Murray N. Rothbard - For A New Liberty

... libertarians and other Americans must guard against a priori history: in this case, against the assumption that, in any conflict, the State which is more democratic or allows more internal freedom is necessarily or even presumptively the victim of aggression by the more dictatorial or totalitarian State. There is simply no historical evidence whatever for such a presumption. In deciding on relative rights and wrongs, on relative degrees of aggression in any dispute in foreign affairs, there is no substitute for a detailed empirical, historical investigation of the dispute itself. It should occasion no great surprise, then, if such an investiga tion concludes that a democratic and relatively far freer United States has been more aggressive and imperialistic in foreign affairs than a relatively totalitarian Russia or China.