In the theory of fifth generation warfare there is a concept called the super empowered individual. “A super empowered individual, in my view, is autonomously capable of creating a cascading event that grand strategist Dr Thomas P.M. Barnett has termed a ‘system perturbation’; a disruption of system function and invalidation of existing rule sets to at least the national but more likely the global scale. The key requirements to become ‘superempowered’ are comprehension of a complex system’s connectivity and operation; access to critical network hubs; possession of a force that can be leveraged against the structure of the system and a willingness to use it”[1]. This is an extension of non-state warfare beyond the paradigm of fourth generation warfare, where the battlespace moves beyond the control or comprehension of the nation-states with the introduction of non- or sub-state actors that challenge sovereignty.

Libertarian theories of international relations (IR) are limited in their codification and explanation, tending to be afterthoughts in wider social and economic treatises that premise the development of a libertarian society. The central figure of the state or sovereign in most IR theories goes against the grain of libertarianism’s insight that economic action moves beyond the boundaries of states through markets and non-state institutions. However, this view leads to myopia as the importance of IR and particularly of warfare in the construction and delineation of societies, as well as the character of state and non-state institutions, means a whole field of action that libertarianism must engage with if it is to posit a praxis.

Pragmatic Libertarianism and Pessimistic Agorism

“Transitions from one system of social organization to another, in the real world, are piecemeal and partial, with a considerable variety of subjective visions and motives among those involved. So Murray Rothbard’s vision of a stable majority of an entire society converted to the nonaggression principle, operating according to essentially the same libertarian law code, and with some set of model libertarian institutions, is probably as close to the literal meaning of ‘utopia’—nowhere—as we could imagine”[1].

Decentralisation and Transversality

In taking a structural-materialist analysis that takes context as a primary variable for the formation of international orders (second anarchies), a libertarian ideology or commercial sovereignty must exist within the prevailing context of international relations, both shaping and being shaped by it. As previously noted, the autonomous forces of commerce and/or war are partial actants in their own right, with any ethical foundation only being achieved through the combination of forces to produce a stable order. Any order is only relative, and is only contingent, reliant on the maintenance of forces that may degrade and parts of assemblages that may dislocate. As Deleuze & Guattari noted with the war machine, the state apparatus’s co-optation of it creates instability, as the forces of war, that violence entrepreneurism, reshape and disperse the capabilities to control it. In contrast to Deudney, the developments of order from disorder do not developmentally scale upward to the ultimate second anarchy, a world federation or integrated international governance structure that finds itself with no established enemy, no periphery to which violence is externalised. Indeed, the actualisation of such a proposition would inevitably create instability, as the very forces of war contained within such a vast structure would turn inward, degrading it and causing it to decentralise and dissipate into its constituent elements. The development of order is thus cyclical and temporary.

The War Machine

War is an ever-present feature of the international/geopolitical landscape, and as van de Haar noted, is not something that a classical liberal IR would attempt to entirely eliminate as it evolves from the complex interaction of human passions and ideological clashes. Looking at a libertarian IR theory as one premised around the sublimation of war to the peaceful systems of market exchange and limited government, war itself cannot be reasonably opposed lest it fall into a utopianism that is counterproductive to the extensions of libertarian aims in the sphere of governance. In recognising this, the perspective of a libertarian IR or commercial sovereignty is in variable tension with warfare as its own autonomous force. The capacity for commercial sovereignty can only grow in the contingencies of more powerful structures, whether that be patchwork systems of governance as in feudal Europe, the Westphalian system of anarchic state competition or the liberal system of international relations (Pax Americana).

Defining Libertarianism and a Libertarian IR Theory

In determining the contours of a libertarian theory of international relations and how it engages with sovereign states and the liberal system of international governance, the axioms of libertarianism should first be outlined and understood. “The libertarian creed rests upon one central axiom: that no man or group of men may aggress against the person or property of anyone else”[1]. According to this central axiom, the non-aggression principle, is the primary determinant of libertarian ethics and as a result a significant constraint on the extent to which any system of governance can control or dictate the actions of the individual.

Statification, in Foucauldian terms, is the production of regimes and modes of governance conferred directly through coercive and narrativistic means. The state, rather than being a monolithic structure produced through a proscribed centre, is a series of “incessant transactions”[1] that modify and destroy alternative social relations and agential structures, developing into a centripetal force that coalesces around a state-form ideological structure. The state is the representation of these transactions, the underlying unit of account that links them together, developing a semi-coherent narrative. In concrete terms, the state expanded as a primary social form through primitive accumulation and the organisation of warfare.

Following from my last speculations on the fractured conflict that the George Floyd protests and riots brought up, further developments of autonomous zones and alt-right infiltrations have shed more light on these conflicts that “have fractured into the dynamic tension between different tribes and the narratives they proscribe”[1]. These developments have shades of the Occupy movement in 2011 and right-wing movements with a similar attitude toward central government control who attempted self-government, but they are emplaced in a wider culture war dynamic that means the issues and relations become muddled.

The explosion of rioting and protest following the killing of George Floyd shows the fragility of US political relations and the extent to which nihilistic subjectivism – the displacement of a national subject in favour of different tribal and identity-focused conflagrations – have infected US political discourse. George Floyd’s killing as another example of police brutality was the inflection point for this to erupt, with the causal mechanisms multiplicitous and dispersed. The history of racial violence, segregation, community segmentation and deprivation are clear throughout much of the US urban geography. The limited distribution of wealth combined with the containment of gang violence and malinvestment within black neighbourhoods has created powder kegs which have regularly burst, from the civil rights-era riots to more recent events in Ferguson and Baltimore.

Charlottesville seems to have been the coming together of two groups who pine after political power and control. Both Antifa and the Alt-Right seem determined to control the cultural and societal apparatuses that inform the major narratives and discourses of the US, pushing their understandings to the forefront of media exposure. Thus both groups are trying to stake their own political power within the state structures of the US government and its subsidiaries, attempting to exist within the centralised organs of governmental control. With this we see the fundamental problem. Two completely opposed groups vying for socio-cultural recognition and fighting for scraps from the US government itself. The fact that both are trying to do this will inevitably lead to conflict like that seen in Charlottesville. There will never be a political system that will encompass both anti-fascists (and their narratives of white privilege, structural racism and anti-dialogic engagement) and the Alt-Right (and their narratives of White identity, ethnocentrism and cultural homogeneity). The violence of Charlottesville shows the innate tendencies of modern politics when there is no dialogic or deliberative arena in which to air grievances and construct debate. The views of both groups are so anathema that such an arena is not even theoretically possible. The simple reality is that these groups cannot co-exist, and will when possible chase after the illusive power of institutionalised governance and the control of social and industrial complexes. Continue reading →