The Tuttle Twit? Twenty Years of Connor Boyack Misunderstanding Preemptive War

        I first encountered Connor Boyack nearly twenty years ago. His writing reflected a familiar libertarian style. It was confident, combative, and heavy on slogans while light on careful definitions. Since then, he has become a successful children's book author and largely scrubbed his old website, but a recent "Musing" sounded strikingly familiar.

        After tracking down the original article he tried to erase, I discovered that, despite two being nearly twenty years old, Boyack is still relying on the same flawed talking points against preemptive war.[1]

        Below is a checklist of the arguments he made then and is still making now. I've included timestamps from his recent video to show just how little has changed. While some of this post revisits earlier research, my primary goal is to demonstrate how much relevant scholarship and little thought Boyack has engaged with and shown over the last twenty years:

Bad Definition (14:38)

Massive network of spies (14:45)

Perfunctory shout out to Just War and catch phrases without understanding key terms. Incorrectly treats preemption as incompatible with Just War theory.(15:07)

Severely out of context Eisenhower (15:17)

Cherry picked first presidency statement on “law of the jungle” (15:41)

Contextualizes the war chapters to exclude them (He didn’t repeat this point in his musings, he simply ignored the war chapters this time.)

Inappropriate use of terrorist (18:08)

De contextualizes 3 Nephi 3:20-21 Mormon 3:10 as evidence (18:18; 21:12)

Misuses A Brent Merrill, who was describing a strategic situation and not a command from the Lord (18:36)

Nephite battles take place in Nephite territory (22:23)

Misapplied use of Hugh Nibley (23:03)

        As you can see, his musings aren’t inspiring or insightful, just the same stale talking points based on unexamined assumptions from twenty years ago. More importantly, on every single point he has missed additional research that would have better informed his arguments.

        Before I show why, I might answer the overall question of his post "Where are all the peacemakers?" That’s a rather insincere question since his version of peace making is repeating the same sanctimonious and shallow talking points for twenty years while insulting his opponents as terroristic Gadiantons (the internet never forgets!) and war mongering propagandists.[2]

        The real peacemaking starts by taking the subject seriously, grappling with complex issues and respecting those who disagree with you by at least avoiding lazy name calling. Despite leading or contributing to multiple institutes, selling millions of books, and emphasizing those credentials on his website, Boyack hasn't done the intellectual work that genuine peacemaking requires such as engaging opposing arguments, refining his definitions, and responding to scholarship published since he first made these claims.

Boyack gets the definition wrong

        Let us start with his definition of preemptive war: Serious theorists going back 500 years have had a better definition than Boyack, who defined preemptive war as simply "fighting your enemy on your terms, before they (may or may not) fight you on theirs," or in short, "get them before they get us." But definitions matter as they distinguish between preventive and preemptive war using concepts like imminence, intent, and capability.  

        The early modern writer Hugo Grotius, founder of modern international law, defined preemptive war as being "lawful to kill those who are planning to kill." He is the one that provided the criteria of means, intent, and imminency.[3] The last criteria, “imminency,” is particularly important in the modern age when some missiles can move 20,000 miles an hour or cross the US in about seven minutes. The line between preemptive and preventive war can therefore be measured in mere minutes, yet Boyack ignores that distinction entirely, preferring simplistic and sanctimonious talking points.

        Micheal Walzer, the leading modern theorist on just war that Boyack also ignored, best summarized the differences by talking about past, present, and future and only justified attacks based on present threats, not past aggressions or fear of future consequences.[4] It’s quite an interesting debate that brings a great deal of sophistication and nuance to the subject, and precisely the level of moral analysis absent from Boyack's discussion.

        Boyack mentions just war in perfunctory fashion, but doesn’t understand any details of the practice.  He relies on a few phrases, “true defense” “legitimate self-defense” and an improper understanding of last resort. Boyack only source is a link to a Wikipedia article.

        His shallow slogans are no substitute for engaging the actual literature. Simply invoking "legitimate self-defense", for example, proves very little. Nearly every aggressor in history has claimed to be acting defensively. Even Hitler justified invading Poland by citing alleged abuses of ethnic Germans in the Danzig Corridor.

        Applying the idea of legitimate law enforcement, Salamanca School scholars Francisco Victoria and Francisco Suarez argued that just as kings can send out a posse of law men to capture bandits, nations can preemptively send forces into lawless areas.[5] Thus, the Nephite desire to “search out…and destroy” the Gadianton bandits in their hiding places is a perfect representation of this just principle (Helaman 11:28). If you’ll excuse my bluntness, Gidgiddoni said “Lord Forbid” (3rd Nephi 3:21), because they were getting their asses kicked, not because it was wicked. Boyack's failure to move beyond the same talking points over the last twenty years reflects a remarkable lack of intellectual development.

Boyack ignores contrary evidence

        The evidence Boyack does present is so selectively chosen that his argument collapses under even modest scrutiny. His warning about a "massive network of spies" functions more as a libertarian talking point than a carefully argued objection. Ironically, overwhelming scriptural evidence cuts against Boyack's own example (Alma 43:23; 44:21; 56:22, 39). Helaman’s servant in Helaman 2:6-7 is most useful. After some night time spying, the servant killed Kishkumen before he killed the chief judge. Helaman’s servant might have righteously reported that “[I] got them before they got us.”[6] 

        As with Book of Mormon passages about spies, Boyack's interpretive framework effectively excludes the Book of Mormon's war chapters from consideration whenever they become inconvenient. Yet those chapters are precisely where the Book of Mormon wrestles the most with interstate conflict, preemption, deterrence, and the ethics of military action. They cannot simply be brushed aside because they complicate a preferred narrative

        Take Alma 46:30 for example, which describes reasoning for Moroni’s preemptive action. This is an extremely interesting verse because the narrative discusses future action: “Now Moroni thought it was not expedient that the Lamanites should have any strength.”

        This verse is about the future, which makes it on the more radical end of the spectrum than the present imminence described by Walzer. Moroni was a man that could shake the foundations of Hell, so his actions should be analyzed instead of explained away. Rather than wrestle with Moroni's reasoning, Boyack gave excuses for ignoring them.

Boyack strips sources of their context

        Other evidence is presented without the context necessary to evaluate it properly. We have already seen this with the strategic context surrounding "the Lord forbid." The same problem appears in Boyack's treatment of the First Presidency's prewar statement, which he quotes in isolation while ignoring the events that immediately rendered it incomplete. Pearl Harbor transformed both the strategic situation and the First Presidency's public position. Their 1942 statement offered a far stronger defense of the war effort, suggesting that Boyack is appealing to an isolationist argument the Church itself substantially abandoned once the realities of aggression became undeniable.

        By quoting Eisenhower, who also relied heavily on spies in his foreign policy, Boyack took a dilettantish approach, selecting quotations that appear supportive but prove far more nuanced in context. Boyack quoted Eisenhower opposing first strikes, but restored to his historical context, Eisenhower also said he would launch an all out preemptive attack without approval of congress if Soviet bombers armed with nuclear weapons were confirmed to be preparing to strike[7] In private documents, Eisenhower wrote that he would “shoot the enemy before they shoot you” if an imminent Soviet attack were confirmed. In Boyack's own terms, that is simply "get them before they get us." Yet Eisenhower rejected preventive war while unequivocally endorsing preemptive war against an imminent attack.

        This is why the definitions established in Section One matter. Boyack treats all first strikes as morally equivalent, with only the most minimal acknowlgement of the differences between prevention and preemption, but imminence fundamentally changes the moral calculus to the point that Eisenhower himself answered both "yes" and "no" to first strikes depending on the circumstances. Boyack slogan's never reach that level of nuance. 

       I have already discussed "the Lord forbid" and the use of spies, but Boyack's use of Mormon 3:10 ignores an even more important point. As I argued at the LDS National Security Professionals Conference, the Nephites had already endured far more than the three offenses required by D&C 98:39–40. Their failure was not strategic but moral. By this point they had become rapist cannibals, so any military campaign, including a preemptive one, was doomed to fail. Boyack mistakenly throws out preemptive war when the text is actually condemning the wickedness of those who employed it.

Boyack’s Odd Argument and Conclusion

        The oddest example is Boyack’s argument that because Nephite battles occurred in Nephite territory, any use of force outside U.S. borders is wrong. This collapses under basic examination. If a terrorist launches a nuclear missile from Cuba, Boyack’s logic suggests the United States cannot lawfully intercept it until it crosses American territory. Yet the threat, and the moral right of self-defense, is identical seconds before and after crossing an invisible border. As discussed in Section One, modern missiles move so quickly and cause such devastation that delay can be fatal. Basing nuclear defense on such a rigid interpretation of Nephite warfare is a dangerously imprudent misunderstanding of the principles involved.

        DC 98 is best understood as the LDS version of the Sermon on the Mount. Just like mainstream Christians, we should have a peaceful heart and renounce war. But we can and must reluctantly resort to arms when it becomes a tragic necessity to stop the massacre of brothers and families (Alma 48:21-23).

        The issue isn't that Connor Boyack and I disagree. The problem is that Boyack has become one of the topic’s loudest voices while remaining deeply unserious. His talking points have remained unchanged despite two decades of scholarship and personal study that should have refined them. Serious disagreement requires serious engagement with the strongest opposing arguments. Repeating slogans for twenty years while neglecting scholarship is not peacemaking, nor is it a serious contribution to the debate over preemptive war.

        Ideas about war are too important to leave to slogans. Lives depend on getting these questions right. If we are going to invoke scripture to guide questions of war and peace, we owe one another more than decades of recycled talking points.

Thanks for reading. If you found value in this work please consider donating using the paypal button below, or buying on of my books. The last of which, To Stop a Slaughter, is a book length treatment of just war and the Book of Mormon. I also write fiction, check out my cyber punk thriller. 

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[1] He often calls it "preventive war," a common rhetorical tactic used to make the practice sound more objectionable by shifting the debate to the less defensibile preventive war. The problem is the "imminence" is often contested to the point the dinstinction becomes a reflection of one's bias. 

[2] The second link is to a different author than Boyack, but it contains the same tone, talking points, and spirit of Boyack. Literally in the first two minutes of Boyack's "musings" he called his opponents "war mongers." 

[3] Hugo Grotius, On the Law of War and Peace, Stephen Neff trans., (Cambridge University Press, 2012), 84.

[4] Micheal Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 81.

[5] Francisco de Vitoria, De Indis et de Iure Belli Relectiones, ed. Ernest Nys, trans. John Pawley Bate (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1917), 163–165. Francisco Suárez, Selections from Three Works of Francisco Suárez, S.J.: De Triplici Virtute Theologica (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1944), 740–743.

[6] There is some debate over the silence of the Book of Mormon about the morality of this action. I think a lack of editorial dissent means approval. Mark Henshaw believes the practice needs affirmative approval in the text. But a recent Interpreter article suggests that the simultaneous anonymity and silence surrounding Helaman’s servant, and the detailed exposition of the secret works, is a subtle but strong editorial comment that shows the secret works of darkness are known to God, and the righteous works of defense against them are not known to man.

[7] Implicitly stated in NSC 5904/1, “U.S. Policy in the Event of War,” https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v03/d55

America Has Lost the War with Iran! A Case Study in Bad Analysis

 

        Every crisis produces a bevy of speculative analysis that is often untethered from facts on the ground and good reasoning.

        The popular claims from “Astrado” at LDS Freedom forum provide an excellent example. He claimed the United States and Israel are on the verge of running out of defensive missiles, Iran is unleashing thousands more with escalating capability, the Strait of Hormuz is closed, information is being censored, and unless there’s a ceasefire within days, we face total collapse—military defeat, economic ruin, or nuclear war.

        That sounds incredible dramatic. Material like this is very popular, often repeated, the center of attention, and it’s also wrong.

        The author started his click bait fear mongering with only partially true points about missiles. “They’ve fired thousands, they have tens of thousands more, therefore we’re about to be overwhelmed.” Yet that’s an example of straight line projections, one of the most common mistakes. When I was in grade school back in the 80s, my teachers warned that Japan and Germany had strong economies that would quickly overtake us. But both countries stagnated and struggled since then, with Japan experiencing “lost decades.” In the 90s I remember Time’s Magazine showing pictures of a Red China and warning of their ascendence. But among other factors, they had a real estate bubble and population collapse that suggest they won’t. (Note how Japan’s lost decades also started with a real estate bubble.) And every politician assumes the good times will always continue and they spend money instead of saving for disaster.

        Additionally, you might add a dose of common sense to the straight-line problem. Early in conflicts, you often see spikes in activity. Generally, a country doesn’t get stronger as a war continues, so they send large salvos to probe defenses, saturate systems, or create psychological shock. (As you’ll see below, Iran also had a use or it or lose it incentive.) Treating those spikes as a sustainable baseline is how you end up predicting collapse that never comes.

        More importantly, it ignores how missile capabilities can be degraded. While defending against launched missiles, the U.S. and Israel aggressively targeted the systems that launch them. Launchers, stockpiles, factories, and command-and-control nodes are all part of the battlefield. The US doesn’t have to worry about dwindling stockpiles of counter missiles when they actively and dramatically reduced Iran’s ability to launch them.

        There’s a historical analogy here. Alexander the Great didn’t defeat the Persian fleet in a decisive naval battle. He marched along the coast and captured the ports that sustained it. Without docking, resupply and repair the fleet quickly became a non-factor in the war.

        Once you account for straight line projections, initial burst, and America’s degradation strategy, you find the author’s confidently asserted claims of solid analysis are both shaky and paltry.  Their analysis is based on incomplete information, incorrect assumptions, and ignores dynamic interaction between offense and defense.

        Second, the supporting claims—like the Strait of Hormuz being closed or widespread censorship—are asserted but not meaningfully developed. Even if we take them seriously, they’re not one-directional in their effects. Closing the Strait of Hormuz would harm Iran’s own economic lifelines as much as anyone else’s. That doesn’t make it impossible, but it does make it far more complicated than a simple “checkmate” move. Except for higher gas prices, there doesn’t seem to be much impact from restricted traffic through the strait.

        At the lowest point, the author parenthetically claims AI agrees with him. But AI relies on a people pleasing and sycophantic design. Combined with bad inputs outlined above, AI becomes little more than a yes man for analysis no matter how incredulous it becomes.

        Speaking of incredulous, the author claimed that the lack of missiles would result in the use of the nuclear, or Samson Option. This is the classic fear escalator. When conventional arguments feel shaky analysts jump to the worst-case scenario. They expect the emotionally charged language and general unease to bypass arguments while commanding attention.

        But deterrence doctrines exist precisely to prevent their use. Israel has faced existential threats for decades, including from Iran and its proxies, and has not used nuclear weapons. That track record matters and it suggests the doctrine functions as intended. Nuclear weapons remain a last-resort deterrent, not a trigger waiting to be pulled because of an initial flurry of missiles.

        The final mistake is the cascading collapse scenario. The author claims “all U.S. bases will be destroyed, carriers sunk, the petrodollar gone, global economic ruin.” This is where the analysis fully detaches from reality. Iranian missile forces have demonstrated they can inflict some damage, but not at the scale required to produce that kind of systemic collapse. After the initial flurry Iran’s ability to damage their enemies has collapsed.

        As I’ve written in my book on modern Chinese strategy, missiles today are simply the newest version of technology that has been around since World War II. Regardless of the number of missiles or improvements fielded, counter defenses have also improved. AEGIS Destroyers have better radar, carriers increasingly employ rail guns and missiles, F35’s can actively seek out and destroy launchers from longer distances than ever before. That is why I wasn’t surprised when more reputable analysts concluded that the Iran showed us the threat of missile swarms are overblown.

        You didn’t have to be an analyst to see through most of the smoke and fear mongering. A simple browsing of recent history in the area shows we’ve seen versions of this before. During the Gulf War, there were similar fears about regional escalation and economic shock. Oil prices spiked but then they stabilized. Markets adjusted. The war was disruptive, but only for a short period of time and not automatically apocalyptic.

        To summarize, the bad analysis does the following things:

        They extrapolate linearly from peak data. Ignore counter reactions and adaption. They assert instead of demonstrating key claims. (This is frequently accompanied with various insults and posturing.) They lean on worst case scenarios and present them as likely outcomes.

        Good analysis is uncomfortable because it requires vast amounts of study along with uncertainty, tradeoffs, and competing variables. This makes it seem dry and is often lost in the noise. Bad analysis is confident, simple, and catastrophic which makes it as loud and popular as it is wrong. This example falls squarely into the second category.

The Silver Bullet: Afghanistan and Blowback

    

        When discussing American intervention inevitably someone will cry Afghanistan as a warning. In the 1980s the United States supplied arms to various militant groups. The goal was to resist the Soviet invasion in the hopes that it would weaken a US rival at  a relatively minimal cost. Some of these groups then became the ruling Taliban that won their post-Soviet civil war. The ruling Taliban allowed Al Qaeda to train and then launch the 9/11 attacks. Thus creating “Afghanistan” as a single, silver bullet to any American intervention.[1] In fact, “blowback” is such a lazy catch phrase that even in commenting on the Israel Hamas war Connor Boyack,  a supposedly serious libertarian, conflated cycle of violence and blowback into cycle of blowback. (He also added some antisemitism as well.) But this argument fails as a simplistic retelling of history, offers a presentist argument that discounts the contemporary threat of the Soviet Union, and continues to offer a reactive and weak vision of foreign policy.

        History doesn’t move in a straight line. It’s true that some militant groups received arms. At the same time though that action doesn’t lead in a straight line to the 9/11. The various militant groups fought against each other almost as much as they fought the Soviet Union. In fact, the fragmentary leadership and society led to a civil war in Afghanistan for much of the 90s. Only half a decade after that civil war Al Qaeda launched the 9/11 attacks. There were all sorts of moments that could have changed that outcome, and the US wasn’t closely involved in them for a decade.

        The Soviets could have continued their occupation. Another power like the Northern alliance and the Lion of Panjshir, could have won the civil war. Ironically enough, after the withdraw of Soviet forces that lion complained the US wasn’t more involved. From the linked interview he said: “[The US] forgot Afghanistan and they left Afghanistan alone.” This reminds me of a poor book where the author argued the US was imperialistic for “meddling” in foreign countries, while he also blamed the US for “losing” China to the Communists. In other words, he blamed the US for not meddling. But when your isolationist agenda comes first, and you rely on a simplistic understanding of history, intellectual rigor and honesty take a back seat.

        Returning to other historical paths not taken, Bill Clinton could have seized Osama Bin Laden when he had the chances. (BillClinton actually had nine chances according to the 9/11 commission.) Any of these variables alone, and definitely all of them together cut the thread of American aid to the mujahadeen leading to 9/11 implied in the blowback arguments. There were so many variables that meandered throughout the decade plus interval between the two that the blowback argument becomes simplistically ahistorical.

        More importantly, this is a presentist argument. Presentism is normally a fallacy from those that complain individuals in the past are racist, sexist, and otherwise fail to conform to current standards. In this case presentism takes the terror attack from a decade later to ignore the threats at the time that made America arm the mujahadeen. It would be much like looking at Soviet strength early in the Cold War and complaining that it was blowback for America’s defeat of Hitler.[2] That thinking ignores the threat the Nazis posed and the need to intervene against that threat.

        In that Cold War America faced an evil empire that repressed its own citizens, ruthlessly crushed dissidents abroad, aggressively expanded along its borders and threatened nuclear war. Arming Afghani fighters was a relatively low-cost way to sap the strength of an existential threat. Those using their only bullet ignore the historical context of that threat. They might argue that the US had no moral right or national interest to resist the Soviet Union, but I’m assuming that my readers don’t lack moral confidence in America or show downright hatred for their country that many show today. Because ignoring the Soviet Union of the 1980s for fear of the Taliban assisted terror attack of 9/11, is like saying America shouldn’t fight Hitler because the Soviet Union will be stronger.

        The US should balance the consequences with their goals but can’t be paralyzed by fear which leads to my final point that our foreign policy can’t be paralyzed by fear of what could happen. Its true that actions have consequences, but so does inaction.

        The best example of blowback from inaction that ends up being worse than any blowback from action is in Syria. Back in 2011 the typical crowd wanted to avoid any military action to remove the Syrian dictator and protect civilians. They did so using a false dichotomy between a massive invasion and nothing, when America could have achieved good results with limited invested and danger through a no fly zone. But afraid of a small potential of war through a no-fly zone or missile strikes, we did nothing.

        The result was that America looked weak because our leaders declared red lines that they didn’t enforce, and made bellicose statements that the dictator’s days were “numbered” that became irrelevant. Almost 300,000 civilians have died, 12 million internally displaced, and 5 million people became refugees. Russia made Syria their proxy and tested their combat tactics that were used in Crimea and Ukraine a short time later. The terrorist group ISIS went from jayvee to pro and stormed across much of the region. European nations still grapple with that refugee crisis, including Sweden that had to mobilize the army to fight gangs of immigrant youth. In the US we had rabid debates about what to do with all of those migrants. (Though I think we should have loved them enough to make sure their homes weren’t destroyed in the first place.) 

        Looking at all that, do the isolationist libertarians that use this silver bullet consider all the consequences of inaction? Nope, they scream blowback about the current shiny thing in the news. Ironically enough, it was blowback that started the war in Ukraine, and probably Israel. Putin started marshaling his forces for invasion mere weeks after the botched Afghanistan withdraw. 

        Clearly the United States should carefully consider its actions which include blowback to military intervention and nonintervention. But using the aid to Afghanistan in the 1980s as a direct cause of 9/11 is over simplistic reasoning in support of consistent, knee jerk isolationism. (Or as I discovered researching my next book, their beliefs are called contingent pacifism because they recognize a theoretical right to just war in scripture but don’t find any examples in the world that meet those conditions.) The Afghani silver bullet ignores the historical context of the decisions in the 1980s to argue for isolationism today. Most importantly, that silver bullet shows an inherently weak foreign policy by ignoring the expensive cost of inaction for often vague and exaggerated costs of action.

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[1] This is more rhetorical flourish than clinically accurate. Isolationists libertarians sometimes refer to the CIA coups against Guatemalan and Iranian governments in the 1950s.

[2] Personally, that’s why I preferred Winston Churchill’s Mediterranean strategy where Western allies invaded Eastern Europe from Italy. Despite its higher difficulty level that strategy would have spared millions from Soviet domination. 

Moral Clarity on the Anniversary of the Atomic Bombings

 

    August 6^th marks the dubious day in 1945 where America became the only power to use a nuclear bomb. This continues to spark controversy. From 1945 to 2005 American approval of the bombings has dropped from 85 to 57 percent. And a record low number of Americans are proud of their country. This is somewhat understandable as societal attitudes change and there is a great deal to critique over the decision. But it might also be what the editors at the National Review recently pointed out is part of the crisis of self-doubt gaining traction in America and what Wilfred McClay called a deeply unserious country that doesn’t believe in itself. Yet a proper study of the history surrounding the decision to drop the bombs and an examination of ethics finds the bombing was both justified and necessary.

    During the war both sides held a great deal of racial animus towards one another, which suggests the bomb might have been more willingly used because of racism.[1] Though, the bomb wasn’t ready in time to end the war against Germany so that is hard to gauge. Using an area effect weapon that didn’t distinguish between civilians and military targets invites condemnation.[2] The lack of military targets in Hiroshima and the dubious effectiveness of the bomb makes some people say this was terrorism.[3] After all, the Strategic Bombing survey revealed that the trains ran normally a mere two days later and this was often considered a way to stun the Japanese into surrendering and impress the Russians with the viability of the program.[4] (Though it should be noted that both cities had important military components. Nagasaki for example, was home to one of the most important military garrisons and was a foremost military shipping depot, and thus remained a valid military target.) Plus, there were supposedly peace feelers from the Japanese that made this completely unnecessary.

    As I will show below, these are all extremely flawed arguments that don’t accurately reflect the historical context and seem like excuses to blame American and undermine moral confidence today, instead of understanding the tragic but justified decisions of the past.

    The strongest criticism seems to be the peace overtures. Who doesn’t want the war to end early? This theory argues that the Japanese were ready for peace and only block headed, blood thirsty, and maybe even racist generals kept the war going. These were detailed by a revisionist historian, Gar Alperovitz and thus come long after the fact when it became more fashionable to search and promulgate these theories.[5] More importantly, this theory cherry picks some information and leave out much more important events that shows these peace feelers were completely impotent and U.S. officials were correct when they disregarded them.

    The best evidence against this theory comes after the Japanese emperor’s decision to surrender. After the bombs dropped and the emperor wanted peace army leaders challenged and almost reversed the decision through a military coup. It’s incredibly unlikely that minor officials would have produced peace when the atomically convinced emperor almost didn’t. Let me stress, even AFTER the atomic bombs were dropped there were significant factions in Japan that wanted to keep fighting. Peace was not possible before the bombs were dropped. Plus, American willingness to negotiate before the bombs dropped would have emboldened the Japanese and aggressive army generals to think that more fighting would have gotten them more concessions.

    Other critics quote leaders who sound authoritative but really aren’t. Many of these quotes also ignore historical context. One example comes from Eisenhower who said: [I believe] that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary…[6]

    With all due respect to Eisenhower and other generals cherry picked for opposing nuclear weapons, he was thousands of miles and away and was not privy to the intelligence and decision-making councils that led to it. It would be like Admiral Nimitz second guessing Eisenhower’s decision to stop at the Elbe. Eisenhower is a particularly odd choice for opposing nuclear weapons since his New Look military relied so heavily on nukes and spooks.[7] Those that blanche at the use of nuclear weapons and hate the national security state should probably avoid quoting a general that as president, threatened to use nuclear weapons in the Taiwan Strait crises, and unleashed CIA sponsored coups on democratically elected governments in Iran and Guatemala that still reverberate today.

    Other military critics were vocal against nuclear weapons not because of moral principles, but because of parochial rivalries. The bombs were delivered by bombers, and this helped Curtis LeMay argue for the creation of an independent Airforce. In turn, this would take resources and prestige away from the Navy and Army chiefs, who were incredibly territorial, had differing strategies and demands, and wanted the air corps assets divided between them.[8] Thus it isn’t surprising to find that admirals would elevate the role of commerce raiding in the defeat of Japan and minimize the “barbaric” “toy” dropped by the budding air corps. Their opposition had little to do with the moral concerns of the time and are especially dissimilar from modern antiwar sentiments. In fact, the admirals preferred a blockade of the Japan that would have slowly killed millions, and the army preferred an invasion that would have also killed millions (see below.)

    The sad truth is that the Japanese would not surrender without the atomic bomb dropping or millions (of Americans, Japanese, and Chinese) dying from an invasion. The East Asian victims of Japanese aggression are often forgotten in Western centric debates over the war. But the Japanese launched the Ichigo offensive in late 1944 which was comparable in size and scope to the German invasion of the Soviet Union.[9] Nationalist Chinese leader Kiang Chai Shek had seen a great deal of bloodshed, but called this period the worst of his entire life. An estimated two hundred thousand Chinese a month were dying at this point in the war. An invasion by American forces on the Japanese homeland would have skyrocketed those figures. Secretary of War Stimson estimated that 400,000 to 800,000 Americans would have died, (including 100,000 prisoners of war that were set to be executed upon invasion), and 5 to 10 million Japanese would have died from an invasion.[10]

    There was the option not to fight which would have left China and much of Asia in the hands of a regime as bad as Hitler’s. Yet one has to wonder how long the imperial Japanese would have felt comfortable with the U.S. in Hawaii so they would probably have attacked America again anyway. The U.S. could have continued to bomb them. The firebombing of Tokyo and conventional attacks actually caused more deaths than the nuclear bombs so that couldn’t have been a better option.

    The U.S. could have blockaded the country. The admirals at the time and later scholars argued that the U.S. had already destroyed much of Japanese shipping and merchant marine by August 1945,[11] and this may have been what Eisenhower meant by already defeating Japan, but then America would have to wait for the country to starve to death. That would have caused more deaths and in a slow manner arguably worse than two nuclear bombings. Its effects would have been unevenly felt across the population. With the elites that caused the war suffering far less than the population that fought it. It also would have given the Japanese army in China more time in their genocidal war against China. So between deaths from famine and deaths from the Greater East Asian War that option would have killed millions more than the bombings. Even then, any peace offering from the emperor would have likely faced a coup just like the surrender after the atomic bombings. Keep in mind that the admirals who argued for this possibly unjust and criminal course are the same admirals being quoted out of context today for entirely different reasons than the military leaders originally intended.  

    Dropping the atomic bomb quickly ended the war which prevented the Soviets from invading as well. The first atomic bomb was dropped literally the day after Stalin finalized plans to invade Japan and he invaded a day after the second bombing. The Soviets treated Eastern Europeans to show trials, mass deportations to the gulags, the Soviet army’s refusal to help the free Poles in the Battle of Warsaw etc., so it was a good option to end the war quickly and prevent the negative effects of Communist rule seen in East Germany and Eastern Europe even today. You can easily argue that the Japanese Constitution and rebuilding under MacArthur was far preferable to Soviet occupation.

    After looking at the other options and strategic context in late 1945, the decision to drop the bomb was moral and justified. In fact, ending the war for mere hundreds of thousands compared to the abject blood bath and millions of deaths that awaited all sides is the reason why the allied leaders considered this weapon a godsend. Even though Michael Walzer opposed nuclear weapons, he also said that ending a war swiftly with a minimum of causalities is the greatest kindness a leader could offer.[12]  Secretary of State Henry Stimson exemplified the latter idea when he said: My chief purpose was to end the war in victory with the least possible cost in the lives of the men in the armies which I had helped to raise. In the light of the alternatives which, on a fair estimate, were open to us I believe that no man, in our position and subject to our responsibilities, holding in his hands a weapon of such possibilities for accomplishing this purpose and saving those lives, could have failed to use it and afterwards looked his countrymen in the face.[13]

    In short, every other option than using nuclear weapons was worse. Taken in vacuum nuclear weapons are horrific, but that weapon wasn’t used in a vacuum and its incredibly unfair to blame America for being barbarians while ignoring the context that justified and compelled their use. This is probably because few have studied military ethics in depth, they simply think that some things are “bad.” But again, considering every option and the context of their war the dropping of atomic weapons was justified and necessary. The war was ended more quickly, saving lives, including millions of Asian lives.

    Americans and members of the church must rightly hope to avoid the tragedy of any having any conflict. But Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine sadly reminds us that the specter of war can never be vanquished with hopeful thoughts. Americans can recognize that war, particularly defending life against the most genocidal regimes of the 20^th century, was necessary, and the atomic bombings were a necessary and justified choice in World War II.  And every American should strive to have the knowledge and tools to properly judge the morality of the past, which in turn provides the moral confidence to justly proceed in the present.

I work as a free lance writer. If you found value in this work please consider donating using the paypal button below or buying one of my books linked in the top left. 

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[1] For a good overview, see John Lynn, Battle: A History of Combat and Culture, (New York: Basic Books, 2009), chapter 7.

[2] Micheal Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, (New York, Basic Books, 2015), 250-260.

[3] Howard Zinn, “Breaking the Silence.” ND. (https://web.archive.org/web/20071201172331/http://polymer.bu.edu/~amaral/Personal/zinn.html Accessed August 6th, 2021.)

[4] The United States Strategic Bombing Survey: Summary Report: 24.  The United States Strategic Bombing Survey: The Effect of the Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 6.  https://docs.rwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=rwu_ebooks

[5] Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, (Vintage Books: 2010). https://mises.org/library/hiroshima-myth

[6] Julian Borger, “Hiroshima at 75: Bitter Row Persists Over US Decision to Drop the Bomb, The Guardian, August 5^th, 2020, (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/04/hiroshima-atomic-bomb-us-japan-history (Accessed August 6th 2021.)

[7] Gordon H. Change, He Di, “Eisenhower’s Reckless Nuclear Gamble over the Taiwan Strait,” American Historical Review 98 (December 1993), 1502-1523.

[8] Keith McFarland, "The 1949 Revolt of the Admirals" Parameters: Journal of the US Army War College Quarterly. XI (2): 53–63.

[9] Morgan Deane, Decisive Battles in Chinese History, (Westholme Press, 2017), chapter 12.  

[10] Frank, Richard B. (1999). Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire. New York: Random House, 340.

[11] Strategic Bombing Survey: Summary Report, 11.  

[12] Michael Walzer, Just Wars, quoting Moltke the Elder, 47.  

[13] Henry L. Stimson, as quoted in The Great Decision: The Secret History of the Atomic Bomb (1959) by Michael Amrine, p. 197.

 

The Nazi's Veto

 

    Murray Rothbard was the father of modern libertarianism and in turn inspires many Latter Day Saint views of war, including this horrendous reading of the Book of Mormon. But the libertarian’s elevation of the individual at the expense of the state ends up creating what I call the “Nazi’s veto” that disallows any state war, and as a result, leaves the state and individuals with no real power to stop abuses.

    Rothbard’s fundamental axiom of libertarian theory “is that no one may threaten or commit violence (‘aggress’) against another man’s person or property.”[1] He explains this by using a private example that person A has no right to aggress against B because C is threatening. Rothbard claims that “give me liberty or give them death is a far less noble battle cry” and that simplistic theory sounds convincing.

    Those are nice ideas that falls apart upon even a cursory examination. Let’s go back to the fictional examples of people A, B, and C. There are moral differences that immediately make this far more complicated, and unworkable in practice. For example, lets say that person A is a police officer or sheriff, and he is responding to a bank robbery. The robber is doing what libertarians complain about the state, robbing the people of their money. But in stopping the robber, person C, maybe the police officer, person A, causes the robber to crash into another car, killing an innocent lady, person B. In this case, A was stopping C from violating rights, but did so at the expense of person B. That proves the libertarian case, right?

    The libertarian fear of an innocent third person having their rights aggressed would mean that almost no force could be used ever. But the bank robber, rapist, murder (or genocidal dictator below) must be stopped. Sometimes force is required and yet innocent people, (hypothetical person B) could still be hurt, or “aggressed” against. Instead of disallowing force, most people would still consider the actions of the police in this case just, if extremely tragic and regrettable. They might carefully monitor the use of force and ask if other tactics might have been more appropriate, but their use of force would still be just. (Before we continue, notice how this is the distinction between just cause and just conduct regarding warfare. The police can have every right to stop a robber, but not by any means necessary.)

    Now think of the same example, a bank robbery, but maybe the robber intentionally puts someone else in danger. They take a hostage. This would largely shift the immorality of the third person being hurt to the robber (though we would always hope that the robbery can be stopped without the loss of innocent life.) That still requires force, with even more risk to innocents, but if the innocents are hurt, that means the criminal and not the police are at fault.

    There are many different permutations we could do in this situation to assess morality and rights in stopping the criminal. But the point is clear, while the ideal is that no innocent third party should die in defense of your rights. If practiced to the libertarian extreme, it restricts the use of force to such a point that no force can be used. In this fictional example, the police would be so restricted by the danger of aggressing against other’s rights (and since he is government funded official, according to libertarians he is already aggressing against the citizen by living off of taxpayer money),[2] he couldn’t stop the robber.

    The difficulties in morality only get more complicated in war. The state, like the police, is empowered by the people it represents to protect the rights of its citizens under its care by using force. This is the basic contract in the constitution that promises to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, and in return they have the power to tax, print money, make laws, jail citizens, and conscript and fight wars.

    Once that right is recognized, it becomes necessary to determine which strategies are employed so that they don’t create new victims. That is the fundamental reason because justice in war. Because even if the cause of the war is just, it can’t be fought in a way that creates more victims of injustice. Libertarians would deny the state’s power and morality to send soldiers into war. But their ideas would leave much of the world impotent in the face, as the Book of Mormon would say, the “barbarous cruelty” of terrorists (Alma 48:24).

    Libertarians would argue for a limited right to self-defense, and if living under a tyrannical government that they should encourage rebellion in those unjust states. But the oppressed minorities often don’t have the means to resist. Forgot about possessing firearms or having the freedom to organize a rebellion, simply existing as a Bosnian Muslim, Volga German, or a Tutsi in Rwanda would be enough to warrant arrest and execution for many regimes. Much like the actual Warsaw uprising in 1944, Rothbard’s fictional example of Waldavia (225) would say good luck, and then like the Soviets, but because libertarians dislike the state, would stand by and watch them get slaughtered. That isn’t a good moral position to take.

    The idea of rebellion from citizens denied their rights also contradicts the Book of Mormon which taught that if people are oppressed it is because of their wickedness and the Lord will deliver them in his own time. Mosiah 21:15 explains:

15 And now the Lord was slow to hear their cry because of their iniquities; nevertheless the Lord did hear their cries, and began to soften the hearts of the Lamanites that they began to ease their burdens; yet the Lord did not see fit to deliver them out of bondage.

    This is in part because the people would only be slaughtered. (Think of the three failed attacks from the people of Limhi [Mosiah 21:6-12], or the Melian Dialogue.) Philosophers were also wary of rebellion because the chaos and slaughter from a rebellion had a good chance of being worse than the injustice that caused the rebellion!! (It is no surprise that the person who witnessed these blood drenched revolts, Martin Luther, didn’t give any right for the people to revolt. See his text, The Murderous Thieving Hordes of Peasants.) The Salamanca school scholar Francisco Suarez wrote, revolt is just “if essential for liberty…always provided that there is no danger of the same or worse evils falling on community as result of the tyrants death.”[3]  Hugo Grotius, often called the founder of international law, wrote about the same right to revolt if the king alienates his people, but also placed limits on potential usurpers because it would lead to fighting among various factions.[4] From a libertarian standpoint then, the advice for citizens to revolt, not only caused their own deaths in futile revolts, but could result in even more bloodshed, and aggressing against rights, than the always condemned “state war.” 

    Even saying that, America rains death from above which is still horrible right? Let us go back to the A, B, Cs from earlier. Killing a civilian by accident is different than deliberately targeting him or her. If they happen in the course of legitimate acts of war (similar to legitimate police functions designed to save people from our earlier example) and the direct intention is a morally acceptable military target, then unintentionally killing civilians is within the realm of just war. That probably sounds like lame justifications to many libertarians. Those deaths are still tragic and a horrible loss of life and unless you’re okay with genocide and mass murder it doesn’t forbid war.[5] Like the police stopping the robber, the public should reasonably ask if the military should have been more cautious and use better judgement (not to mention aim) during the situation. But disallowing any state use of force is a poor strategy against groups that have far more power than individuals and is often state sponsored themselves.

    To conclude, let us get even more specific about the damning consequences of the fundamental libertarian axion. The ideas that “it is impermissible to violate the rights of other innocent people and war “only proper…when the exercise of violence is rigorously limited to the individual criminals,” lead to the conclusion, “State wars are always to be condemned (220, 222).” (Notice how libertarian ideology elevates personal rights but excludes the collective rights of people represented and expressed by their government.)  Libertarian theory then would have the rights of the most ardent Nazi sympathizer staffing the German war machine veto any moral, humane, just, and even righteous impulse to stop massive slaughter and genocide of innocents. 

    J. Reuben Clark, often quoted by libertarians because of his staunch isolationism displayed the Nazi's veto during World War II. He was so isolationist that he repeatedly advocated for a negotiated peace with Germany that would have left them in control of much of Europe.[6] He did so after multiple reports from death camps such as Auschwitz. According to libertarian philosophy, the United States could not wage war because it might aggress against the rights of innocent third parties, and those third parties should sponsor their own revolt. But it is ridiculous to think that German libertarians would have any collective power against the Gestapo, let alone European Jews already in concentration camps.  It was only state power that could stop the genocide of a totalitarian government. Libertarians, so concerned about being violated by taxes, would ensure that so many others get slaughtered by disallowing any intervention by another state.

    That isn’t a moral or workable philosophy for the evil in the world. In fact, their philosophy only marginal works for individuals in relatively isolated areas like the American mountain west, long ago tamed by agents of the state, such as sheriffs, and protected actions of the state such as defeating Nazi Germany. I kind of wish libertarians would take the same passion they have for hating the government and taxes and spare at least some dislike for the massive slaughter of Ukrainians. If they did, then maybe they would have some Christlike compassion for their brothers and try to stop their slaughter, instead of an ideological zealotry against the state that gives Nazis a veto against that impulse.  

I work as a free lance author. Producing ad free research takes time and effort. If you found value in this work, please consider donating using the paypal button below, or buy one of my books linked in the top left. 

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[1] Murray Rothbard, “War, Peace and the State,” We Who Dared Say No To War: American Anti War Writing from 1812 to Now, Murray Polner, Thomas Woods Eds., (Basic Books, 2009,) 217-226.

[2] 222 “Any war against another State, therefore, involves the increase and extension of taxation-aggression over its own people.”

[3] Andre Azevedo Alves, Jose Moreira, John Meadowcroft, The Salamanca School, (Bloomsbury Academic Pro, 2013), 53. Suarez.

[4] Grotius said on page, 73 “if king alienates the people, he invites retributions.” But places limits on usurpers, 76. Stephen Neff trans., Grotius on the Laws of War and Peace, (Cambridge University Press, 2012).

[5] Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, A Moral Argument with Historical Examples, (Basic Books, 2015,) 153-155.

[6]  D. Michael Quinn, “Pacifist Counselor in the First Presidency: J Reuben Clark Jr., 1933-196” in War and Peace in Our Times: Mormon Perspectives, Patrick Mason, J. David Pulsipher, Richard Bushman eds. (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2012), 153-154.