Some Thoughts on National Security in a Free Society

I want to live in a free society, and I find that militarism is incompatible with freedom. Powerful martial institutions are collectivist and socialist to the core, and they tend to grow and drain wealth from productive people. Humans tend to assess risk irrationally and appear willing to give up big chunks of liberty for security even where the risk is largely illusory. The Global War on Terror is an excellent example of irrationality. A miniscule risk that can be met with traditional law enforcement techniques is instead used to justify hundreds of billions of dollars in expenditures, curtailment of even the most basic freedoms, and the commission of atrocities.

That said, I am resigned to the idea that even a free society will have to have a defense establishment of some sort and that it is worth considering what kind of institutions could be deployed to provide defense while safeguarding freedom. Given the evident attractions of statism to some folks and given that a martial state may be willing and able to invade and oppress my free society, my free society must be prepared to defend its existence. At the same time, statist enemies within the free society must be thwarted in their statist aims, a substantial risk from this quarter being the abuse of the defense establishment itself.

The first line of defense is, of course, the peaceful nature of the free society. No other state should rationally be able to view the free society as a potential invader or attacker. An absolute commitment to principles of just war, to non-aggression and to noninterference by the free society should help to eliminate us as a legitimate target. The development of peaceful trading relationships will make the free society and its would-be enemies sufficiently interdependent to render war unprofitable.

That said, there may always be potential threats, and a free society with weak martial institutions may be vulnerable to a more militaristic state. The statists who are parasites on these countries may well view freedom as a dangerous ideology to be wiped out. How we meet such threats while avoiding the dangers of militarism is the challenge to be met by libertarians.

A number of features of the defense establishment in a free society suggest themselves:

§ Rational assessment of risk must be provided for by an intelligence system independent of the defense establishment.
§ Minimal standing forces should be maintained, if any, and voluntary militia should be the primary source of personnel. This will assure broad public participation and support for any undertaking and will help prevent adventurism.
§ Standing forces should be stationed in the homeland and not abroad. This will reduce adventures and provocations.
§ Defensive capabilities should take priority over offensive ones, and there should be an absolute commitment to defense under just war principles. Overseas aggressive action is where the militarists have the most wiggle room and where they can argue for more resources and power. At the same time, it is debatable that such overseas actions have any positive impact on security. In any event, any security gains are overridden by the increased threat from the military establishment itself.
§ All military undertakings should be subject to continuing review, and authorizations of funds should be limited to short durations. Active duty terms for militiamen should be of short duration.

These features are necessary, IMO, because my notion of national security includes security against an ever encroaching state and the assumption of power under the cover of national security. There are evidently enough parasites in our midst who presently feed at the national security trough that we should be rightly concerned about their motives and trustworthiness. These parasites are as great a threat to me and mine as any foreign nation or terrorist organization.