U.S.-Zionist imperialism in the Middle East is far from coming to an end. The Hamas attack of October 7 on Israel triggered a highly murderous phase in the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The subsequent retaliation of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and their killing tens of thousands of innocents and continual provocations has elevated the possibility of a soon-to-come war between Israel and Iran, with the additional chance of involving the United States. To make matters worse, the American relationship with Israel in all these decades has made possible an unfortunate tolerance of the Gazan genocide to many conservatives.
The American ability to produce humanitarian disasters, either with NATO or the IDF, is anything but new, proving over and over again that freedom and human rights do not matter to the U.S. government, which has supported the slaughter of innocents in the Middle East or done the killing itself. Besides, the creation of many more millions of refugees has provoked social turmoil in several European countries suffering from subsidized immigration. And yet, all this is actually assisted by the political leadership of these European countries. Meanwhile, in the Russia-Ukraine war, every time the U.S. government and its allies help President Volodymyr Zelensky with arms and money, they contribute to the death of ever more people by fueling a war provoked by NATO.
The necessity of the state is undoubtedly one of the worst myths that still persists in the public mind. Who demands the manufacture of weapons capable of simultaneously killing thousands of people? Who forces or convinces thousands of people to dress in uniform and shoot others? Who builds military bases all over the world? These situations would be impossible without the state. While technology is always advancing, it begins as a neutral tool, and only becomes a factor when the state’s ends are mass weapons of war.
It’s because of ideology that wars in the past century have been more devastating and total than those of previous eras. These destructive ideas include democratic nationalism, the fiat-money system, the abandonment of old ways in warfare, and the increasingly disregarded methodological individualism embodied in the concept of justice. In reality, democratic nationalism became one of the most important causes of the real Hobbesian war of all against all manifested in World War II, which destroyed tranquility, subjected the national economy of several countries to the prerequisites of war, and annihilated the lives of millions. So it is certainly not enough for states to murder or oppress their own subject populations; indeed, which crimes do states pursue and punish most intensely in their own territorial monopolies? Economist Murray Rothbard responds:
“The gravest crimes in the State’s lexicon are almost invariably not invasions of person and property, but dangers to its own contentment: for example, treason, desertion of a soldier to the enemy, failure to register for the draft, conspiracy to overthrow the government.”
In the meantime, a new arms race came into being post-war. States competed in the development, innovation, and growth of their armies and weapons, qualitatively and quantitatively, making them more powerful and more effective. The race is materially based on the unique ability of states to externalize their costs. As inflation, taxation, and the manipulation of money and credit helps states, the richer they become, the easier it is to afford the race, which underpins the enrichment of the military-industrial complex and solidifies the preparation for war. And although not all states are involved with the same eagerness, all are involved by extension and definition in this arms race, equipping their military forces and purchasing on the global arms market. In fact, industries specializing in technology for mass destruction are established and thrive because states are their only financiers, diverting market resources to militaristic and warmongering initiatives. The military-industrial complex as we know it is not the result of free-market capitalism, but of statism—its intervention, its central banks, and so on.
Linked to the understanding of justice as an individual matter, private defense removes the need or diminishes incentives for military-sized weapons aimed at large destruction rather than individual execution. In the private world, where we have not yet forgotten how to live in peace, virtually no person or security company would ever consider the manufacture and use of highly destructive weapons. The need to avoid collateral damage, the concern for personal justice and defense, the search for profitability, and the private and voluntary financing of customers wanting to live in peace, happen naturally. Indeed, human tendency toward cooperation is so obvious that it suffices to realize that interpersonal conflict is actually rare and not a predominant feature of social life.
True, there will always be a global arms market, since defense and justice are not needs that appear with states, but exist independently. In reality, neither requires the existence of states. But unlike states, which do not compete or worry about the loss of voluntary customers, private security and justice services have incentives to be managed in a way that is not only economically profitable, but also peaceful. They cannot externalize the cost of their aggression or negligence as states do, nor do they have the legal means to systematically commit crimes and escape unscathed from the consequences or risks common among private individuals. Thus, private security and justice services lead people to care more about peace and the rights of others than is possible under statist terms.
The approach to justice and defense as an exclusively individual and private matter is precisely something that statism has no way of emulating. And given the normal non-isolated human coexistence, the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction must be considered an illegitimate endeavor even for defense, for the use of such weapons entails the inevitability of harming or killing innocents, which makes their existence intrinsically evil and illegitimate in the interest of justice.
Wars are initiated by small groups of men in expensive suits, eager for power and ill-gotten wealth, who often care nothing for their countrymen. Thus, anyone concerned with the cause of world peace should be aware of the unique and pernicious ability of states to externalize their costs in order to think of ways to counteract it. Hence, to serve the cause, it is necessary to unceasingly diminish the power and wealth of states to arm themselves and wage war. History illustrates what theory explains, and the cost in lives and resources offered by statism to promote peace is definitely the wrong way.
Additionally, it is essential to recognize the evil nature of power, advocate the dismantling of all states, and not be fooled by the collectivist ideology of national defense. One should reject the deterrence argument, which is a statist excuse for the counterproductive arms race, the perversion of weapons of mass destruction, and the immoral growth of the military-industrial complex.
For a more peaceful future, one should hope for all countries—especially the larger, wealthier and more militaristic-minded ones—to divide themselves into smaller units as much as possible, territorially and demographically, making the amount of funds needed for war increasingly unaffordable and challenged by populations ever closer to home. In short, one should support secession and radical political decentralization. And indeed, what would Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin have done with a tiny economy and population at their disposal? Certainly nothing compared to the events of World War II.
And regarding the start of this century, the denunciation of U.S.-Zionist imperialism, NATO, and of zionism itself is of utmost importance in this great cause for peace. Therefore, a person should denounce his national rulers when they show obedience and partisanship to any of the three. Moreover, apart from spreading the right ideas of freedom and justice, it is also vital to apply them correctly to the most significant issues of the present and the past. To be relevant, one should take sides, or at least try to do so, if only in opinion, by recognizing the legitimacy of various peoples to resist their conquerors or by identifying the degree of guilt for the death and destruction caused in wars by each state and the particular individuals involved. On this basis, historical revisionism is crucial to challenging the narrative of the statist status quo. Theory and history already allow us, without a doubt, to know who are today by far the greatest enemies of world peace.
If one believes in the duty to oppose the evil of statism that destroys the lives of millions, then, in the international scene, one should prioritize efforts in opposing the greatest enemies of peace.
