Javier Milei Versus the Antiwar Cause

The global political phenomenon and president of Argentina Javier Milei started his presidency in December 2023. After eight months, his performance at the domestic level, beyond some good actions, is marked by a significant number of errors for a supposed libertarian and follower of Austrian economics. Yet, when it comes to foreign policy, Milei is worse. He is a strong supporter of Washington’s imperialist narrative, that is, he is not a proponent of non-interventionism in the slightest, and his foreign policy as previously announced and carried out since taking office is one of a neocon in charge of the Argentine government. We will now examine in detail why this is the case.

The Russian-Ukraine war

In February 2022, Deputy Milei made himself very clear. Having denounced on TV the “totalitarian vocation of Putin,” he came out in favor of the “free world.” He criticized the Argentine government for not taking the opportunity to condemn the Russian invasion and for its “lack of understanding of how the world works,” and also went on to say, “I don’t make deals with murderers, I said no to China, no to North Korea, no to Russia, no to anyone who doesn’t respect the free world.”

Milei then continued with “a moral question” about war: “When what is happening is wrong, you cannot adopt a neutral position because you are an accomplice… If you see—this is an example, please—that Tato was hitting Florencia, you have to go out and defend Florencia because you know that’s wrong.” Surely, but only if you help Florencia with your own, personal means, and if you are sure that Tato was not reacting to a previous aggression by Florencia against him. Nevertheless, moral duties are different from States making war. In his example, Milei equates individuals with States, and while individuals are normally the just owners of all they have in order to fight, no State can claim the same. Milei can only be serious about his example by assuming that the Ukrainian and Russian States legitimately own the territory they claim. However, for libertarians, no government owns properly and justly the entire land area of the country—the land should be properly and justly owned by individuals. And if one State crosses the border and fights against another State, this in itself does not change the fact that both are aggressors over their subject population.

That month also, Milei wrote a message about the war, referring to the “Concert of Democratic Nations of the World,” threatened by the military advance of “collectivist authoritarianism,” and said:

Those of us who unhesitatingly defend a model of Open and Free Society must join forces in favor of an effective strategy to confront the enemies of Freedom… There is no margin for the Leaders of the Free World to stop in sterile and paralyzing debates…

The rejection of the non-interventionist libertarian view by Milei could be attributed to a lack of understanding or adoption of libertarianism. That is, because of the simple fact of disregarding the very nature of the State—that of a criminal gang, a protection racket which taxes or otherwise rips off productive people to its own advantage and that of its members, friends, and supporters. This fundamental insight clears up any confusion regarding not only the State itself, but in particular also regarding wars between States—revealing such as wars between rival gangs.

These wars normally involve territorial issues and are always conducted by gang leaders at the expense of other people (money, resources, and manpower). Whether offensive or defensive, the costs of war are socialized, and the prospective gains are privatized—making wars more likely, lengthy, and aggressive. In this case, the Zelenskyy gang had continually provoked the Putin gang, and its provocations were encouraged and supported by the US gang—assisted by its NATO-vassals in Europe—that sees the Putin gang as an enemy and an obstacle to global hegemony.

Anyhow, faced with the problem of collective security, libertarians should try to stay equidistant from both parties and avoid provoking either side. They should always be open to talks with both sides, and, insofar as possible, promote the decentralization of decision-making to delimit war and reduce its costs. In short, libertarians should advocate making all decisions about war an increasingly local and ultimately private matter, in order to promote a delimitation of war and its end.

Nonetheless, Milei deviates from a methodological individualism to a methodological holism or collectivism. There is no such thing as Ukraine or Russia, but only gangs—protection rackets—running these countries, and people residing in territories run by these gangs. So asking the gangs of the “free world” to join forces is not libertarian, because these gangs are not the rightful owners of what it takes to join forces against the designated enemy, and it would be worse if foreign aid also went to the gang running the country to be rescued, rather than to the civilian population. Furthermore, Milei’s views that other States should defend Ukraine entails the escalation of a local conflict and an enlargement of the original aggression. But minimizing aggression in wars means that no State should enter into any foreign war and, if possible, that no state should initiate any war.

Libertarians cannot support giving their national gang leaders even more power than they already have, but that is precisely what Milei’s foreign policy views amount to. And as gangs become more aggressive and oppressive, to prevent war propaganda from spreading and being accepted by the public, libertarians should counter it with the real truth: the warring gangs are not at all good or noble, they deserve no support, and the greatest harm is always done to the civilian population.

Views such as Milei’s should be completely discarded, because libertarians apply the fundamental distinction between the people and the State everywhere. On top of this, Milei’s views do no good whatsoever to counter the immediate effects of war that render all business more risky, depress the overall level of production, hinder trade, and make investments virtually impossible. In sum, free-market capitalism requires peace.

The Zelenskyy gang and the Milei gang

The Milei gang has demonstrated a clear commitment to helping the Zelenskyy gang. Right after winning the presidency, in a phone call with Zelenskyy, Milei proposed holding a summit between the Ukrainian government and Latin American governments, which showed Milei’s intention to amplify his impact by trying to gain more support for the Zelenskyy gang. For his part, Zelenskyy congratulated Milei on his victory and thanked him for his position since the early days of the war:

I am grateful to you for not trying to balance between good and evil and for immediately declaring your resolute support for Ukraine. Ukrainians saw it all. And we are very grateful to you for that.

In February 2024, it was reported that Argentina had transferred two multipurpose helicopters to Ukraine previously purchased from Russia. At the time, Milei expressed again his intention to host a “summit of Latin America support” for Ukraine, marking a difference with other heads of State, such as those of Brazil and Mexico, who have been more neutral about the war. Then, in April 2024, Milei actually considered sending military aid to his ally Zelenskyy, whom he called in June 2024 “an inspiration in the whole world,” when Zelenskyy presented Milei with the “Order of Freedom.”

In May 2024, Argentina’s presidential spokesman denied a plan to jointly produce arms with Ukraine for their armies and expressed Argentina’s inability to do so. Having ruled out military support, the Argentine government plans to help in the humanitarian and logistical areas. Even so, Argentina’s position was not happily welcomed by the Putin gang, whose ambassador to Argentina warned that sending military aid to Ukraine would be regarded as hostile to Russia and condemned Argentina’s joining the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in June 2024.

Also in June, Milei participated in a peace summit held in Switzerland—there, apart from giving a speech against war between nations, he restated his “maximum support” for Ukraine. As expected, Milei does not tell the world that the US gang and the Zelenskyy gang do not care for Ukrainians or the battle against evil—in fact, the US gang is only pursuing its own goal of global hegemony. That is, the war in Ukraine is more a war between the US gang and the Putin gang—the Ukrainian people and the Zelenskyy gang are rather filling an instrumental role. But as the Putin gang is an atomic power, it is only sensible to defeat it by driving it into economic ruin. And indeed, the war and the economic sanctions against Russia were for weakening the Putin gang, yet they were also harmful to the Russian people. For the US gang, the goal justifies the means.

In the meantime, without Russia being an example of a free country, Zelenskyy’s measures of forced recruitment, censorship, persecution and imprisonment of opponents, illegalization of political parties and religious entities, are downplayed or completely omitted by Western NATO and US leaders and their media allies who consider Ukraine as a democracy worthy of being defended and helped with billions of foreign taxes to keep the war going all this time, keeping away the possibility of peace and of avoiding more death and destruction. But none of this seems to matter to Milei.

The State of Israel

The cornerstone of libertarianism is the recognition and defense of private property rights. Whether in land or anything else, such rights are justly assigned to individuals based on the ground of original appropriation or of voluntary property transfer. To the contrary: all claims to property not based on these principles are unjust. As for the State of Israel, established in 1948 by mostly European Jews of Zionist persuasion, these requirements of justice are demonstrably not met. Only about 7 percent of present Israel could be said to have been justly acquired by Jews before 1948, and thus be claimed as legitimate property. From then till now, the establishment and the continued expansion of Israel is overwhelmingly the result of expropriation, intimidation, terrorism, war, and conquest against the then-present, mostly Arab residents of the region of Palestine and the now-remaining Arab residents of the regions of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

As Hans-Hermann Hoppe indicates, the claim of present-day Zionists to a homeland in Palestine can only be made by adopting “some form of collectivism that allows for such notions as group or tribal property and property rights, collective responsibility and collective guilt;” and rejecting “the notion of individual personhood, of private property, private product and accomplishment, private crime and private guilt.”

Milei’s views on Israel are Zionist: Deputy Milei demonstrated his commitment to Israel at least as early as June 2022 with the promise of moving the embassy to Jerusalem if he won the presidency. He justified this by saying that when God made Moses break the first tablets of the law, the first word He pronounced was Jerusalem, and that was the capital of King David’s choice. Based on theological presumptions, what a Zionist Milei was already that he can remind us of all kinds of religious rationalizations for Israel’s conquests and expansion in Palestine spoked by Israeli leaders.

Later on, when President Milei visited Israel in February 2024, Benjamin Netanyahu considered him “a great friend of the Jewish State” and was delighted with his decision about Jerusalem. Netanyahu said they both “champion” free markets, but he omitted the fact that Israel prohibits free markets on land and interferes with trade with and within the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. And while the “anti-communist” and “anti-socialist” Milei should be denouncing the State of Israel for emulating the Communist manifesto regarding the prohibition of private land-ownership (all land is in public trust) and putting into action its own style of socialism, he has actually expressed unrestricted support for a State that has oppressed Palestinians in almost every conceivable way for decades.

Not surprisingly, for Milei, as he expressed in April 2024, understanding “the link between freedom and Israel is fundamental,” because it is a people that has achieved “the conjunction of the spiritual and the material.” Thus, it is understandable that the famous Zionist pundit Ben Shapiro adores him.

The Israel-Hamas conflict

In October 2023, members of Hamas, then (partially) running the Gaza Strip, attacked, killed and kidnapped several hundreds of Israeli soldiers and civilians—a portion of the victims being the result of “friendly fire” by Israeli forces. Then, any libertarian worth his salt would have condemned such atrocities, but also recognized that the Hamas attack was no more unprovoked than the Russian attack. And in both cases, the provocations of the Ukrainian and the Israeli political leadership were encouraged, backed up and supported by the predominantly Jewish neocon gang-leadership in the US. Likewise, both Hamas and the State of Israel are criminal gangs: One is a small and low-budget gang with mostly low-grade weapons; and the other is a big and high-budget gang, heavily subsidized by US taxpayers, with a large army and the most sophisticated and destructive weapons.

Every libertarian would have also condemned in no uncertain terms the reaction of the State of Israel to the Hamas attack as a wildly disproportionate response and an atrocity unrivaled in its magnitude and cruelty by anything else in recent history: The Netanyahu gang, assisted by a flood of US funds, weapons and ammunition, retaliated and turned to rubble almost the entire Gaza Strip, and tens of thousands of innocent civilians—including thousands of children—were killed by bombing sprees, artillery and invading tanks under the pretense of fighting a terrorist group. And all this is still going on, to this very day, destroying the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

Before this background, libertarians would want to wish the worst on the leaders of both gangs and on all gang leaders of other States lending support to any of the warring gangs. And as in the Russia-Ukraine war, libertarians should raise their voices in favor of peace and negotiations. Pressure must be put on gang leaders to reach an agreement and avoid any escalation of the armed conflict.

And what has been President Milei’s reaction to all this?

In March 2024, Milei defended all of this as “Israel’s right to legitimate self-defense,” and said that the attack of Hamas requires “exemplary responses,” stating also that Israel “is not committing any single excess, despite the excesses committed by Hamas terrorists.” Later on, when asked in May 2024 about the protests at American universities in favor of Palestine (since the mainstream media do not usually portray the protests as antiwar or anti-genocide), Milei responded that he finds “the anti-Semitic behavior” occurring at the universities “aberrant.” And then, displaying his warlike collectivism, Milei emphasized his stance on “the right side of history”—on the side of the US, Israel and the West—and said that they will use “all resources” to defend themselves against terrorists.

Likewise, in April 2024, after the Iranian response to the usual Israeli foreign policy, Milei stated his “unwavering solidarity and commitment to the State of Israel in the face of the attacks initiated by the Islamic Republic of Iran.” The Argentine government supports the State of Israel “in the defense of its sovereignty, especially against regimes that promote terror and seek the destruction of Western civilization.” The message read that the foreign policy adopted is based “on the defense of Western values” and in defense of “life, liberty and private property.” For the new administration, the State of Israel is “a bulwark of Western values in the Middle East, and the Argentine Republic will always be on its side…”

The United States sidekick

This Western lip service was already seen in Milei in 2020 following Trump’s defeat. Milei showed concern about having a “weak” US president in power in a world that is “a powder keg” and said, “I would almost say that Trump’s fall would be to endanger Western civilization.” However, Milei’s allies are the ones spreading powder kegs around the world. As a matter of fact, apart from the millions killed, it has been estimated that until 2020 at least 37 million people became refugees due to the US-led war on terror. The US forces have waged wars or participated in other combat operations in at least 24 countries since 2001. On the other hand, Milei is a staunch Trumpist, who sees Trump as a fighter against statism and has been defending Trump from the most obvious things like his protectionism since at least 2018. Yet, President Trump was just another warmonger in chief of imperialism, NATO, and Zionism. He has as much blood on his hands and statism in his veins as most US presidents. But how can an “anti-statist” show such devotion to Trump? Despite this, Milei has asserted that the US is an ally regardless of whether the president is a Democrat or a Republican.

In a presidential debate in November 2023, as far as international relations are concerned, the US sidekick Milei displayed the well-known democratic discourse of US imperialism as follows:

I have systematically pointed out my alignment with the United States, with Israel, and with the free world… As a State, I’m not willing to establish relations with those who don’t respect liberal democracy, who don’t respect individual liberties… and… peace.

Argentina’s new foreign policy is a statement to the world: In addition to all of Milei’s words all these years, the government acquired twenty-four F-16 jets for its air force, announced a joint naval base with the US, requested to join NATO as a global partner, and hosted naval drills with the US fleet.

Additionally, Milei’s actions are actually contrary to the goal of destroying the State from within. Otherwise, how can he pretend to do that if his entanglements with statist and warmongering elites only strengthen statism across the international network of political and military power? Moreover, the fact that Milei has advanced the hegemony of US-Zionist imperialism and continued the US-exported and partially US-controlled war on drugs shows the US sidekick he really is.

The facade and the truth

True, no neocon in the past has explicitly said—as Milei—that the State is a criminal organization and that he hates the State. Sure, but no neocon has stopped doing what Murray Rothbard said three decades ago either, which is exactly what Milei does:

But what animates the neocons first and foremost is foreign policy. The dominant and constant star of that foreign policy is the preservation and the aggrandizement… of the State of Israel, the “little democracy in the Middle East.” Consequently, they favor massive foreign aid, especially to the State of Israel, and America as the dominant force in a New World Order that will combat “aggression” everywhere and impose “democracy” throughout the world, the clue to that “democracy” being not so much voting and free elections as stamping out “human rights violations” throughout the globe, particularly any expression, real or imagined, of anti-Semitism.

Therefore, the fact that Milei says what he says about the State, while supporting especially murderous gangs of criminals, only worsen the situation. Thus, the excuse presented to defend Milei, that no neocon has ever preached anti-statist ideas like him before, is actually a reason to label Milei as a hypocrite of the worst kind. Be that as it may, Milei—and others—can say he is whatever he says to be, but his actions are indeed characteristics of a neocon in charge of the Argentine government, who will sanctify Israel and try to help all his warmongering friends. And if Milei is a head of State who intends to destroy the State from within, why should we owe him not only the benefit of the doubt but also full support, being himself just another leader of a criminal gang? Why, indeed, if he praises heads of State who do not want to do the same?

Thomas Woods believes that foreign policy is the best libertarian feature. And this is part of the reason why Milei’s foreign policy is relevant for the libertarian movement, because as long as he is globally known as a libertarian superstar, he will be relevant in the battle of ideas. Indeed, the dominance of some ideas, and not others, has fatal consequences, and since the worst thing about statism is its wars, those who disdain his foreign policy are highly mistaken. To further explain: if we do not give importance to Milei’s foreign policy, because it has practically no influence in that aspect and his support for US-Zionist imperialism is, so to speak, irrelevant; then, neither should we give importance to Milei’s contribution to the diffusion of libertarian ideas, because his presidency in Argentina has practically no influence in fighting statism and his speeches are, therefore, also irrelevant. Notwithstanding this, Argentina’s foreign policy under Milei has proven to be relevant. And if Argentina had not been in the midst of a crisis, we could have expected a more proactive participation of the Argentine government in the war map with neocons like Milei in power.

It is correct to call Putin, Kim and Xi evil crooks, gangsters, and murderers. But then to eulogize, as Milei does, the likes of Trump and Zelenskyy and side with Netanyahu, instead of calling them evil crooks, gangsters and murderers as well, is simply mind-boggling. To say only so totally disqualifies Milei as a libertarian. And to this day, Milei has displayed some complete and unquestioning subservience to the imperialist interests of the US neocons and their Zionist buddies in Israel, and an equally complete and unquestioning unwillingness to understand those forces around the world unwilling to bow down and obey their Western masters.

After all this time, Milei is unable to say a word against the genocidal impulses of various leaders of the State of Israel and all the crimes committed practically every day by Israeli forces. Scandalously, while he regards the killing of the unborn as an aberration, the mass killings of fully formed children seems to be of no concern to him. Milei’s deviations and propagandistic efforts to favor the State of Israel are simply outrageous, and his astounding collection of errors for a so-called libertarian has made it imperative that true libertarians take note of the association of his name with the libertarian movement. Hence, in order to preserve their reputation and that of the entire libertarian intellectual edifice, libertarians should publicly distance themselves from Milei. And libertarians can be sure that Milei’s antiwar speech quoting Frédéric Bastiat at the peace summit is nothing more than the usual facade of politicians, because his foreign policy alignments and views have not changed one iota.

Moreover, Milei’s deviations are renunciations of libertarian principles and insights understood and defended in the Rothbardian tradition. For example, his support for Israel is the renunciation of the non-aggression principle that Milei himself pronounces so often. And as Lew Rockwell expressed, Rothbard maintained a remarkable consistency throughout his life in terms of political priorities, and always saw the State, “especially its war-making power, as liberty’s (and thus civilization’s) greatest enemy.” In fact, Milei admires war criminals such as Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill, and his presidency resembles the internal deregulation and increased external aggressiveness of Reagan’s. There is a reason why these historical figures are celebrated by the neocons: they capitalize on their anti-communist or anti-socialist rhetoric to support US hegemony. Milei not only plays the same tune, but also fails to promote a historical revisionism crucial to the libertarian cause.

The libertarian movement does not need crooks, but real libertarians. Consequently, to keep calling Milei a libertarian is a mistake, since it means passing off a neocon as a libertarian. The time has come for libertarians to not only stop helping Milei’s libertarian reputation, but to destroy it.