In the years since I abandoned my status as a typical neoconservative chicken hawk and adopted Old Right non-interventionism, I’ve been somewhat uneasy with much of the movement’s rhetoric. Specifically, I often find much of the anti-war Right a little too reminiscent of the anti-war Left. That is, many anti-war conservatives and libertarians expend a great number of keystrokes lamenting the American war machine’s innocent foreign victims (see Chronicles
or LewRockwell.com just about any day of the week for examples). This is often my own preferred argument. My concern is that this kind of rhetoric does little to grow the non-interventionist movement’s ranks. …

Although their message is utterly vacuous, the Limbaughs, Hannitys, and Levins know exactly how to frame their arguments in a way that appeals to the GOP base. It’s time for more doves on the Right to learn to do the same.

But, of course, we do make coldly consequentialist, self-interested arguments
against militarism, war, and empire. We also make arguments on moral grounds, from a number of different starting points (including conservative Christianity, which I hear this GOP base is really into). Why make this an either/or matter? Why should we drop half (or more) of our arguments when they don’t conflict with the other half? (There are various types of “humanitarianism” that do conflict with non-interventionism, but we avoid those, so no problem there.)

As for learning from Limbaugh and Levin, please. I know their audience. I was born into it. If I ever write a political memoir, I’ll name it Up From Hannity. There is a Reasonable Right worth reaching out to, but it ain’t in talk radio. These people “think very little about foreign policy,” as Hawley puts it, not out of apathy, but on principle, because thinking leads to questioning, and questioning is a mere Bic flick away from flag-burning, bin Laden, buggery, and Buddhism. The funny thing is, the warbots are not allergic to “humanitarian, we-are-the-world gobbledygook” – in fact, they devour it when it’s in the service of American imperialism. Anyone who watches Fox News knows how quickly right-wingers can pivot from “kill ‘em all” to “aww, purple fingers!” The problem is not that peaceniks have tried the wrong arguments on them; they will accept any argument, no matter how heterodox it appears on its face, so long as it reaches the correct conclusion, roughly summarized here. But any argument that reaches a different conclusion, no matter how consonant it is with “conservative values” such as traditionalism, small government, fiscal responsibility, or national sovereignty, doesn’t stand a chance with that crowd.

Lamenting the suffering created by harsh economic sanctions and bombing campaigns is a good way for non-interventionist right-wingers to suck up to their leftist friends and colleagues, but so what? The people moved by such arguments are already anti-war. Building a powerful anti-war coalition on the Right will require an entirely different rhetoric. At all costs it must avoid sounding like Code Pink.

This ignores the salvageable, non-Rush Right, whom we do address, and it seems a little confused about the purposes of advocacy. Not all arguments are about convincing someone to switch sides. Often, it’s more important to get those who agree with you on an issue to care more about that issue, in both absolute and relative terms. For instance, much of our commentary since January has been aimed at convincing our lefty readers that they shouldn’t surrender peace and civil liberties for the various goodies Obama has promised them. We’re always trying to make people rethink their priorities, or merely come out of the closet. Even after a majority of Americans soured on the Iraq war, most remained sheepish, even silent, in their opposition, revealing it only to pollsters. Part of our job is to get people fired up, to translate their dissatisfaction into action of some sort. And you know what? Moral arguments are often good motivators, even for people whose default modes of analysis are amoral.

Luckily, we already have a pretty good format that has worked pretty well in America’s Red regions, and can be applied to the cause of peace. There is a certain ethos that characterizes a great number of ordinary Republicans – or at least the ordinary Republicans with whom I prefer to spend my time. For the lack of a better term, I will call this frame of mind, “Who-Gives-a-Damn? Conservatism.” This is the type of thinking that leads to support for standard GOP policies, but not for particularly-sophisticated reasons. I have no doubt that a great number of grassroots Republicans oppose ideas like universal health care and more federal spending on public schools because they understand, and find compelling, conservative and libertarian arguments about the utility of such policies. I suspect much of the opposition to these schemes, however, is based on a more primal emotion. That is, a lot of people don’t like Big Government because they don’t want to pay for it and don’t really care about the people it is supposed to help.

If you think most self-described conservatives really hate Big Government,
then you stopped paying attention sometime around, oh, the Nixon administration. Good God, man, if they hated Big Government, wouldn’t they at least dislike the most wasteful and intrusive government programs of them all, from the War on Terror to the War on Drugs? No, they love Big Government, from its big, fat boots to its big, fat head. Oh, they’re angry that some of the loot falls on the, um… undeserving, but that won’t stop them from sucking the teats of Social Security and Medicare to the shape and texture of a deflated football. They won’t abide tax increases, but they see no connection between those and deficit spending. And why should they? Just keep those F-22s coming, barkeep! The grandkids are buying!

I do agree with this part completely:

The neocons’ democratist ideology should be treated as just another example of fuzzy-headed utopianism. Bringing “liberal democracy” and “democratic capitalism” to the entire world should be added to the category of ridiculous, never-going-to-happen ideas. The best argument against the neocons is that they are delusional. They are the eggheads dreaming up sentimental, utopian schemes, not us.

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Nonetheless, we will gain nothing from adopting the language and posture of the neocons and their fellow travelers. Non-interventionism’s only “tough-guy problem” is the widespread attachment to a mindset derived entirely from dumbass action flicks, which are about as useful a guide for foreign policy as romantic comedies are for romance.

In other breaking news, $900 billion has been spent destroying offices, kiosks, stores, cars, refineries, infrastructure and killing approximately one million employees of Arab-based enterprises.

But those were all terrorists and terrorist training facilities, right?

See also: Isn’t war good for the economy?
That is the Sound of Money Exploding
Military Handouts and Financial Aid in Africa
A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money

Worried that the US may not find any war(s) big enough to do the trick again?

Well turn that frown upside down because I have good news and great news!

First, the good news. There are still several active wars and armed conflicts across the globe. War torn regions need rebuilding. Rebuilding creates jobs. Jobs need funding. Funding requires spending. Which brings us to…

The great news! Secretary Gates is asking for an additional $83 billion to fund these stimulating wars through 2009. This is on top of the $612 billion defense spending for 2009.

Heroic. Stimulative!

Economist Paul Krugman was disappointed that the ARRA was a mindlessly frugal $787 billion, so with any luck, more wealth creating police actions will take place in the coming months.

And by hook or crook, we’ll ultimately be able to surpass that lofty WW II mark sooner rather than later.

Have you thought about boosting it with some nitroglycerin-filled firepower?

Bloomberg is reporting that Raytheon not only turned a profit but beat analyst estimates.  This is great news for the defense industry which only received a nominal increase in new appropriations for FY 2009, $711 billion altogether.

That’s just barely more than the banking establishment received three weeks ago.  For shame, right?

At least we know the monies spent by the military aren’t going to politically connected fat cats and are used to develop productive, multi-use equipment that can be used in peacetime.  Like APC’s which can double as school buses and farm tractors.  And mortar cannons which not only scare away pesky birds but plant seeds in those hard to reach places.

What would we ever do if these innovative enterprises ever fell on tough times?  Back to the stone age for sure.

See also: Credit is Flowing, Sky is not Falling, Don’t Panic
How about banning tanks, jet fighters and submarines?
Do as we say, not as we do: gasoline edition
The Trillion-Dollar Defense Budget is Already Here
The Bailout Reader

This is ironic in part because the US military is a large player in the oil economy.  If the US military was a country it would be the worlds 38th largest consumer of oil.  Yet despite its large appetite and soaring crude prices, its operations will continue unabated.

Every year untold quantities of jet fuel are dumped into the ocean by Naval aircraft prior to landing due to weight restrictions.  Main battle tanks are notorious gas hogs, with a thirsty M1 Abrams getting about .56 mpg.  The Humvee doesn’t fare much better, cruising at 4 mpg in the city, or 8 mpg on highways.  And according to SDUT, “an F-16 warplane consumes more fuel in one hour than an average car does in two years.”

Plus, threatening to attack the petroleum infrastructure of another country would certainly not help conserve gas and energy — even if someone plans to siphon the crude off the killing fields.

See also: US military oil pains
The US military oil consumption
How about banning tanks, jet fighters and submarines?

For those interested in the 24-hour breakdown per country, the Mozilla team put together an interactive global map that allows you to see how many times FF was downloaded in each country.

With over 7 million downloads in 10 different languages, this map can serve as a rough guide for tech generalizations.

Unsurprisingly regions gripped with central planning and socialism rank at the very bottom. For instance, North Korea has had a grand total of zero downloads (due primarily to the fact that only one internet cafe exists in the entire country, personal computers are verboten and all communication is heavily regulated and censored).

On the other end of the spectrum most of the industrialized world and West are nearly ranked according to their respective GDPs, with America, Germany and Japan taking the top 3 spots.

And while there all sorts of odd numbers to be gleaned (like itty bitty Singapore flying equal with its significantly larger neighbors), the numbers within the Middle East are striking. As of this writing:

Iran: 208,215
Saudi Arabia: 7,412
Kuwait: 1,962
Qatar: 1,265
Iraq: 235

Of course, it could be argued that the numbers are skewed because the same user may be downloading multiple copies, but there doesn’t seem to be much evidence of a nationalistic push to compete in the FF3 Download Olympics (USA! USA!).

Much more could be written about ratios comparing total population with FF3 downloads or total amount of households with internet access with FF3 downloads. However, considering that even Iraq’s smallest peer speaks the same language, I think it is safe to say that the Arabic language is not a limiting factor, nor are time zones.

Rather, it is yet another footnote in the costs of occupation. Who is to blame for destroying the infrastructure and failing to rebuild it to even pre-war levels. (Here are some contemporary numbers from IWS)

Unfortunately, even with all of the neato features in this latest FF version, Iraqis don’t have the wonderful opportunity to worry about automated malware protection when basic services like electricity and running water are still unavailable (you know they actually have had to ration oil-products there too, right?). Maybe the numbers will jump after another few surges.

Legitimate milestone, maybe not. But it is difficult to see how another 5 years of occupation and enhanced interrogation will make the 4.0 release for Iraq any more popular. Maybe additional waterboarding will motivate them.

[Cross-posted to Mises.org]

Arguably the fairest solution would be to have simply returned the money to the original taxpayers thereby removing the incentive for the Fed to expand the credit supply to fund the current war.

However, regarding a hypothetical mission to Mars, at the very least none of the astro guys would be kinetically detonating onto population centers.

An entire region of the globe comprising a billion people wouldn’t be annoyed with the West for lofting 500 rocket scientists onto a barren rock. The same can’t be said for 500 pound bombs.

See also: The Broken Window Fallacy and Can the Future Do Without Economic Logic?

However, forty years later, it should be updated to read a trillion here and there. For instance, one of the articles highlighted in the Viewpoints section today details the ever expanding blackhole that is the accounting system(s) used by the Defense of Defense: “The Pentagon’s $1 Trillion Problem.”

It is arguably a depressing piece if for no other reason than to serve as a sobering update to a 3-year-old SFGate report, “Military waste under fire – $1 trillion missing.”

While the details of either investigation may not surprise the readers of AWC, the fact that these problems not only continue but geometrically grow could arguably serve as yet another empirical case-study of how socialism cannot calculate. The military, a bastion for the purest form of socialism, has neither the incentive, the knowledge, nor the ability to price goods and services — let alone produce accurate records of its own nefarious activities.

In many cases it is the sole consumer of vehicles and armaments whose existence is entirely alien to the market-based world that must satisfy wants and needs by providing useful and productive services to potential customers.

And in other instances its insatiable appetite distorts the market-clearing price for commonly used goods such as oil.

Even if a unified, common accounting system was implemented, institutional inertia comprised by secret committees, kleptocratic planners, and politically-controlled technocrats will perpetually fail to coordinate a Byzantine bureaucracy that inherently cannot communicate or calculate.

And there is little reason to believe that the engine for state growth – the health of the state – will be muted or diminished in the coming decades.

See also: Socialism, by Ludwig von Mises
The Security-Industrial-Congressional Complex, by Robert Higgs