War is the health of the State, and a bloated state is far less healthy for a modern economy than a short-term jump in oil prices. In that we do not let other countries decide just how they are going to sell us their natural resources, or decide how they are to go through their countries, we are pillaging weaker and poorer states. As an aside, the policy of protection is going to logically lead to the same sort of economic imperialism, probably in the same ill-fitting humanitarian dress, as the present policy of managed trade . Those who sincerely call for the American government to look after America first by raising tariff barriers should remember that no country can get self-sufficiency in all things. Eventually a protectionist policy will make the republic seek an empire to get the resources that the republic just cannot get on its own.
Free trade is the only logical policy that a non-interventionist can advocate.
I know we lost you guys when we tried to force you into a systematic trading bloc. And to bring the Bond analogy home, the excellent George Szamuely points out that we will gradually be drawn into a needless conflict with Russia , which unlike BP-Amoco controls nuclear bombs. As Mr. Bond and our political class show, this ain t necessarily so.