[Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the May/June 1955 issue of Faith and Freedom under Rothbard’s pseudonym, Aubrey Herbert. Rothbard is responding to an article by the Buckleyite conservative Willi Schlamm who advocates for military intervention against China. The Schlamm article is printed in full at the bottom of this page. Rothbard, of course, takes the opposite view of Schlamm, condemning preventive war, conscription, and Schlamm’s apparent desire to immediately resort to full-blown war. (Thanks to Joseph Solis-Mullen for finding and transcribing these articles.)]
The publication of Mr. Schlamm’s criticism is, I believe, a healthy development. For it reflects a deep-rooted split within the libertarian camp that badly needs airing and debate. It is a split on the most important tissue of our time: war or peace.
The core of Mr. Schlamm’s case rests on this dilemma: that we are faced with the terrible alternative of war or martyrdom. Either we must fight an alphabet-bomb war or we must bare our breasts to the advancing Red hordes. There is no other choice. The trouble with this simple alternative rests on an equally simple fact that Mr. Schlamm somehow overlooks: we haven’t been attacked.
Perhaps Mr. Schlamm believes that a Soviet or Chinese attack on New York or San Francisco is imminent. But unless he can prove that Soviet bombers have already begun their flight, he is actually advocating preventive war. “Preventive war” is the death-trap formula that has started wars throughout history. We must give thanks that the Soviets have not succumbed to the preventive war ideology.
This is a debate between a dyed-in-the-wool conservative and Rothbard, the quintessential libertarian over us defending Formosa (Taiwan). Rothbard says not to defend because we lose too much in doing it the way the conservative wants to do it. Also, Rothbard says that, people being rational and, in the case of the communists, patient, there is no need to defend by preemptive war because they believe that given time all capitalists will convert to communism. This is an interesting argument, where you get to see both sides of it.