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Store: An Independent Institute Book
RESURGENCE OF THE WARFARE STATE
The Crisis Since 9/11
By
Robert Higgs
Immediately after 9/11, government officials and commentators claimed that the terrorist attacks had “changed everything.” In contrast, economist and historian Robert Higgs warned that history would likely repeat itself in one key respect: the government’s hasty reactions would resemble its responses to previous crises, providing little more than opportunities for special interests to feather their nests and for the government itself to expand its powers at the expense of the public’s wealth and civil liberties.
Resurgence of the Warfare State is Robert Higgs’s real-time analysis of the U.S. government’s tragic but predictable response: the quick enactment of the USA PATRIOT Act, the federal takeover of airport security, the massive increase in defense and other government spending, and the carnage in Afghanistan and Iraq wrought by leaders unaccountable for their costly and deadly mistakes.
Governmental responses to crises have been—and will likely continue to be—a bonanza for political, corporate, and even religious opportunists who seek power and financial gain by exploiting the fears of the American public.
Detailed Summary |
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I: Crisis and Leviathan, Again
- Chapter 1: Glory Days for Government
- Chapter 2: Crisis Policymaking
- Chapter 3: Wake Up to the Law of the Ratchet
- Chapter 4: Every Step We Take
- Chapter 5: Crisis-Induced Losses of Liberties
- Chapter 6: Wartime Curbs on Liberty Are Costless? (It Just Ain’t So!)
- Chapter 7: Benefits and Costs of the U.S. Government’s War Making
Part II: Airport (In)Security
- Chapter 8: Federal Oversight Won’t Improve Airport Security
- Chapter 9: The Pretense of Airport Security
Part III: The Draft
- Chapter 10: Will the Draft Rise from the Dead?
- Chapter 11: Censored Mail
Part IV: The Political Economy of the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex
- Chapter 12: The Cold War
- Chapter 13: U.S. National Security
- Chapter 14: The Government Needs to Get Its Own Accounting House in Order
- Chapter 15: Nation Trembles as Congress Reassembles
- Chapter 16: If We’re Really in Danger, Why Doesn’t the Government Act as if We’re in Danger?
- Chapter 17: Free Enterprise and War, a Dangerous Liaison
- Chapter 18: War Prosperity
- Chapter 19: Suppose You Wanted to Have a Permanent War
- Chapter 20: How Does the War Party Get Away with It?
- Chapter 21: The Defense Budget Is Bigger Than You Think
Part V: Bush and the Bushies
- Chapter 22: The President Is Reading a Book, I’m Afraid
- Chapter 23: George Bush’s Faith-Based Foreign Policy
- Chapter 24: On Crackpot Realism
- Chapter 25: Camelot and the Bushies
- Chapter 26: Is Bush Unhinged?
Part VI: The Road to War
- Chapter 27: Iraq and the United States
- Chapter 28: Helplessly, We Await the Catastrophe Our Rulers Are Creating
- Chapter 29: To Make War, Presidents Lie
- Chapter 30: Saddam Hussein Can’t Blackmail Us with a Fissionable Softball
- Chapter 31: Why the Rush to War?
- Chapter 32: Paul Craig Roberts Interviews Robert Higgs on War and Liberty
- Chapter 33: Nuke France
Part VII: Slaughtering the Innocent
- Chapter 34: Collateral Damage
- Chapter 35: Military Precision versus Moral Precision
- Chapter 36: Some Are Weeping, Some Are Not
- Chapter 37: Are Pro-war Libertarians Right?
- Chapter 38: Not Exactly an Eye for an Eye
- Chapter 39: Defense of Your Home Is Not Terrorism, Not Even in Iraq
- Chapter 40: What’s So Special About Those Killed by Hijackers on September 11, 2001?
- Chapter 41: The Crimes at Abu Ghraib Are Not the Worst
- Chapter 42: Has the U.S. Government Committed War Crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Part VIII: Cake Walk
- Chapter 43: WMD Blues
- Chapter 44: Taking Stock One Year after the U.S. Invasion of Iraq
- Chapter 45: Can Bullets and Bombs Establish Justice in Iraq?
- Chapter 46: Bush’s Iraq War
- Chapter 47: The Iraq War—A Catastrophic Success
Acknowledgments
Further Reading
Index
About the Author
Praise for Resurgence of the Warfare State “In his very powerful and incisive book, Resurgence of the Warfare State, Robert Higgs is a prophet who deserves honor—and more importantly, urgent attention. The earliest pieces in this book, written a year and more before the onset of the Iraq War, prove uncannily accurate in their predictions of the terrible course of events. They demonstrate that his passionate warnings in the book’s more recent essays demand to be taken with the utmost seriousness. This book is well worth reading for anyone seeking a more peaceful, safer and freer world.”
—DANIEL ELLSBERG, author, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
“Robert Higgs’s Resurgence of the Warfare State strikes a telling blow for liberty and merits a thunderous welcome by Americans. Laying bare the post-9/11 vacuity of the bipartisan cant and moral cowardice of the Executive Branch and Congress, Higgs deftly shows that while these paragons of demagoguery and self-interest shout patriotic bromides about protecting freedom, they are quietly curtailing civil liberties, making the U.S. economy ever more dependent on arms makers, and waging offensive wars which are constitutionally unconscionable. Nowhere is the probably fatal distance between the Founders’ design for America and the Federal Government’s lethal bastardization of it more ably and clearly presented than in this book.”
—MICHAEL F. SCHEUER, former CIA Senior Counter-terrorism Analyst; author, Imperial Hubris
“I have devoured Resurgence of the Warfare State. It is brilliant and courageous; and I loved it.”
—JUDGE ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO, Senior Judicial Analyst, Fox News
“Anyone concerned with the disaster produced by the ‘war on terror’ should first read Robert Higgs’s cogent new book, Resurgence of the Warfare State. He completely covers all aspects of the catastrophe.”
—THOMAS GALE MOORE, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution; former Member of the Council of Economic Advisors for President Ronald Reagan
"Resurgence of the Warfare State is intellectually stimulating, and—whether you agree with its tenets or not—you will be challenged by Higgs’s meticulous research and compelling logic. When you finish the book you will be reminded, as I was, of Marc Antony’s call: ‘Cry ‘Havoc,’ and let slip the dogs of war.’”
—FEDERAL LAWYER
“Resurgence of the Warfare State is a provocative and ultimately chilling perspective on the way the Bush administration has employed the 9/11 crisis to endanger America’s security at home and abroad.”
—MELVIN SMALL, Distinguished Professor of History, Wayne State University
“This thoughtful book documents in valuable detail the myriad ways in which the tragedy of September 11 has been manipulated to justify militarism, wasteful government spending and a frightful increase in the power of the State. Resurgence of the Warfare State is a serious book with a serious argument.”
—ALBERTO R. COLL, Professor of Law, De Paul University and former Dean, U.S. Naval War College
“During times of war and crisis, our government has repeatedly helped self-serving political, corporate and religious leaders increase their power and make more money by exploiting public fears. Wars inevitably make government bigger and more intrusive into personal lives, Robert Higgs believes. Resurgence of the Warfare State, his new book, is one of the most powerful and readable critiques of decisions by George W. Bush, decisions backed by a majority of Congress, to launch pre-emptive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
—CHARLESTON (WV) GAZETTE-MAIL
“Robert Higgs’s zesty, well-written book on the crisis after 9/11, Resurgence of the Warfare State, righteously and rigorously flogs Bush and the feds time after time. His batterings of national security debacles remind readers of the folly of trusting Washington, now more than ever.”
—JAMES BOVARD, author of Terrorism and Tyranny
“Even those who do not share his views on government’s proper role cannot fail to appreciate the many insightful elements of good sense in Resurgence of the Warfare State, Robert Higgs’s provocative and hard-hitting attack on the domestic implications of resurgent American interventionism.”
—RICHARD K. BETTS, Director, Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University
“Robert Higgs is at his best in Resurgence of the Warfare State, combining his broad knowledge of history and economics with a passion for liberty. Higgs provides a top-notch analysis of how the crusade for global democracy abroad and the related growth in the surveillance state at home threaten freedom and constitutional government. A highlight is how Higgs employs his mastery of history to hammer the point that freedoms ‘temporarily’ relinquished are rarely restored.”
—RON PAUL, U.S. Congressman
“Robert Higgs in his Resurgence of the Warfare State lays it all on the line. With ruthless logic Higgs shreds every claim of the Bush administration and its apologists. Reading Higgs leaves no doubt that the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq was an illegal act based in deception. Under the Nuremberg standard established by the U.S. itself, Bush's invasion is a war crime. Widespread slaughter of the civilian Iraqi population and torture of detainees are also war crimes. In one of his best chapters Higgs destroys the claim that US ‘smart weapons’ are expressions of our morality in warfare because they target only enemy combatants. Higgs explains that the accuracy within a few yards of smart weapons is meaningless. The blast, heat, and pressures from the weapons destroys everything within 120 yards of the hit. No one within 365 yards can expect to remain unharmed. Injuries can extend to persons 1000 yards away from the blast. The odds are zero, Higgs writes, that the use of such weapons on towns and cities will not kill and maim large numbers of civilians.”
—COUNTERPUNCH
“Robert Higgs challenges ‘the warfare state’ with analytical clarity and moral depth. His critique of American-style militarism is a solid rejection of the warcrazed obsessions that are propelling the vast majority of Washington’s politicians and journalists. At its core, Resurgence of the Warfare State is an intellectually cogent and ethically principled statement of opposition to the unhinged ‘war on terrorism.’ ”
—NORMAN SOLOMON, author, War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death
“Dr. Higgs has compiled an extraordinary, and extraordinarily timely, book for Americans and others who wish to understand post 9/11 America. Two hours spent in the pleasant company of this easy-to-read yet deeply concerned and insightful Resurgence of the Warfare State is a powerful education that will fortify patriots as it enrages statists. Required reading for all! ”
—LT. COL. KAREN KWIATKOWSK, former Planning Staff Officer, Under Secretariat for Policy, U.S. Department of Defense
“No one is as clear-headed and as wise on issues of war, peace, and government as Robert Higgs. I will give copies of his Resurgence of the Warfare State to all friends who are blinded by red, white, and blue hues.”
—DONALD J. BOUDREAUX, Professor of Economics, George Mason University
“Resurgence of the Warfare State is a delight. Higgs is not only a distinguished economist and historian but a perceptive social critic. It is eerie to read Higgs’s stunningly accurate predictions from 2002 and 2003 about the likely outcome of a war with Iraq and the ‘war on terror.’ You must read this incisive, biting, and quotable book.”
—DAVID T. BEITO, Professor of History, University of Alabama
“In Resurgence of the Warfare State, Higgs speaks truth to the power of the warfare state with the kind of spirited aggressiveness that is needed if truth is to prevail.”
—D. GARETH PORTER, author of Perils of Dominance and The Road to War in Vietnam
“Robert Higgs is our foremost authority on the growth of government power through war and preparation for war. In his masterly analysis of the many dimensions of the currently metastasizing American warfare state, Higgs pulls no punches. His always spirited prose is a gust of fresh air to anyone exposed to the constant stream of clichés of the media. If you are able to read only one book on our deepening crisis, Resurgence of the Warfare State is the one you need.”
—RALPH RAICO, Professor of History, Buffalo State College
“Robert Higgs’s book on the events since 9/11, Resurgence of the Warfare State, demonstrates not just that war is the health of the state, but that it is also a disease to liberty. Those who believe that the wars on Iraq and ‘terror’ are compatible with a belief in limited government need to read this marvelous book.”
—STEPHEN G. HORWITZ, Professor of Economics, St. Lawrence University
“Resurgence of the Warfare State is not a dispassionate book. Cumulatively, the book validates and illustrates in real time Higgs’s thesis that crises become the pretext for ever-increasing exercises of government power, with each increase in power becoming a precedent for yet another use or abuse in a ‘ratchet effect.’ . . . Higgs and quite a few others saw it coming. One may hope that having his observations collected between two covers will serve as a reminder next time our leaders try to sell us an unnecessary war.”
—ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER About the Author Robert Higgs is a Senior Fellow at The Independent Institute and Editor of the Institute’s quarterly journal, The Independent Review. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University and has taught at the University of Washington, Lafayette College and Seattle University. He is the author of The Transformation of the American Economy 1865-1914, Competition and Coercion, and Crisis and Leviathan, recognized as one of the classic works on the growth and abuse of government power.
His articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and San Francisco Chronicle. He has been a guest on NPR, NBC, ABC, C-SPAN, CBN, CNBC, and Radio Free Europe. He lectures at universities and conferences around the world.
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