The great Murray Rothbard was taken from us far too soon in 1995 at the age of 68. His death left a void in the libertarian movement that could never be filled. I often long for his unfiltered, contrarian, non-interventionist commentary on world events, never more so than today with the Israel-Palestine conflict. What would Rothbard think about Israel’s invasion of Gaza in retaliation for the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led massacre of 1,200 Israelis, 70% of them civilians?
In preview, I will begin by examining Rothbard’s framework on war and how he felt it should be conducted in order to conform to libertarian principles. Next, I will apply his criteria to Israel’s military actions in Gaza, assuming they are acting in self-defense. Finally, I will attempt to determine who is the historical aggressor in the Israel-Palestine conflict as seen through Rothbard’s eyes. Thankfully, he left us a wealth of written material on the subject.
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First some personal background: My introduction to Austrian economics began in 1989 with the discovery of the Mises Institute and while attending the week-long Mises University in the summer of 1990. Mises U was the intellectual experience of a lifetime. Lectures were given and classes taught by a Who’s Who of Austro-libertarianism: Murray Rothbard, Lew Rockwell, Joe Sobran, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Walter Block, Sheldon Richman, Yuri Maltsev, Jeffrey Herbener and Roger Garrison, among others. Without question, Rothbard was the rock star of the group. As students, we all had backstage passes which allowed us to rub shoulders with and pick the brains of “the talent.” Rothbard was known to stay up late at night in conversation with students. He relished in the experience and his laugh (more like a cackle) was as unforgettable as it was infectious.
The breadth of Rothbard’s knowledge on various subjects was breathtaking. He was like five geniuses rolled into one. I recently asked David Gordon, a close personal friend of Rothbard and leading scholar with a deep understanding of his work, “What was he most passionate about and dedicated the greatest amount of his writing attention to?” He replied, “Avoiding war would probably be his greatest concern.” I also asked, “In For a New Liberty (1973), Rothbard dedicated an entire chapter to ‘War and Foreign Policy.’ Did he ever deviate from this at all in his final 22 years?” His answer: “No.”
Murray Rothbard is a joy to read in part because of his logical clarity and consistency. If you truly want to understand his intellectual framework on war, I suggest reading the first nine pages of this chapter in For a New Liberty or his essay, “War, Peace and the State” (1963).
Rothbard’s war framework
How did Rothbard apply libertarian principles to war and foreign policy in a less-than-perfect world of nation-states?
Libertarians favor liberty as a natural human right, and advocate it not only for Americans but for all peoples. In a purely libertarian world, therefore, there would be no “foreign policy” because there would be no States, no governments with a monopoly of coercion over particular territorial areas. But since we live in a world of nation-states. And since this system is hardly likely to disappear in the near future, what is the attitude of libertarians toward foreign policy in the current State-ridden world?
Pending the dissolution of States, libertarians desire to limit, to whittle down, the area of governmental power in all directions and as much as possible…
Specifically, the entire land area of the world is now parcelled out among various States, and each land area is ruled by a central government with monopoly of violence over that area. In relations between States, then, the libertarian goal is to keep each of those States from extending their violence to other countries, so that each State’s tyranny is at least confined to its own bailiwick… In short, the objective of the libertarian is to confine any existing State to as small a degree of invasion of person and property as possible. And this means the total avoidance of war. The people under each State should pressure “their” respective States not to attack one another, or, if a conflict should break out, to withdraw from it as quickly as physically possible.1
He continues:
Let us assume for the moment, a world of two hypothetical countries: Graustark and Belgravia. Each is ruled by its own State. What happens if the government of Graustark invades the territory of Belgravia? From the libertarian point of view two evils immediately occur. First, the Graustark Army begins to slaughter innocent Belgravian civilians, persons who are not implicated in whatever crimes the Belgravian government might have committed. War, then, is mass murder, and this massive invasion of the right to life, of self-ownership, of numbers of people is not only a crime but, for the libertarian, the ultimate crime. Second, since all governments obtain their revenue from the thievery of coercive taxation, any mobilization and launching of troops inevitably involve an increase in tax-coercion in Graustark. For both reasons – because inter-State wars inevitably involve both mass murder and an increase in tax-coercion, the libertarian opposes war. Period.2
Rothbard then draws a distinction between modern wars and pre-modern wars:
It was not always thus. During the Middle Ages, the scope of wars was far more limited. Before the rise of modern weapons, armaments were so limited that governments could – and often did – strictly confine their violence to the armies of the rival governments. It is true that tax coercion increased, but at least there was no mass murder of the innocents. Not only was firepower low enough to confine violence to the armies of the contending sides, but in the pre-modern era there was no central nation-state that spoke inevitably in the name of all inhabitants of a given land area. If one set of kings or barons fought another, it was not felt that everyone in the area must be a dedicated partisan. Moreover, instead of mass conscript armies enslaved to their respective rulers, armies were small bands of hired mercenaries. Often, a favorite sport for the populace was to observe a battle from the safety of the town ramparts, and war was regarded as something of a sporting match. But with the rise of the centralizing State and of modern weapons of mass destruction, the slaughter of civilians, as well as conscript armies, have become a vital part of inter-State warfare.3
He continues:
Suppose that despite possible libertarian opposition, war has broken out. Clearly, the libertarian position should be that, so long as the war continues, the scope of assault upon innocent civilians must be diminished as much as possible. Old-fashioned international law had two excellent devices to accomplish this goal: the “laws of war,” and the “laws of neutrality” or “neutral’s rights”… In short, the libertarian tries to induce the warring States to observe fully the rights of neutral citizens. The “laws of war,” for their part, were designed to limit as much as possible the invasion by warring States of the rights of civilians in their respective countries. As the British jurist F.J.P. Veale put it:
“The fundamental principle of this code was that hostilities between civilized peoples must be limited to the armed forces… It drew a distinction between combatants and non-combatants by laying down that the sole business of the combatants is to fight each other and, consequently, that non-combatants must be excluded from the scope of military operations.”4
When was the line crossed into modern warfare?
In the modified form of prohibiting the bombardment of all cities not in the front line, this rule held in Western European wars in recent centuries until Britain launched the strategic bombing of civilians in World War II. Now, of course, the entire concept is scarcely remembered, since the very nature of modern nuclear warfare rests upon the annihilation of civilians.5
Even so, Rothbard did not rule out the unlikely possibility of a just, defensive war, listing three criteria:
(a) weapons limited so that no civilians were injured in their persons or property;
(b) volunteer rather than conscript armies; and also
(c) financing by voluntary methods instead of taxation6
He even gave a fairly recent example that came close, the Indo-Pakastani war of 1971.
Furthermore, Rothbard was opposed to other countries jumping in and escalating a conflict, even on the side of the country being attacked:
To return to our hypothetical Graustark and Belgravia, suppose that Graustark has invaded Belgravia, and that a third government, Walldavia, now leaps into the war in order to defend Belgravia against “Graustarkian aggression.” Is this action justifiable? Here, indeed, is the germ of the pernicious twentieth century theory of “collective security” – the idea that when one government “aggresses” against another, it is the moral obligation of the other governments of the world to band together to defend the “victimized” State.
There are several fatal flaws in this concept of collective security against “aggression.” One is that when Walldavia, or any other States, leap into the fray they are themselves expanding and compounding the extent of the aggression, because they are (1) unjustly slaughtering masses of Graustarkian civilians, and (2) increasing tax-coercion over Walldavian citizens. Furthermore, (3) in this age when States and subjects are closely identifiable, Walldavia is thereby leaving Walldavian citizens open to retaliation by Graustarkian bombers or missiles. Thus, entry into the war by Walldavian government puts into jeopardy the very lives and properties of Walldavian citizens which the government is supposed to be protecting. Finally, (4) conscription-enslavement of Walldavian citizens will usually intensify.
If this kind of “collective security” should really be applied on a worldwide scale, with all the “Walldavias” rushing into every local conflict and escalating them, every local skirmish would soon be raised into a global conflagration.7
On war, Murray Rothbard had two overarching concerns:
Many libertarians are uncomfortable with foreign policy and prefer to spend their energies either on fundamental questions of libertarian theory or on such “domestic” concerns as the free market or privatizing postal service or garbage disposal. Yet an attack on war or a warlike foreign policy is of crucial importance to libertarians. There are two important reasons. One has become a cliché, but is all too true nevertheless: the overriding importance of preventing a nuclear holocaust. To all the long-standing reasons, moral and economic, against an interventionist foreign policy has now been added the imminent, ever-present threat of world destruction…
The other reason is that, apart from the nuclear menace, war, in the words of the libertarian Randolph Bourne, “is the health of the State.” War has always been the occasion of a great – and usually permanent – acceleration and intensification of State power over society. War is the great excuse for mobilizing all the energies and resources of the nation, in the name of patriotic rhetoric, under the aegis and dictation of the State apparatus. It is in war that the State really comes into its own: swelling in power, in number, in pride, in absolute dominion over the economy and the society. Society becomes a herd, seeking to kill its alleged enemies, rooting out and suppressing all dissent from the official war effort, happily betraying truth for the supposed public interest. Society becomes an armed camp, with the values and the morals – as the libertarian Albert Jay Nock once phrased it – of an “army on the march.”8
Applying Rothbard’s self-defense criteria to Israel’s invasion of Gaza
Let us assume that Israel has been acting in self-defense in its retaliation for the October 7th attacks (as well as previous attacks) and apply Rothbard’s criteria for just war conduct:
Anatomy of the State
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- Protection of civilians – Just two months into Israel’s Gaza bombing campaign, researchers called it the most destructive of this century. As reported by Al Jazeera, “Over the past year, Israeli attacks have killed at least 41,165 Palestinians living in Gaza, equal to 1 out of every 55 people living there. At least 16,756 children have been killed, the highest number of children recorded in a single year of conflict over the past two decades… At least 97,303 people are injured in Gaza – equal to one in 23 people… In the past year, three quarters of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have been infected with contagious diseases due to a lack of sanitation, open sewage and inadequate access to hygiene… At least 2.15 million people, or 96 percent of Gaza’s population, are facing severe lack of food. One in five Palestinians, or about 495,000 people, are facing starvation…”
- Conscription – As cited by Grok, “Israel’s conscription system is unique among developed countries due to its near-universal mandatory military service for both men and women, a policy rooted in its ongoing security challenges… Since the Gaza war began in October 2023, Israel has significantly expanded conscription by increasing the reserve force cap to 450,000, extending mandatory service to three years, raising reserve exemption ages, and advancing legislation to include Haredi Jews, though with limited scope.”
- Taxation – As per Grok, “According to the OECD’s 2023 data, Israel’s tax-to-GDP ratio was 31.2% in 2022, slightly below the OECD average of 34.0%… Since the Gaza war began in October 2023, Israel has increased taxes, notably raising VAT to 18% and implementing a 15% global minimum corporate tax, driven by war-related defense spending and a growing budget deficit. These changes have slightly elevated the tax burden, but debt financing has absorbed much of the fiscal strain.”
