Humans have a tendency to obey political authorities even when it may not seem in each individual’s self-interest to do so. Nationalism is a modern manifestation of this phenomenon. After the US government’s strike on nuclear facilities of the Iranian government, there is little doubt that nationalism or tribalism will lead a large number of Americans and Iranians to rally behind their supreme leaders more blindly. (I agree that, thankfully, the American one is not yet as supreme as the Iranian one.)
In his book On Power (Du Pouvoir), Bertrand de Jouvenel wrote that “the essential reason for obedience is that it has become a habit of the species” (“On obéit essentiellement parce que c’est une habitude de l’espèce”). There may be evolutionary roots to this submissiveness. Because of the problem of collective action (in the Olsonian sense of “coordinated group action,” not in the sense of decisions imposed by political authorities), an individual often has an interest to play dove before a ruler or ruling group committed to play hawk (see my short explanation of the Hawk-Dove game). Nationalist propaganda adds more motivation for citizens to obey, as does ignorance of basic economics.
Classical liberals and libertarians are the only ones to share James Buchanan’s “faith” in a society where all can be equally free. This hope finds rational foundations in theories of spontaneous order.
What happened on June 21 was not literally “a US strike on Iran” or “America’s strike on Iran,” as everybody repeats, but a strike of the US government on the assets of the Iranian government—including possibly on its claimed human assets, what is called collateral damage. Tragically, I fear, we can go a bit further: it was more a strike of Donald Trump and his minions on the claimed assets of Ali Khamenei and his minions. Linguistic shortcuts and the need or habit of economizing on words (in newspaper headlines, for example) should not blind us to the reality that social and political phenomena result from the preferences and actions of individuals. Whatever one thinks of war events and developments, one must beware of synecdoche and other linguistic shortcuts that, reinforced by government propaganda, easily lead to confusing individuals with the groups they “belong” to and the latter’s rulers.
The function of political hyperbole is typically to promote the subjects’ obedience, not to limit the rulers’ power. One day after his attacks in Iran, President Trump declared that “our country is hot as a pistol” (don’t laugh). Certainly, many Americans are, especially in the nascent summer, cool as a cold beer. But the obedience-building function would not be served by saying instead that “part of the 49.8% of Americans who voted for me were hot as a pistol.”
The general issue of the limits of government power is, of course, a complex question. I have regularly discussed it on this blog, notably with reference to the economic and philosophical theories of James Buchanan and Anthony de Jasay.
The particular problem of nuclear weapons is that their victims are essentially indiscriminate. They give monstrous blackmail power to their possessors. “If you don’t submit, I’ll hurt your subjects (even if the fallouts could hurt mine too).” In my view, the principle of preventing a thug from having nuclear weapons is defendable. A case can also be made that neither the possessor nor the preventer should be an autocrat or an autocrat-to-be. (The reader may enjoy, and agree or disagree with, my fourth-millennium libertarian tale about defense.)
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Attackers of Iran?
