The President and the Bomb

It’s funny how war makes you appreciate real acts of courage. Valor in wartime is usually reserved for the men and women who fight on the front lines. The generals who direct action from overseas are also given a fair bit of honor. Presidents and Prime Ministers – the men and women who rarely pick battles to fight and are useless in directing them – are typically awarded all the prestige that comes with victory.After a decade and a half of near constant war, the United States government shows no signs of slowing down. The more bellicose voices in Congress are saber-rattling over Iran. Washington’s allies – including Canada – are champing at the bit for a new world conflict. The Chinese government is becoming more aggressive toward its neighbors, namely Japan and the struggle for control of the Senkaku islands. As Pat Buchanan writes in an apocalyptic column, “not only is Beijing bullying its coastal neighbors, the Middle East is descending into a maelstrom.” Uncle Sam’s favorite stomping ground is descending into a mix of sectarian violence and struggle for ultimate control. The wanna-be military heroes in the Pentagon and Congress are itching to rejoin the fray with more troops, more guns, and more blood.An era of peace, this is not. And the horizon isn’t getting any brighter. In times of morbid uncertainty, it’s salubrious to consider men who renounced the blade in favor of a greater tranquility. It’s said that history goes to the winners. So it’s no surprise the efforts of men who recognize the inherent value of peace over disturbance go unheard.Ronald Reagan has never been a heroic figure to libertarians. His presidency was not marked by a downsizing of Leviathan. Despite his conservative campaign rhetoric, Reagan oversaw Washington’s incessant growth streak. As Murray Rothbard wrote at the end of the Gipper’s time in the Oval Office,

“Eight years, eight dreary, miserable, mind-numbing years, the years of the Age of Reagan, are at long last coming to an end. These years have surely left an ominous legacy for the future: we shall undoubtedly suffer from the after-shocks of Reaganism for years to come.”

What was the result of Reaganism exactly? Ronnie left the country with a bigger government than when he took the oath of office. He practically ruined libertarian political rhetoric. He turned limited government advocacy into a blanket disguise for malicious statism. He reformed American conservativism into a vehicle for worldwide imperium. And perhaps most of all: Ronald Reagan was one of the most moral men to ever hold the office of the presidency.Why is that exactly? Isn’t the Gipper known as a hard-hearted Cold Warrior who vanquished the Soviet Union with his steel resolve? Didn’t he refuse to back down in the face of a nuclear threat?Not exactly. The Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of its own irrational economic system. Ronald Reagan’s tough exterior was a mere theater act, which was fitting for the former actor. Despite his grandiose gestures, Reagan was not the ready-made brawler today’s politicians invoke to display their own manliness. Bill Buckley once said of him during a dinner gala in 1985 that if the time came, Reagan would start a nuclear war with the Soviets. As he wrote in his memoir The Reagan I Knew, “I said in as many words, dressed up for the party, was that Reagan would, if he had to, pull the nuclear trigger.” Thankfully, the late purveyor of National Review mistook the President’s devotion to win the Cold War (as did Rothbard). Two decades later, Buckley admitted the Commander-in-Chief whom he once lauded as a cold-blooded fighter “would in fact not have deployed our great bombs, never mind what the Soviet Union had done.”It’s a wonder no pol in America remembers the Gipper being a man who abhorred the very idea of committing mass murder. The image of the 40th president is only summoned when making the case for war. “Trust, but verify” is a common trope among aspiring world leaders who want to push around the rest of the globe. It’s a damn shame. Had the Soviets dropped the bomb, Reagan would have taken the ultimately moral route and refused to retaliate with nuclear arms. There is no way to adequately convey the amazing amount of self-restraint such a position would require.The pacifistic approach seems counter-intuitive. After all, any coherent theory on the use of force holds that self-defense is just, and sometimes even necessary. To not defend life in the face of death is to discount living itself. It would seem to violate a basic tenet of natural law. When you are struck, it is only natural to feel the need to strike back. In a sense, it’s honorable. To refrain from hitting back is one of the hardest things a man can do. It tells witnesses that “NO,” you will not be a part of escalating violence.In the world of nuclear weapons, the stakes change dramatically. The Bomb is different from a rough-and-tumble schoolyard brawl. There is no aiming; no discriminating or targeting of an enemy. The only thing left in the wake of the fallout is death, and that includes piles of innocent bodies.Einstein was once quoted as saying “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”  The remark is supposed to be in reference to nuclear weapons, and the very real possibility of a global war fought with a weapon incapable of being aimed so as to avoid swallowing guiltless lives. The carnage was supposed to be so widespread, it would engulf material civilization as we knew it. Einstein regretted his role in fomenting the nuclear race and considered it his one great mistake in life.The death caused by atomic bombs is so atrocious and needlessly destructive, it’s hard to imagine man ever developing them at all. But we did. The human species excels at many things, dreaming up ways to kill and menace each other being one. The British poet W.H. Auden once wrote to “entertain the possibility of that the only knowledge which can be true for us is the knowledge we can live up to – that seems to all of us crazy and almost immoral.” Certainly, the pursuit of and development of nuclear weapons was a great victory in the realm of science. But when considering the cost in terms of hundreds of thousands killed and today’s ratcheting up of war between governments that want The Bomb, was it really worth it?Einstein didn’t think so. And Reagan didn’t think so either. The latter’s refusal to take millions of Russian lives in response to the hypothetical wiping away of millions of innocent Americans speaks loudly of a man who appears to have valued morality over boosting the points on the scoreboard. In a time where war – which is centered around nuclear weapons – is a not-too-distant reality, it helps to remember that not all men in the Oval Office were willing to commit a nuclear holocaust. Let’s hope better senses prevail when the time comes.

James E. Miller is editor-in-chief of the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada, where this article was originally published.

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