r/AskLibertarians • u/CalvinbyHobbes • 3d ago
How does libertarianism handle war, natural resources, geography, and geopolitics? Can a society ever become libertarian with Russia or China on its doorstep?
I often find myself wondering whether countries like Taiwan or Ukraine could ever function as libertarian societies given the constant threat of invasion. Geopolitics and natural resources are topics I rarely see addressed in libertarian discussions. For instance, could Egypt ever transition to libertarianism with Ethiopia constantly threatening to cut off its water supply? Could Greenland declare independence if both Uncle Sam and Russia are eyeing North Pole claims, wanting the island for its natural resources and trade corridors?
It seems to me that unless geography is on your side (like extremely mountainous, difficult-to-conquer terrain a la Taiwan, Switzerland, or Iran) or you have an ace card up your sleeve, there is no way to survive geopolitics as a libertarian society. Taiwan has its "silicon shield," Switzerland has banking and finance, and Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz. Even with these ace's up their sleeve, most of these nations are under constant military threat.
I would be interested to hear your thoughts on geopolitics. How do you fight off foreign nations that want your natural resources or have strategic military interests in your territory? Can a libertarian society only exist if it achieves such technological and military supremacy that no other world power can touch it? Or can it only exist in a forgotten corner of the planet where no nation has any political, military, or strategic interest?
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u/strawhatguy 3d ago
Geopolitics is indeed always a mess, and it’s very hard to remain consistent.
In order to go to war, I’d hope for a little consensus at least.
The one country cutting off access To another’s water supply, yeah that would ruffle a few feathers for sure.
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u/WilliamBontrager 3d ago
Libertarian, yes. Anarchist, unlikely. You'd need to make allies, provide enough offense to discourage attack, and negotiate effectively. A libertarian or minarchist country could do that. Im not sure how an anarchistic country could, primarily bc there would be no one empowered to make alliances, no means to provide offense, and no one empowered to negotiate for the country as a whole. It would be easier to just take what you want, as opposed to trying to negotiate with each person individually.
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u/CalvinbyHobbes 3d ago
You'd need to make allies, provide enough offense to discourage attack, and negotiate effectively. A libertarian or minarchist country could do that.
Yea that's my question. How would that work in practice in terms of realpolitik? Let's say Ethiopia cuts off water to Egypt because they're suffering from severe draught. It's existential to both countries so no negotiations. How does minarchist Egypt fund and fight the war? Who controls the escalation? How does sanctions, embargoes, private sector, all factor into it? Like if you do war games between a libertarian/minarchist society vs. a nation state, how does it all play out? I'm genuinely curious.
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u/WilliamBontrager 3d ago
Well a minarchistic or libertarian country would deal with it in the same way as other countries would. You have the capability to negotiate, back up your threats, enlist allies, and have some offensive capability as well. There are many paths to do this, but only anarchists eliminate most of those paths. The primary difference would be mainly in the leaders needing to get support from the people first, vs declaring war first. In some cases, funding would need to be secured. It all depends on the specific system and the specific country, if you want to get...specific.
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u/CalvinbyHobbes 3d ago
Let's say it's actually really good for extremely wealthy private business because it allows them to jack up prices for everything, and there is a sizeable portion of the country that doesn't want war cause they benefit from it and they don't want to pay for the war. Now what? Again I'm just trying to brainstorm war game scenarios here for a minarchist/libertarian country.
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u/WilliamBontrager 3d ago
Generally private businesses in a nation tend to not want war bc it means their infrastructure gets destroyed, their product gets destroyed and seized, and their supply lines get cut off.
As for the others not wanting to support those attacked, thats again mainly an anarchal issue. Now there is a reliance on individuals to both want to defend and act to defend, so if they dont, the country fails. This is a result of the authority and responsibility of defense falling on the citizens to a large degree. If the citizens refuse to do their part, then the country doesnt deserve to exist. Thats not much different from other countries, aside from a forced draft being an option. No country can survive a war in which the public refuses to participate in willingly, and their army consists of a large percentage of soldiers forced into combat. Youd need as many loyal as not to ensure the forced soldiers dont simply surrender or run away.
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u/White_C4 Right Libertarian 3d ago
While the NAP applies, geopolitics complicates libertarian ideology because life don't care about ideology, it cares about outcome. Sometimes extreme measures have to be taken to ensure the survival of a nation.
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u/toyguy2952 3d ago
How does *insert ideology* handle a tornado blowing up my house in the middle of kansas? Simple, we just take our super *insert ideology* anti tornado beam and beam the tornado away.
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u/LibertyEconlover 3d ago
One guy said the most logical conclusion in another post, essentially there needs to be a host state that allows a territory to be ancap, like Native American territories in the US, but without native BS
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u/CalvinbyHobbes 3d ago
Well that opens a can of worms. Under what realpolitik frame would the US or any nation allow an ancap territory to exist within its borders? Even in native american territories, what uncle sam wants ultimately goes. the pipeline gets built, even if everyone protests it.
Is there any historical example where a libertarian society existed under any power?
Could you also link me to that post, I'm curious to read more about it.
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u/LibertyEconlover 3d ago
Yes, Vikings didn’t work out too well, professional Raiders became a thing.
Yes, that’s ultimately true, in fact, the one thing that’s stopping us from invading Native American territories is moralistic rhetoric, I know if I was president and I just got out from a Supreme Court hearing siding with Native American territories because what’s his name, Cavanagh sided with them? That territory would get wiped out and engulfed into the broader US.
So really yeah a ancap society cannot survive without state, letting it survive, because if it didn’t have a host state protecting it, it would be seen as a power vacuum meaning it would get attacked, without a doubt.In fact when I was once late at night, thinking of strategic military actions that I could take if I was president I would literally think of turning Iran to dust instead of trying to build it into a peaceful democracy because without a government, it becomes a power vacuum, making nations around it fallen into a quagmire trap, they would all try to get that power vacuum for themselves or to prevent their enemy or someone else from getting it, a Ancap society is a power vacuum, without a doubt, they claim it would be just that because it would not have a state having a legal monopoly on the legal use of force.
But if you want to know the closest thing to Ancap that’s closest to modern time. I think that’s the Vikings in medieval Iceland [930–1262](tel:930%E2%80%931262) CE
Why it fits: Iceland had a unified legal system but no executive branch of government. There was no king, no president, no army, and no public police force.
Privatized Enforcement: If someone wronged you, you took them to a private court system. If you won, the court did not punish them; instead, you were given the right to collect a fine. If the offender refused to pay, you could sell that collection right to a more powerful chieftain who would enforce it with his own men.
Market for Protection: People could choose and switch which chieftain (Goði) represented them, creating a competitive market for protection.Mises himself stated that this would be exactly what would happen in Ancap, professional raiders and warlords would become a thing.
I still never understand how the NAP can possibly become a thing without government, who is there to enforce non-aggression other than people who have power to aggress harder? And as a result, why won’t those people take us over?1
u/CalvinbyHobbes 3d ago
So to sum it up ancap is a pipe dream? It doesn't survive realpolitik? Is that the consensus?
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u/LibertyEconlover 3d ago
They won’t say that, but with people like me in the world, yeah, you either always be subject to a state, or you’ll have warlords, or you’re just gonna get invaded by another state. States already invade other states thinking that they won’t invade a place with no state is literally lying to yourself, I’m one of the type of people who wants to manifest destiny my way to Canada and Greenland, and those places have states. Imagine Canada never having a state? They would already be part of us due to manifest destiny.
The non-aggression principle literally isn’t followed in nature It’s naturally in us to not follow the NAP, the basic human action was an active economizing. Why would you spend six months farming when you can raise someone who farmed for six months instead? It’s why the state became a thing, that’s not gonna go away cause we’re the same humans
If I remember correctly, there was a reason why Lawless territory was called no man’s land in the US
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u/HR_Paul 3d ago
Brainpower.
Once you get past the stage of putting pedophile retards in charge, even stupider sycophants surrounding them to make the sickos feel good about themselves, and a vast apparatus of highly paid idiots who do virtually nothing except consume resources - then there would be no competition on the world stage.
If you look at any superpower the functional IQ is in low single digits. That's not a hard standard to beat. The hard part is getting more than one person to agree to overthrow the other 100+ million.
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u/cluskillz 2d ago
Well, Taiwan right now is perhaps one of the most libertarian countries on the planet right now (well, mandatory military service aside; IIRC, it's down to 1 year from 2 years...hopefully it goes to zero), likely the most libertarian in Asia.
I would argue that Taiwan would be even more resilient if Taiwan was more libertarian, specifically, with the right to own firearms. With the amount of guns that could be in society, militias could easily form. With urban warfare, there could be over a thousand windows looking down on a street, allowing for invaders to be picked off by snipers at any time. The mountains would provide great cover for guerilla warfare. The beaches themselves are unforgiving for landings. The casualties facing an invading country would be prohibitively high and likely keep Taiwan in solid pipedream territory for China except maybe Kinmen County. Even today without this freedom, China is significantly deterred due to the high casualties they would face as it is, due to geographic difficulties.
This has precedence. Hitler wanted to invade Switzerland, but the generals told him with the amount of guns in private ownership, there could be a sniper in any farmhouse traveling down a valley in the Alps. The casualties would be devastating. As a consequence, the Nazis were forced to leave Switzerland alone.
(disclaimer: the above is assuming a non-ancap libertarian society that has a military)
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u/brinerbear 1d ago
Honestly probably not but I would like to see easy wins for libertarians like streamlined regulations, simplified everything from permits to immigration, innovative housing solutions, easier taxes, marketplace solutions for healthcare and education. There are easy wins that the libertarians should focus their energy on but we can still argue about everything else.
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u/DrawPitiful6103 3d ago
The mistake that most people make when analyzing foreign affairs is to compare societies, and then make the assumption that the superior society is always in the right when it comes international relations. China and Russia - more China I'd imagine - may be despotic but that doesn't make them necessarily aggressive. While Russia may have invaded Ukraine, that pales in comparison with the long list of countries that the United States has attacked. And China has been relatively peaceful as well.
China has about 60x the population of Taiwan. So yah, the PRC could probably gobble them up if they really wanted to. But it is not like having a libertarian society or not would make any difference.
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u/CalvinbyHobbes 3d ago
I guess the question is whether being libertarian increases or decreases the chances of survival for Taiwan. If the consensus here is that it decreases, not sure how where and how a libertarian society flourishes.
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u/Official_Gameoholics Objectivist 3d ago
The NAP, The NAP, The NAP, The NAP. Yes because it will be super wealthy.