"A large-scale instance [of political smear-tactics], in the 1930’s, was the introduction of the word “isolationism” into our political vocabulary. It was a derogatory term, suggesting something evil, and it had no clear, explicit definition. It was used to convey two meanings: one alleged, the other real—and to damn both.

The alleged meaning was defined approximately like this: “Isolationism is the attitude of a person who is interested only in his own country and is not concerned with the rest of the world.” The real meaning was: “Patriotism and national self-interest.”

What, exactly, is “concern with the rest of the world”? Since nobody did or could maintain the position that the state of the world is of no concern to this country, the term “isolationism” was a straw man used to misrepresent the position of those who were concerned with this country’s interests. The concept of patriotism was replaced by the term “isolationism” and vanished from public discussion.

The number of distinguished patriotic leaders smeared, silenced, and eliminated by that tag would be hard to compute. Then, by a gradual, imperceptible process, the real purpose of the tag took over: the concept of “concern” was switched into “selfless concern.” The ultimate result was a view of foreign policy which is wrecking the United States to this day: the suicidal view that our foreign policy must be guided, not by considerations of national self-interest, but by concern for the interests and welfare of the world, that is, of all countries except our own." AR, Capitalism the Unknown Ideal. Rand is very clear that you do not willy nilly go into war. Whenever this comes up Danno, I always think it's part Libertarian anarcho subversion of Objectivism. Rand was also very clear about objectives and she was against the draft. I used to think if the draft wasn't in force, it would be hard to pull off a Viet Nam war-but the Iraq/afganistan War happened. too many conservatives see terrorism as a nation instead of a tactic. In the meantime, our educational system supports and props up the very philosophies bent on the US's destruction. sigh

First, you need to take Ayn Rand in context. You cannot just grab some quote and think that it describes the depth and range of her thought on a subject.

Second, in this case, the distinction is between what is MORALLY defensible and what is politically practical. The same applies, for instance, to capital punishment. If a person willfully takes a life, is theirs forfeit? Morally, yes, it is. However, Rand refused to endorse capital punishment. She left it for the future of jurisprudence. We have far too many cases of innocent people convicted of murders they did not commit to allow capital punishment. So, too, would invading the USSR have been impractical.

Third, those looter states were self-declared enemies of the United States as a CAPITALIST nation. If Marx and Lenin were not enough, Krushchev was famous for two "we will bury you" announcements.

More to the point, however, Ayn Rand was NOT in favor of US involvement in World War Two. WW2 was a conflict between totalitarian, collectivist variants and no concern of the United States.

To answer the limited, specific question: If someone declared that they were going to kill you, you would be justified in killing them back first. Whether that involved calling the police or blowing their brains out is a practical problem delimited and defined by your self-interest.

Then Rand talks about using economic blockade and such. That takes big government to do!