Arms Sales To The Enemy?

—–Original Message—–
From: N
Sent: Wed 7/12/2017 11:53 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Some questions on non-interventionism!

Dear Dr. Block, I am a 23 years old guy from Italy. It’s 2 years that I discovered the libertarian movement and mises.org has been my daily source of information. I’m writing to you in order to have further knowledge about how to apply libertarian principles over inter-national relationships and security issues. For example: if we have, let’s say, 10 small libertarian countries and 1 big totalitarian and aggressive one who starts attacking one of them. If there are signs that this state will continue to invade the other countries, wouldn’t it be wise for the 9 smaller countries to unite against the aggressor instead of facing it one at a time?

<<yes, wise, and, justified

And then, again: in a libertarian world (excluding the anarcho-capitalist case) I suppose private firms would sell weapons to governments and persons. Now, imagine that a government declares war against another country and says it will retaliate against the citizens of the countries which sell weapons to the victim of his aggression. What should be the position of a libertarian of a neighbouring country? To support a government ban over arms sales abroad for the citizens’ safety? Or to prefer economic freedom at the cost of possible military or terror attacks? Thanks for the attention!

<< I am assuming that the country declaring war is one of the small libertarian countries mentioned above, against the aggressive bully and thus is in the right, here. Then, yes, in my opinion this country would be justified in prohibiting its citizens from selling arms to the bully country. Again, I answer not as an anarcho-capitalist, but as a limited government libertarian.

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9:15 pm on August 14, 2017