Ignoring for the moment whether a state as such can have any rights at all (it can’t), we can ask: does a state have the right to “defend” itself against the people it subjugates?
Protecting Vested Interests
"There were and there will always be people whose selfish ambitions demand protection for vested interests and who hope to derive advantage from measures restricting competition. Entrepreneurs grown old and tired and the decadent heirs of people who succeeded in the...