I disagree so much with Jason Brennan’s post that I don’t know where to begin, and certainly I can’t put it all here. The US has provided for many years, at great cost and as an international public good, national defense to a great number of countries in the world. The US was crucial in winning WWII. The US, equally crucially, helped win the Cold War. Europe (who, being more peaceful, presumably Brennan would praise) could not be what it is today but for the protection provided by the US. Why do you think Venezuela doesn’t invade Colombia, or Cuba (at one time a powerful regional military power) has not invaded Costa Rica, which doesn’t even have an army? And it is the US, and not others, who are trying to do something about this  monster called ISIS. The Iraqis should be grateful to the US for having overthrown Saddam and given them the chance (squandered mostly by them) to build a reasonable society. The idea that bin Laden’s crimes were our fault is so repulsive that I won’t even comment, as is the idea that our soldiers go around, as a matter of course, raping and murdering people, as in a criminal rampage. These presumed rapists and murderers liberated Paris, created two successful democracies (Germany and Japan) from the ashes of the war, tried to help Iraq build reasonable institutions, tried to save millions of women from the cruel yoke of the Taliban, and are currently doing something to stop the beheadings, rapes, murders, and forced conversions in Syria and Iraq. Maybe it would be better if the world had no hegemon to provide international  public goods. But If the world has to have a hegemon, the US is the least bad we can do.  Yes, the US forces should be criticized when they do wrong. And maybe no one should be called a hero in the terrible business of war. Many people certainly have a patriotic prejudice that inflates the virtue of actions that are at best necessary evils.  But Brennan’s tirade today gets his facts and his values wrong.

[P.S. I have edited for more accuracy: of course the US did not win those wars alone. Following Jacob Levy’s comment below, and David Henderson’s FB post, I have deleted the reference to WWI.]