ideas of Hamilton to take over.
The South, with its minority political position, had attempted to restrain centralization of power into the Federal Government by forming an alliance with the Northern Democrats and by asserting the theories of states' rights, nullification and concurrent majority.
In the South, Iowa became a tax slave to the North through the Protective Tariff, which
was extracted from the South and then used for internal improvements in the North, all
under the General Welfare Clause of the Constitution and all over the protest of the South.
The great historian and advocate of liberty, Lord Acton, was a strong supporter of the
Confederate cause because he saw the issues from a long historical perspective.
He saw that the South represented the preservation of the original purposes of the Constitution,
which basically was to promote liberty by preventing the centralization of government
into the Federal Government.
Acton was no defender of slavery, and he limited the compromise that was reached with slavery
in the Constitution.
But he saw slavery in the context of a historical, religious, and ethical development, an institution
rooted in ideas and circumstances only of a particular era and time.
Lord Acton apparently had convinced William Gladstone that England should intervene to
support the Confederacy. But this intervention was cut off by Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation
made long after the war began. Lincoln's statement, which purported only to free slaves in the
rebelling states and not throughout the rest of America, was made admittedly by Lincoln
for military and propaganda purposes. The proclamation had the effect, however, of diverting
Fighting the war from its original and stated purpose of preserving the Union to that of eliminating slavery.
Acton wrote to General Lee at Appomattox, after Appomattox and stated, quote,
Therefore I believe that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization.
And I mourn for the state which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.
The writer, Gore Goddard, in his study of the American Civil War and of Lincoln in particular concluded that Lincoln was America's first dictator.
He stated, quote, the memory of Lincoln was and is a constant stimulus to the ambitious Chief Magistrate
and knows that once the nation is at war, his powers are truly unlimited while the possibilities of personal glory are immeasurable, end quote.
Secretary of State William Henry Stewart and Lincoln's top military advisor, General
Winfield Scott, both strongly advised the president to abandon Fort Sumter rather than
reinforce the federal troops in Charleston Harbor. He was advised that such reinforcement
would serve no military purpose and would be a useless act that would probably provoke
an unnecessary war. Lincoln's act of reinforcing Fort Sumter and thereby provoking the South
into firing the first shot set an example for later presidents to follow such as Wilson
in concerning the events surrounding the sinking of the Lusitania as well as Roosevelt and
the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Others have labeled Lincoln as America's Rhodes Pierre, not primarily
for the conduct of the war towards the south but rather for his unconstitutional and tyrannical
treatment of American citizens in the north. Lincoln's repressive policy in the north was
was made a crucial issue in the 1864 presidential election. In areas far removed from the war zone, such as in New York, where the court system was fully operable,
Lincoln allowed martial law to be declared and American citizens to be arrested without warrants, tried before military judges, without a jury or without counsel,
and convicted in sentence without an appeal, some merely upon suspicion of disloyalty to
his cause. He also unconstitutionally suspended the writ of habeas corpus, a time-honored
basic right of Anglo-American history. In a recent book entitled The Fate of Liberty
by Mark Neely, who by the way is the director of the Lincoln Museum, he discloses a full
A full study of the question of civil liberties at the hands of President Lincoln.
Lincoln neatly carefully reviewed the records of some 13,000 of these unconstitutional trials
and concludes that while he is unable to refute Gorevodov's charges, nevertheless, he concludes
that Lincoln should and will be absolved from blame by history because the ends justified
the means.
However, he concludes his book with his final and true statement, quote,
War and its effect upon civil liberties remain a frightening unknown.
With the destruction of the political ideas of the South,
the American government lost both its restraining anchor and its stabilizing rudder,
and set sails with the winds of centralization of power.
And finally, after three decades shipwrecked at the beginning of the 20th century
The war and welfare century was about to begin. The Spanish-American war at the turn of the century in 1898 was labeled by John Hay as that splendid little war.
Although the cost in lives and taxes was relatively small, it was the war that repudiated our non-interventionist foreign policy, which had served America well for over a hundred years.
That war with Spain was completely unnecessary is shown by the fact that Spain agreed to
all of the terms proposed by America for settlement of the issues two days before President McKinney
delivered his war dress to Congress, a small detail he failed to disclose.
The war gave America its first taste of an imperialistic world power and gave America
A Foot Hold in Asia in the Philippines, thereby violating its own Monroe Dock.
However, Mark Twain, at the time, saw that the full significance of this drastic change
in policy and recognized the ominous threat to freedom when he said, quote, we cannot
maintain an empire in the Orient and maintain a republic in America.
The break in the dike of American foreign policy or non-interventionism became a flood
with the World War I. By engaging in the European cauldron of constant conflict, the entangling
alliances of the European nations served as tripwires to cause one single assassination
to erupt into a world war, thereby demonstrating the wisdom of the Founding Fathers to avoid
such alliances. America's unnecessary and late entry into World War I completely upset
World War I immensely fortified a universal faith in violence. It set in motion endless adventures in imperialism, endless nationalistic ambition. Every war does this, to some degree, roughly corresponding to its magnitude.
The Final Settlement of Versailles, therefore, was a mere scramble for loot.
In a book by an English attorney, Frederick J.P. Veale, he traces the history of warfare and shows that the, quote,
civilized code for war was completely abandoned in World War I.
Veale traces the optimistic faith of Western civilization during the 19th century,
in the 19th century, where it appeared that the Industrial Revolution and the outstanding
achievements in science and technology would bring unlimited progress to the world.
This optimistic dream was shattered when Western civilization leaped into total warfare in
World War I with all of its new scientific weapons of mass destruction.
Veale entitled his book, Advance to Barbarism.
When we look at the rampant violence in America today, we are, I believe, also looking at
Part of the Cost of War. I think it is instructive to remember that near the end of World War II
and six months before the atom bombs were dropped on two Japanese cities,
that the Japanese government had offered to surrender on virtually identical terms which
were accepted one month after the bombing. The surrender terms were documented in a 40-page
Memorandum from General MacArthur to FDR, dated January 20, 1945.
The memo was then secretly delivered later by Chief of Staff Admiral Leahy to journalist
Walter Trohan of the Chicago Tribune because the admiral rightly suspected that the peace
officer would be ignored and he wanted history to record the truth.
Furthermore, President Truman later admitted to former President Herbert Hoover that by
By early May 1945, he was aware of the Peace Off and that further fighting was unnecessary,
and yet he still authorized the bombing.
Trohan first published this information in the Chicago Tribune on August 19, 1945, and
Harry Elmer Barnes revealed more about this horrible story in National Review on May 10,
1958.
Just like Churchill's bombing of Dresden, this massive destruction and wholesale slaughter
of innocent men, women and children was not a military necessity.
It can be little doubt that this dreadful violence committed by the American government
has had an adverse impact upon our culture as well as the standard of morality for all
mankind.
America thus has forfeited its original claim to serve as a beacon for justice and peace
to the world.
We've now had over 100 years of experience with our original non-interventionist foreign
policy and nearly 100 years of experience with our present policy. I believe that the
empirical evidence clearly shows which policies should be adopted for the future.
Let me close by reminding you of a speech Ludwig von Mises gave at Princeton University
in 1958, which is now in a pamphlet entitled Liberty and Property, published by the Mises
Mises Institute, I noticed on the shelf in the back. He said that time that the main
beneficiaries of a true free market are the consumers or general population rather than
businessmen and that the general population, consumers, rather than businessmen should
be its champion. He pointed out that many powerful business interests oppose the free
market and prefer a government regulated market where they can avoid competition and are able
I think that the same is true in regard to the issues of war and peace. It is the general
population who lose their lives, their wealth, their property and their liberty and pay the
total cost of war. I think that history also proves that certain powerful economic interests
or the merchants of death promote and support wars in general in order to gain unjust and
and the immense profits that they could not obtain through a true free market.
The roll call of those who oppose the free market as well as those who oppose peace often
contain the same names.
In a rare moment of candor for modern American presidents, General Eisenhower in a farewell
address lifted the curtain of the section slightly and warned us about the military
industrial complex.
While this conference is a gathering of part of Knox-Rineland, our ultimate purpose is
to eventually reach the general population who benefit the most from peace and who pay
almost the total cost of war. And it is only when those total costs of war are fully and
widely understood that liberty can be safely protected. Thank you.