[tacticalogic]

Well, that may be a part of the libertarian philosophy but the Von Mises Institute essentially believes that the government is the most dangerous threat to liberty. Consequently, almost all of the material coming from this Insitute denies any legitimate role for the state and rejects all forms of compulsion. This article specifically rejects any form of collective defense if it is compulsory.

If the Von Mises Institute is mis-representing libertarinaism, then the question is about the institute itself, not libertarianism.

Would you care to explain how a non-compulsory national defense would work?

Probably not very well, but the article doesn't seem to be limited to consideration of what is required to provide for the national defense, and I don't think there's a case to be made that any action that is justified in the name of national defense is equally justifiable for any other reason.

[DugwayDuke]

"Probably not very well, but the article doesn't seem to be limited to consideration of what is required to provide for the national defense, and I don't think there's a case to be made that any action that is justified in the name of national defense is equally justifiable for any other reason."

Of course not. But the author falls into a similar trap when he argues that if something is not justified in the name of national defense it cannot be justified for any other purpose.

But since you bring that up, libertarians from the Von Mises Institute like to argue that all functions of government can be better performed by the private sector quite commonly pointing to the use of privitized police and courts. I have similar problems with those arguments as well.

Suppose all police and courts are privitized. Let us further suppose that you and I are neighbors and have a dispute over say our property boundary. I go to my court and get an injuction against you. You go to yours and get an injuction against me. We both call in our separate police forces and try to enforce these injuctions. I think there is a problem there that illustrates why some functions must be public and why they must be compulsory in the sense that all must abide by them.