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Mises, Rothbard, & Libertarian 'Just War' Theory In The 2026 Iran War

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

As of April 2026, the US and Israel are still at war with Iran. The war began on February 28 with surprise bombings that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other high-ranking officials. Since then, attacks on infrastructure have continued, leading to significant disruptions in essential services and escalating tensions in the region. Iran has attacked targets in Gulf nations and tightened its grip on the Strait of Hormuz as a result.

The conflict has damaged the economy around the world, driving inflation and supply chain disruption fears.

The war is often considered a way to protect Israel, the Gulf nations, and, ultimately, the US against a brutal, theocratic dictatorship that was looking to build nuclear weapons and was the main financier of terrorism in the world.

However, there is a common libertarian question: Do libertarian ideas support sending troops to other countries to stop tyranny?

Ludwig von Mises, writing during the fight against Nazi Germany, supported quick military action.

In Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Absolute State and Total War (1944), Mises stated that etatism, socialism, and autarky lead to absolute state control, which always leads to violence. Nazism was not an anomaly but the inevitable outcome of such policies, and compromise was unachievable.

Mises said Nazism was not only a German problem but also a threat to Western civilisations. The reader may observe strong parallels between the Iranian regime and its political and terrorist links to other totalitarian regimes, as well as its “death to America” and “annihilation of Israel” policies and its expansionist intentions toward Sunni nations.

Mises believed that if Nazism were not destroyed, the result would be total totalitarianism, reducing people to “slaves in a Nazi-run society” where the individual is rightless.

“The reality of Nazism faces everybody else with an alternative: they must smash Nazism or renounce their self-determination, i.e., their freedom and their very existence as human beings.” “If they yield, they will be slaves in a Nazi-dominated world.” Mises called on the Allies to “fight desperately until the Nazi power is completely broken.”

Mises was clearly against neutrality, saying, “In the current situation, neutrality is the same as supporting Nazism,” highlighting that a decisive victory or the ultimate defeat of Nazism were the only ways to bring back peace and liberal order.

People could only begin to construct a free society subsequent to “the total destruction of Nazism.”. We can argue that Mises believed that the government had a role in protecting civilisation from totalitarianism.

In 2026, a Mises follower would say that the Iranian regime’s theocratic totalitarianism, which includes spreading its influence and power globally, silencing dissent, fighting proxy wars, and looking for nuclear weapons to destroy Israel, is similar to Nazi etatism.

The free world might use strikes to destroy the Iranian regime’s military power and leadership in order to protect itself and avoid a larger war in the region or globally. If everyone had worked together to stop Hitler sooner, World War II might not have happened. Today, using strong force against Tehran could potentially stop a nuclear holocaust, Shiite terrorism, totalitarian expansion, or the massacre of Iranian civilian protesters.

However, Murray Rothbard disagreed with this rationale. He thought that all wars fought by the government were wrong, regardless of who they were against. Rothbard wrote about the non-aggression principle (NAP) in his articles “War, Peace, and the State” and in his bigger libertarian theory of conflict. Violence, he said, is acceptable solely for the protection of individuals from specific criminals, rather than against innocent individuals or through governmental coercion. “It is acceptable to use violence against criminals to protect one’s rights to life and property; however, it is completely unacceptable to infringe upon the rights of innocent individuals.”

Rothbard said that countries can’t fight just wars because they get their money through taxes and their military forces through conscription. He also reminded us that modern weapons are so deadly that they always kill civilians. Even a “defensive” war against tyranny gives the country that becomes involved more power at home. “War is the health of the state.” “True freedom from tyranny must come from the oppressed rising up against their oppressors, not from outside forces that only put a new ruler in place.” Rothbard would probably call U.S.-Israeli strikes “aggressive state expansion” in Iran, no matter how authoritarian the government was. He could argue that wars in the Middle East never seem to end to support his claim that foreign “liberation” always leads to more oppression at home.

There are important additional elements of debate.

The protests in Iran in 2025 and 2026 showed that it was almost impossible to obtain rid of the government from the inside, as evidenced by the government’s strong response to dissent and the lack of effective opposition movements that could challenge its authority. In late December 2025, protests about the economy quickly turned into calls for regime change all over the country. Security forces killed tens of thousands of people in January 2026. The government cut off the internet for the whole country, arrested over 50,000 citizens, tortured and made thousands disappear, and accelerated executions. This brutal suppression, one of the bloodiest crackdowns in modern history, may create doubts about Rothbard’s point. When a totalitarian regime has complete control over its security forces and is willing to kill its people, peaceful or even armed internal revolution becomes virtually impossible. If the regime has expansionary policies and finances terrorism and totalitarian regimes elsewhere, it may even be more problematic, as such actions can lead to increased international instability and the potential for external conflicts that distract from internal dissent.

This division of ideas exemplifies the fundamental libertarian just war theory.

The non-aggression principle (NAP) takes the old ideas of just war—just cause, right aim, last resort, proportionality, and discrimination and improves them. You can only attack people who are a real aggressive threat.

Both views may be relevant in the Iran war, and opinions may change depending on one’s personal perception of the threat posed by the Iranian regime.

Mises’ realism may be used to highlight the regime’s aggression, threats to Israel and America, and use of terrorism and proxy militias to justify strikes aiming at the lowest possible count of civilian casualties. Critics, following Rothbard, may say that the campaign goes against just war principles because it uses state force.

Is the Iran regime a global and national security threat or just another autocracy like so many others that exist in the world? The difference in perceptions about the war is likely to come down to this question. Consider whether you believe the actions of the Iran regime, both inside and outside the nation, pose a global threat or are irrelevant. I believe we can all agree that the Iranian regime has significant differences with other dictatorships. It is undeniable that the Iranian regime has a policy of annihilating Israel, states that “death to America is not a slogan but a policy,” and is involved in terrorist activities and the financing of dictatorships from Latin America to Lebanon. The question, then, is what actions should be taken in response? The answer will come down to each person’s view of the extent of the global threat that the Iranian regime supposes.

The war in Iran is sparking numerous debates among libertarians, demonstrating that libertarianism is not a cult that imposes unified thought. What matters, ultimately, is that independence of thought and free will remain as core principles of the debate.

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/16/2026 - 23:25

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US Navy Destroyer Shows Off New Launcher For Mystery Weapons

The U.S. Navy has quietly equipped one of its Arleigh Burke-class destroyers with a previously unseen launcher, reflecting a broader effort to counter the growing threat posed by drones in contested maritime environments, according to TWZ.

USS Carl M. Launcher mounted on Levin (DDG 120) (U.S. Navy, VIRIN: 260329-M-FP389-1205)

A U.S. Marine Corps photograph released April 8, taken March 29 at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, shows the USS Carl M. Levin fitted with the system on its aft upper deck. The multi-cell launcher, positioned between the port-side torpedo tubes and the aft Mk 41 Vertical Launch System, was not visible in imagery of the ship as recently as December 2025, TWZ reported.

A Japanese-language defense blog first noted the addition on social media, prompting speculation that it may be designed for counter-unmanned aerial systems missions.

USS Carl M. Levin (DDG 120) got a new Hellfire/JAGM launcher improving C-UAS capability.

はてなブログに投稿しました
米海軍DDGへのC-UAS用Hellfire/JAGM発射機搭載 - OSINFO https://t.co/R8hyf4B6L6#はてなブログ

— おるか (@hone_hone_bone_) April 8, 2026

Similar launcher configurations appeared last year aboard the USS Bainbridge and USS Winston S. Churchill for Raytheon’s Coyote counter-drone interceptors, which have been used to engage low-cost aerial threats in the Red Sea and other regions, according to TWZ.

It remains unclear whether the system installed on the Levin is intended to deploy interceptors, loitering munitions, decoys or a combination of capabilities. Navy officials did not respond to requests for comment from TWZ.

The upgrade comes as President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. Navy to impose a naval blockade on Iranian ports beginning April 13. The operation, launched after the collapse of weekend talks in Islamabad, is aimed at interdicting maritime traffic to and from Iran, including along the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, in an effort to increase economic pressure on Tehran. The blockade, applied across vessels of all nations, has contributed to volatility in global oil markets, with prices rising above $100 a barrel.

In the first 24 hours of the blockade, under direction from U.S. Central Command, no vessels succeeded in breaching the cordon, according to the Pentagon. Six merchant ships complied with instructions from U.S. forces and turned back to re-enter an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman. More than 10,000 U.S. sailors, Marines and airmen, supported by more than a dozen warships and dozens of aircraft, are involved in the operation.

More than 10,000 U.S. Sailors, Marines, and Airmen along with over a dozen warships and dozens of aircraft are executing the mission to blockade ships entering and departing Iranian ports. During the first 24 hours, no ships made it past the U.S. blockade and 6 merchant vessels… pic.twitter.com/dpWAAknzQp

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) April 14, 2026

Trump has warned Iranian military ships against interfering with the blockade.

“Iran’s Navy is laying at the bottom of the sea, completely obliterated – 158 ships. What we have not hit are their small number of, what they call, ‘fast attack ships,’ because we did not consider them much of a threat,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “Warning: If any of these ships come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED.”

Tyler Durden Thu, 04/16/2026 - 23:00

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