Author: Michael S. Rozeff

On June 15, 2017 the Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs, United States Department of State made public hitherto unreleased official documents of the government relating to Iran 1951-1954. These may be read online or downloaded. The Iran items run 1,007 pages in PDF format. I am grateful to Laurence T. May for this information. The documents include CIA briefings, nearly completely unredacted. They are arranged chronologically. The first document, February 23, 1951, is “Despatch From the Embassy in Iran to the Department of State”. Its subject is “THE POSITION OF THE SOVIETS IN IRAN”. This material shows … Continue reading →

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If Ron Paul were president, he would get the ball rolling immediately to abolish the CIA. That’s because he strongly disapproves of most of what the CIA does and has done in the past. He’d expend the time, energy and political costs to see the process through. He’d fight this fight with his heart in it. He’d take the risk. However, no president, including Trump, has decided to abolish the CIA or even broached the idea in public because each one has found the agency useful and/or each did not want to expend the political capital to abolish or drastically … Continue reading →

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The national security state is the enemy of America and Americans, not their protector, and that is why Trump should systematically kill it. Trump should attack the NSA, the FBI, and the CIA with the executive powers of running the government that he possesses. He should attack their supporters in Congress, Republican and Democrat, and attack their media allies. Trump should put the Pentagon and the military on notice that he, as Commander-in-Chief, will not prosecute permanent war across the globe for such vain excuses as anti-terrorism and democracy. Trump’s presidency is being attacked in force by the national security … Continue reading →

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What are nuclear weapons for? In four words: Deterrence, assurance, dissuasion and defeat. This is an answer given in 2007 by people on the U.S. side who were versed in these matters. If we apply their answer to N. Korea, we find that only one word really matters: Deterrence. Critical portions of what they said about deterrence is as true of N. Korea today as they emphasized was true of America ten years ago. I quote “…[deterrence] remains essential to national security, and nuclear weapons remain essential to effective deterrence. By helping to prevent war and the need to use … Continue reading →

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Carter Page is an FBI target of investigation, and he shouldn’t be. He has been under surveillance for years, and he shouldn’t be. The FBI’s reasons are his associations with Russians, built through business and financial matters, and his views on U.S. foreign policy toward Russia that are critical of U.S. foreign policy. On grounds like these, the FBI could build a case for spying on a large number of people looking to do business with Russians.  The FBI could also spy on many, many people in the pro-liberty and anti-empire camp who are critical of U.S. foreign policy: Justin … Continue reading →

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In their attempt to remove Trump from office, his critics charge that the 2016 election process was undemocratic, the implication being that Trump is holding office illegitimately and should resign or be removed. Is this charge true or false? The question to be raised and examined here is this: Was this election any different from any other election of an American president? Was it any more or less of a democratic process than any other such election? Is this election so tainted by undemocratic offenses that it should be ruled out of order? Or does this election share with its … Continue reading →

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Nation-building usually fails. It failed in at least 73% of cases in a study by James L. Payne that examined 51 instances of attempted nation-building in the past 150 years or so. This included 24 U.S. attempts and 27 British attempts. A study of 12 cases of U.S. interventions produced a similar finding: 4 success and 8 failures. The literature on nation-building is largely empirical, that is, a series of case studies. There are numerous factors, varying from case to case, that researchers have identified that they think explain the failures. Their methodology implies that if these factors are handled … Continue reading →

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Q. What is a non-partisan? A. Someone who is not committed to any political party. The non-partisan in theory can observe political events neutrally, whereas a partisan tends to view matters from a particular perspective. Q. Did you vote in the last American election. A. No, I did not. I didn’t contribute to any political party and I received no money from any political party. Q. Is a coup d’état occurring in Washington, D.C. at this time? A. Yes, a coup is being attempted. It is a non-traditional coup. There are no troops or armed masses converging on the White … Continue reading →

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A New York Times article says “The agency’s [FBI’s] investigation of Mr. Manafort began last spring as an outgrowth of a criminal investigation into his work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine and for the country’s former president, Viktor F. Yanukovych. It has focused on why he was in such close contact with Russian and Ukrainian intelligence officials.” Paul Manafort chaired Trump’s campaign. The poor guy just did not realize that he couldn’t even exchange pleasantries with anybody Russian. If you are not anti-Russian, then you must be pro-Russian. That’s how the nitwits in the U.S. intelligence agencies think. … Continue reading →

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If you (or a commentator or your political representative or an executive official) support entering into a war, is your support in accordance with a firm and accurate understanding of the war? Is the war a war that’s being initiated rationally? By rational, we mean the standard kinds of things: cogent, sensible, common sense, sound, judicious, prudent. I’m not asking if the war is just. I’m asking about considerations that precede that question. To be able to label some wars as unjust, it’s helpful to back up and ask if it’s meeting conditions of being rational. Indeed, if these considerations … Continue reading →

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Obama and his press secretary, Josh Earnest, are now leading the post-election campaign against Trump. That’s evident by their latest accusations and charges against Trump. They have made strong statements of supposed fact that are more extreme than anything they’ve said so far. Their statements are fake news, that is, suppositions that are presented as if they were known and true facts. They are like the lie that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and the lie that Gaddafi was springing a genocide on the Libyan people. The facts about who hacked or leaked e-mails from the DNC are … Continue reading →

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Where the state is, there is the power to tax; for rulers cannot rule without taxation. As Ludwig von Mises wrote: “The funds that a government spends for whatever purposes are levied by taxation.” Or as Murray Rothbard put it: “All state actions rest on the fundamental binary intervention of taxes.” Where the state is, there also is the growth of the state. Why does a state’s scope enlarge? One theory is that interest groups seek to use the state’s taxing power for their own benefit. I would like to suggest a complementary theory. When the power to tax is … Continue reading →

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General Joseph F. Dunford, Jr., who is the 19th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in July 2015 “My assessment today, is that Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security.” He said “If you want to talk about a nation that could pose an existential threat to the United States, I’d have to point to Russia. And if you look at their behavior, it’s nothing short of alarming.” In February of 2015, NATO Supreme Commander Philip Breedlove said “”Russia has chosen to be an adversary and poses a long-term existential threat to the United States and … Continue reading →

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Now that the election is over, libertarians can counsel the new president on positions and policies that they believe will create a better world. I doubt very much that counseling Hillary Clinton would have been a fruitful project had she been elected, but Donald Trump is a very different story. He has yet to translate his creative impulses and politics into hardened doctrines and policies. A useful political approach is to articulate general positions that have sound fundamentals and then to derive practical policies from them. They won’t please everyone and they will be imperfect. The practical policies will involve … Continue reading →

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The U.N. does many things that are wrong. Its setup and philosophy are fundamentally flawed, but its charter does contain some items that aim to lift the member states out of a Hobbesian state of nature, which is a war of all against all. One of these appears in Article 2, Paragraph 4: “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.” If this article were followed, it would help prevent … Continue reading →

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