Joseph Solis-Mullen | The Libertarian Institute

Airstrikes in Nigeria and the Wider Failure of Washington’s Africa Policy

by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Jan 15, 2026 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

Recent U.S. missile strikes in northwest Nigeria, ordered by President Donald Trump on Christmas Day 2025, were heralded by the administration as a decisive blow against ISIS-linked militants persecuting Christians. Yet, as investigative reporting has revealed, the operation was marred by technical failures, questionable intelligence, and dubious strategic value—exemplifying the pitfalls of America's overreliance on military intervention in Africa. At least four of the sixteen Tomahawk missiles failed to detonate, landing unexploded in fields and near civilian areas, according to Nigerian...

War and the Making of the American State in the 20th Century

by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Jan 14, 2026 | Uncategorized

Introduction: From the trenches of the Western Front to the jungles of Vietnam and the geopolitical standoff of the Cold War, the 20th century transformed the United States through a succession of conflicts whose effects reshaped nearly every dimension of American life. Military history did not merely accompany the development of modern America: it drove it. Charles Tilly’s well-known dictum—“war made the state and the state made war”—captures the essence of the American experience: the United States amassed unprecedented administrative, fiscal, and coercive capacities through wartime...

War and the Growth of the American State in the 19th Century

by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Jan 11, 2026 | Uncategorized

War and the Making of the American State in the 19th CenturyIntroduction:From the colonial frontier to the battlefields of Gettysburg, war has been both a crucible and a mirror for the American experiment. Historians from Charles Tilly to Allan Millett have long emphasized the centrality of warfare in the formation of modern states, arguing that “war made the state and the state made war.” Yet, in the American case, this process unfolded within a republican framework that ostensibly distrusted standing armies and centralized power. The tension between libertarian ideals and the exigencies of...

The Year Ahead in Sino-American Relations

by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Jan 8, 2026 | Economics, Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

From trade frictions to security flashpoints, the new year ahead promises a mix of continuity and potential volatility in U.S.-China relations. While Beijing’s growth in relative power—economic, technological, and military—continues, it is not aimed at “taking over the world.” Instead, it reflects a pragmatic pursuit of stability and influence in Asia. Washington would benefit from strategic empathy, recognizing China’s core concerns to avoid counterproductive escalations that could harm both nations in the long-term. With that said, here’s what to be on the lookout for in Sino-American...

DOGE’s Demise: A Predictable Post-Mortem

by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Dec 31, 2025 | Featured Articles

As 2025 draws to a close, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—the much-hyped initiative led initially by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy—has quietly disbanded, eight months ahead of its scheduled sunset in July 2026. What began with bold promises of $1-2 trillion in annual spending cuts has ended not with a bang, but with a whimper: federal outlays reached approximately $7 trillion in fiscal year 2025, up from prior years, while the deficit held steady at around $1.8 trillion. No structural reforms to entitlements, no meaningful dent in the debt trajectory—all sadly predictable and,...

Smashing the ‘Roosevelt Myth’

by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Dec 18, 2025 | Book Reviews, Featured Articles

David T. Beito’s FDR: A New Political Life offers a bracing, deeply researched, and welcome reassessment of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, one that decisively breaks with the hagiographic tradition that has dominated twentieth century American historiography. The book’s central thesis is clear and consistently sustained: far from being a reluctant savior who rescued the nation from economic collapse and foreign aggression, Roosevelt was a highly ambitious political operator whose domestic and wartime policies entrenched executive power, prolonged economic dislocation, eroded civil liberties, and...

Trump’s National Security Strategy Breaks with Hegemony—But Not with Militarism

by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Dec 11, 2025 | Featured Articles, Foreign Policy

The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy of the United States of America, published last week, presents itself as a decisive break from the bipartisan foreign policy consensus that has shaped Washington’s posture since the end of the Cold War. In some respects, it is exactly that. The document repeatedly denounces the “laundry lists of wishes” and vague universalism of earlier strategies and takes aim at what it calls the “fundamentally undesirable and impossible goal” of permanent American global dominance. It argues instead for a narrower, interest-driven agenda grounded in...

The Ghost of Inflation Past, Present, and Future

by Joseph Solis-Mullen | Dec 4, 2025 | Economics, Featured Articles

Austrians are used to being called cranks. Point out that inflation is a hidden tax, that monetary expansion distorts the structure of production, or that fiat currency erodes living standards in ways far subtler than headline Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers ever reveal, and you’ll be met with the familiar eye-roll. Critics insist that inflation is modest, that wages keep up over the long run, that monetary debasement is nothing to worry about so long as “aggregate demand” is maintained. But numbers—and history—tell a far darker story. Since the United States formally severed the last tie...

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