Fight for Formosa or Not?

February 6, 2025 by Murray N. Rothbard

[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.

But, Mr. Schlamm will say, the Communists “want the world.” Sure they do. No one denies this and no one denies that they are earnest and dedicated men. But what does this prove? Many people and many groups would like to run the world if given half a chance. The point is not what the Communists would like to do; the point is what they rationally can do.

What can the Russians or the Chinese do to us? Two facts should be clear. On the one hand, they could pulverize us with alphabet bombs and germ warfare, but at the certainty of being pulverized even more thoroughly themselves. On the other hand, they could not possibly invade and occupy the United States. Most military men will support these opinions. It should be obvious that we can be badly damaged, but only from the air.

It follows that the rational policy for Communists is to avoid any military attack on the United States. Only irrational leaders would want to destroy themselves and their subjects for the sake of destroying others.

As Philip Wylie said, “the Russians are as patient as an oyster making pearls.” They are quick tempered, and so far have shown more cunning than recklessness. Indeed, the foremost plank of Soviet foreign policy has always been defense, defense of the Socialist Motherland. Russia has never engaged in reckless warfare that might endanger the Homeland of Communism. Other countries might profit from her example!

The Communists are reinforced in their caution and rationality by their very dedication. For they are dedicated to Marxist-Leninist theory, which tells them that the coming of world communism is inevitable. Communist theory ordains that the workers of capitalist countries are bound to become Communists, revolt, and establish the millennium. Buoyed up by this “knowledge,” the Communists would be madmen indeed to risk self-destruction through modern total war.

Mr. Schlamm writes confidently about a “reasonable chance of victory.” What kind of “victory”? And victory for what? A “victory” with civilization destroyed irrevocably by alphabet bombs, germ warfare and other scientific horrors? A “victory” where the few Americans left alive are happy in the knowledge that a few less Russians and Chinese are left alive? Of course, I agree with Mr. Schlamm that all wars are bad, even wars fought with bows and arrows. But does he really see no difference between the unfortunate death of a few soldiers, and the total destruction of human civilization?

The facts of modern total war have also the following consequence: in days of old, those warlike fellows who thirsted for a showdown with the knight in the neighboring castle, could have their showdown without injuring the lives of civilians who wished to remain in peace.

But as war grows more terrible and more total, the consequence of war is the mass annihilation of countless millions who only wished to remain in peace. In the H-bomb age, the fellow who wishes to precipitate “showdowns” is bound to precipitate destruction of the millions of peaceful and innocent.

And this is precisely the point of the statement by the editors of Faith and Freedom in the March issue (page 21) that “Anyone who wants to aid Formosa by contributions or volunteering should be free to do so.” Precisely. General Chennault has called for American volunteers for a new edition of his Flying Tigers in the Formosan Air Force. I am happy to second this call, and to urge all the advocates of anti-Communist global crusading to join up. They would then be living according to their own principles.

In this connection, I am puzzled by Mr. Schlamm’s reasoning about conscription. I for one am against conscription any place, anywhere, anytime. I have never understood how anyone, much less any libertarian, could support the thesis that a man must be forced at gunpoint to defend himself or to defend someone else—and defend against what? Against being forced to do something at gunpoint!

A word about “isolationism.” Mr. Schlamm may be right when he says that many people upheld isolationism in 1940 on a narrow, balance-of-power basis. But some of us at least were isolationists on the grounds of high libertarian principle. “Isolationism” stands as a permanent principle, even though largely forgotten in the present-day world. It has never been better expounded than in the works of that great English libertarian Richard Cobden, and by such fellow spirits as John Bright and Sydney Smith.

I have for a long time been puzzled, incidentally, by the haste and impetuosity of the conservative-interventionists’ desire for a showdown. Why do all of them implicitly believe that time is on the side of communism? What can Mr. Schlamm mean when he says that communism is an “inherently expanding totalitarianism”? In human action there is no such thing as “inherent expansion”; there are only people who may or may not will such expansion.

In other words, why has communism expanded so much in recent years? There are only two possible explanations: (1) the rule of communism is being imposed by a minority onto a hostile anti-Communist populace; (2) the vast majority of the people in the Communist countries want communism. If the first is correct, then time is on our side and Mr. Schlamm has nothing to worry about. No rule can continue very long without at least passive support from the majority of productive people.

If the second possibility is true, then Mr. Schlamm proposes that we try to prevent people who want communism from getting it. I submit that this is an impossible and absurd task. Furthermore, if one is a libertarian he must believe that communism is a grossly inefficient economic system, and therefore that time is on the side of a free economy and its superior productive strength. The libertarian who understands economics faces a future of peace and competition with Communist systems in high confidence, and not in fear and recklessness.

Finally, Mr. Schlamm and the host of others who think as he does essentially conceive of communism as The Enemy. But the enemy is not Russian Communism, but communism, generic communism—the invasion of our liberties by the State. What matters whether tyrants wear brown shirts or green, whether they are earthy proletarians who sip tea at night, or striped-pants men with Harvard accents? In the domestic sphere, all libertarians are wise enough to reject the myth that we must give up freedom to obtain a spurious security. Must we, in the field of foreign policy, be more absurd and give up our freedom in order to “preserve” that freedom? What better example of the Hegelian-Orwellian dialectic: war is peace, freedom is slavery!

William Schlamm:

This time, with the editor’s gallant permission, I should like to discuss certain disturbing undercurrents in Faith and Freedom itself—undercurrent of an ill-tempered self-righteousness and a readiness to misrepresent the position of honorable men. I am referring, of course, to Faith and Freedom’s recent statements on our Formosa policy. And I concede that the enormity of the decisions involved could upset the emotional balance even of conscientious men. But Faith and Freedom operates under a very special covenant with truth; if even such a journal were allowed to claim dispensation from conscience, just because an issue is charged with a special historic weight, all would be lost. So I protest. I protest in the name of faith and of freedom and of all the supreme values that have bound us together in this venture.

What is the issue? The editors have stated it concisely in March, on page 21: “The trouble in the Formosa strait is forcing us to face up to the fact of life: there are bad men in the world…And we can’t get away from it, appease though we may. Wrong-doing will persist in its course until it lands on our doorstep. That is really what this is all about.” Indeed. And why don’t the editors tell their Washington correspondent? For this is what he wrote in March, on page 18: “Now why should the ‘liberals,’ who spent so much time trying to discredit Chiang, now want us to go to war to defend Chiang? The answer appears to be that war will bring on socialism faster than peace.”

What this answer appears to be is primarily spurious. And the editors knew this. For they noticed on page 20 of the same issue: “The Nation, long in the vanguard of the political left, suggests we give in to Red China. ‘If we want peace we must be prepared to pay the price for it. It is small enough weighted against the risks of our present policy.’”

In demonstrable truth, of course, there is not a “liberal” who would not agree with Aubrey Herbert’s [Rothbard’s] article in your March issue; and it is perfectly impossible that your well-read Mr. Herbert was not aware of this. Which does not necessarily mean that his position must be wrong; for sometimes even “liberals” and Socialists are right. But it means that your Washington correspondent, just to win a point in a stacked debate, was prepared to misrepresent the position of honorable men who, with the editors of Faith and Freedom, are facing up to the fact of life.

What are these facts? For one, do we agree that the Communists are in deadly earnest? They want the world; and they will settle for nothing less. If they can get the world without war, they will rejoice; if they must fight a war to get the world, they will fight a war. It’s that simple. The ultimate decisions of dedicated men have always been that simple. And the Communists are dedicated men. Yes, it is a profound tragedy of existence in history that Satan, too, can command man’s deepest devotions. (And the catastrophic climax of history may have been reached when all devotion aggregates on Satan’s side, while the professed soldiers of God drape their devotional exhaustion with lukewarm gentility.)

Another irrefutable fact is that the sinful horror of war—and not just atomic war. I have no sympathy, and can find no spiritual justification, for those whose conscience can robustly stand old-fashioned “glycerine bombs” but not the inflationary atomic effect. In moral arithmetic, the sum total of all conceivable human pain equals the pain a single human being can suffer. The rest is but the projected selfishness of modern man whose actuarial chances seem reduced in the tabulations of atomic warfare. In the face of the inherent sinfulness of war, man’s distressed conscience stands all alone. No one and nothing can help him but his faith. If his faith instructs him that serious evil must be resisted with dying and killing, he will kill and die in peace with his God. If his faith instructs him that he must accept the temporal triumph of evil, rather than kill, he will face the martyrdom of the defeated in peace with his conscience

But (and this is the third irrefutable fact) the choice is not between the horrors of war and the pleasures of peace. It is between the possible sin of violent resistance and the certain martyrdom of nonviolence. Both choices are terrifying, both are morally and rationally permissible. But morally and rationally un-permissible, it seems to me, is to sell nonviolence, not as the acceptance of fearsome martyrdom that it is, but as a practical policy of comfort. And this is precisely what Mr. Herbert, in seeking a privileged sanctuary behind the great MacArthur, is trying to do.

The admirable General, or so it seems to me, owes us an explanation what exactly he had in mind when he announced that “both sides can be trusted (with renouncing war) when both do profit.” Our side, presumably, would profit from an extension of its franchise to go on being what it is; namely, a free and comfortable society that minds its own business. By the same token, communism would profit from being uninhibitedly what it is; namely, an inherently expanding totalitarianism that minds our business. Until General MacArthur spoke up, there existed universal consensus that, because of the very nature of communism, the only feasible check on its rapacious forays was America’s believable readiness to use superior force against the further spread of communism. Once the use of force is renounced, only the miraculous conversion of the Communist strategists would stand between them and world conquest. Divine grace, to be sure, is infinite, and that conversion may happen. But if it is this what the General advised us to bet on, he should have said so. It would have been magnificent for an old soldier to return his professional license to his Maker (though there exist serious theological doubts whether the Lord can be deputized for strategic jobs). If, however, he had another stratagem in mind, he should have taken us into his confidence. Unless and until he does, his promise that “both sides will profit” is but another futile exercise in squaring the circle. And yet, with no other proof on hand than a MacArthur quotation, Mr. Herbert presents those who, with the unreformed General MacArthur, believe that there is no substitute for victory, as one part interventionist knaves and one part socialistic fools. Senator Knowland (and those who, as I do, think him right) might be wrong. But the fools-and-knaves pitch against them is singularly unconvincing

Nor would I advise you, dear editor, to bring out the fading strait jacket of “isolationism versus interventionism.” The natively isolationist American position of 1941 was altogether practical and rational; for it then could certainly be argued that a well-armed U.S. had little to fear from a totalitarian Germany that was locked in a fight-to-death with totalitarian Russia. But to speak of isolationism (or interventionism) makes sense only so long as there exists a reasonable doubt about the global intentions and the global prowess of the aggressive power. Do you, dear editor, have any such doubts in 1955? Has anybody?

If not, we all had better return, responsibly, to the alpha and omega of the tragic debate: are we to resist Communist expansion with military force, while reasonable men can still see a reasonable chance of victory; or do we prefer the martyrdom of surrender to sinful violence? And it will not serve our soul-searching to divert us to the peripheral problems of conscription, either. If military conscription is morally intolerable, it is just as intolerable in defense of California as in defense of Formosa. If, on the other hand, you are prepared to grant the Federal Government the right to draft my sluggish fellow-Vermonters for the defense of your obnoxious Wilshire Boulevard, you have implicitly conceded its right to draft them for the defense of any other spot that is vital to the survival of the U.S. The only relevant question then is the moral (and military) relevance of that spot.

To this question you will have to find a better answer than Mr. Herbert’s. Perhaps you will never find it. But in your search, I implore you, do not forfeit your franchise of truth for the comforts of self-righteous dialectics!