Foreign Policy & War

A Republic, Not an Empire

by Sheldon Richman May 1, 2001

Predictably, the key lesson of the recent China incident has not been learned. That lesson is this: America was designed as a republic and should not act like an empire. When it does act that way, the American people, not to mention the people in other countries, suffer. Why does the U.S. government need to send spy ...

America’s Imperialism

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 2, 2001

Perhaps the release of the U.S. pilots who were spying on China will cause the American people to reevaluate the U.S. government's foreign policy. For decades, the U.S. government has stood for empire, extending its military domain and supervision over much of the globe, much as the Roman empire did in its day. The empire ...

Powell Praises Castro

by Jacob G. Hornberger April 2, 2001

The Associated Press reported that in response to questioning at a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Secretary of State Colin Powell said that Fidel Castro has "done some good things for his people." Powell was referring to Castro's two proudest socialist accomplishments -- public schooling and national health care. With Powell's boss, President George W. ...

FDR — The Man, the Leader, the Legacy, Part 12

by Ralph Raico April 1, 2001

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Table of Contents In granting official diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union ...

The Continuing War With Iraq

by Jacob G. Hornberger March 1, 2001

A few weeks ago, under the leadership of President Bush, U.S. military forces again dropped bombs on the people of Iraq, purportedly to maintain strict control over the 10-year-old "no-fly zone" in Iraq. A couple of days ago, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell announced his support for easing the ...

FDR — The Man, the Leader, the Legacy, Part 11

by Ralph Raico February 1, 2001

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Table of Contents It would be a mistake to think that the ...

Clinton’s Kosovo Frauds

by James Bovard January 1, 2001

AS AMERICANS DEBATE what President Clinton’s legacy should be, too little attention is given to his remarks on Kosovo. The United States launched a war against a European nation largely at Clinton’s behest. Clinton’s war against Serbia epitomized his moralism, his arrogance, his refusal to respect law, and his fixation on proving his virtue ...

Market Liberalism, International Order, and World Peace, Part 2

by Richard M. Ebeling December 1, 2000

Part 1 | Part 2 In 1952 ,free-market economist Michael A. Heilperin delivered a lecture entitled “An Economist’s Views on International Organization.” He told his audience, It is an elementary, but often forgotten, knowledge that policies of national governments have always been the principle obstacle to economic relations between people living in various countries, and that whenever these relations ...

Legal Tender and the Civil War

by Jacob G. Hornberger November 1, 2000

FACED WITH A LACK of Northern enthusiasm for his war against the South, President Lincoln resorted to drastic means to finance his war effort. If Lincoln had resorted to a traditional method of government finance — taxation — he knew that he might be faced with tax riots among the people of the North. And he knew that if ...

Market Liberalism, International Order, and World Peace, Part 1

by Richard M. Ebeling November 1, 2000

Part 1 | Part 2 In this Post–Cold War epoch the world is desperately searching for international order, global peace, and general economic prosperity. The great debate going on around the world is whether these desired goals can be attained through the existing system of national sovereignty or whether they require the establishment of international political organizations with the ...

The Civil War and the American Mind

by Sheldon Richman November 1, 2000

THE CIVIL WAR and its militaristic effect on American society had important consequences for the nationalist collectivization of America that occurred in the following decades. It encouraged collectivist intellectuals to vigorously promote their reform visions and it won thinkers to the collectivist cause. It even convinced ...

War, Peace, and Bill Clinton

by Sheldon Richman October 1, 2000

SURVEYING THE HISTORY of England in The Rights of Man, Thomas Paine noted that “a bystander, not blinded by prejudice nor warped by interest, would declare that taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes.” The United States government ...