(From Murray Rothbard’s talk at the Mises
Institute’s Cost of War Conference) First, Rothbard lost credibility
with me when he started spouting off about natural law (and without any
justification for said law). He enumerated the virtues of the old brand
of international law, that proposed by the Catholic Scholastics of
Renaissance Europe which provided for rules of war to govern states.
These rules, such as the respect of neutrality, the ideal of
non-intervention, and the non-involvement of civilians
were respectable and designed to keep battles between two kings between
them only. Great and grand, no doubt, but when were battles ever fought
solely between kings without the aid of conscripted soldiers? Further,
how does the application of these rules have anything to do with
intervention in a country such as