Scott Horton

Horton says he has conducted more than 6,000 interviews since 2003; his articles have appeared at Antiwar.com, The American Conservative, The National Interest, the Orange County Register and the Christian Science Monitor, among others.⁠[1]

In 2007 his Antiwar Radio won the Austin Chronicle’s critics’ choice award for “Best Iraq War Insight and Play-by-Play” in its “Best of Austin 2007”; the program, a division of Antiwar.com, was based in Austin and broadcast live on KAOS-FM.⁠[2]

In October 2016, signing as founder and managing director, he introduced The Libertarian Institute, with Will Grigg as managing editor and Sheldon Richman as executive editor, saying its goal was to unite the libertarian movement and to “realign American politics around our agenda.”⁠[3]

In 2017 he published Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan.⁠[1]

A review called the book well researched and lively, summarizing its arguments that the U.S. was no closer to defeating the Taliban than ever and could have fought a limited war and left Afghanistan within a few months.⁠[4]

In January 2019 he announced that The Libertarian Institute was now incorporated in Texas and said he was writing a new book on the terror wars, to be published under the Institute’s imprint.⁠[5]

In November 2019 he announced that he had joined the Libertarian Party to support Jacob Hornberger’s bid for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination, urging supporters to seek delegate spots.⁠[6]

In January 2021 he announced Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism, with advance praise from Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, former congressman Ron Paul and retired Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis, among others.⁠[7]

In August 2021, as U.S. forces left Afghanistan, he said the withdrawal was a long-overdue decision and that the U.S. should have pulled out years earlier.⁠[8]

On October 4, 2021, at a Soho Forum Oxford-style debate at Symphony Space in New York City, he debated U.S. foreign policy with Bill Kristol, founding editor of The Weekly Standard and a leading proponent of the invasion of Iraq.⁠[9]

The resolution was “A willingness to intervene, and seek regime change, is key to an American foreign policy that benefits America”; Kristol defended it and Horton opposed it.⁠[10]

In July 2022 he announced Hotter Than the Sun: Time to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a collection of interviews conducted over more than a decade with Daniel Ellsberg, Seymour Hersh, Gar Alperovitz, Hans Kristensen, Joe Cirincione and others on the risk of nuclear war and nuclear weapons.⁠[11]

That August, C-SPAN2’s Book TV aired an interview with him about the book recorded at FreedomFest.⁠[12]

In June 2024 he said the Provoked manuscript had reached 1,400 pages and more than 5,100 footnotes and that he had mostly stopped researching to focus on writing and editing.⁠[13]

Comedian Dave SmithDave SmithDave Smith is a New York stand-up comedian and libertarian political commentator who hosts the podcast Part of the Problem; described as one of the most visible figures of the Libertarian Party’s Mises Caucus, he is known for advocating U.S. non-intervention in foreign conflicts and criticizing U.S. support for Israel and Ukraine.Open the full entry wrote that July that Horton and his editor Will Porter were editing the manuscript down to a readable length, adding that the Institute had published fourteen books.⁠[14]

The book, Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine, was published in 2024; in it Horton argues that since the end of the Cold War successive U.S. administrations pressed their advantage against Russia, from NATO expansion and “shock therapy” economic policy to color revolutions and missile defense, until it blew up into full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine.⁠[15]

In November 2024 historian Niall FergusonNiall FergusonNiall Ferguson is a British historian of finance, international relations and empire and the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution; the author of 16 books including The Ascent of Money, Empire and a biography of Henry Kissinger, he was knighted for services to literature in 2024.Open the full entry wrote that he had just held a “bad-tempered debate” with Horton, moderated by Peter Robinson, on the causes and course of the war in Ukraine, and said he found Horton’s views objectionable.⁠[16]

On February 2, 2025, at Dartmouth CollegeDartmouth CollegeDartmouth College is a private institution of higher education in Hanover, New Hampshire, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded by Eleazar Wheelock, it received a royal charter on December 13, 1769. The 1819 Supreme Court ruling in Dartmouth College v. Woodward preserved its private status. Alongside undergraduate liberal arts education, Dartmouth includes the Geisel, Thayer, Tuck and Guarini schools. It enrolled 7,273 students in fall 2025 and held a $9 billion endowment at June 30, 2025. Sian Leah Beilock, in office since June 2023, remained president as of October 2026.Open the full entry, he debated Eli Lake, a columnist for The Free Press and contributing editor of Commentary, at a Soho Forum event on the resolution that the United States started the new Cold War with Russia and provoked Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Horton arguing the affirmative.⁠[17]

Horton pointed to NATO’s expansion and U.S. involvement in the 2004 and 2014 protests in Ukraine; Lake argued that Putin invaded out of imperial ambitions and that NATO expansion was driven by the fears of former captive nations. In the audience vote, opposition to the resolution rose from 40 to 52 percent and support from 38 to 48 percent.⁠[18]

He debated the Iran war and Iran’s nuclear program with Mark DubowitzMark DubowitzMark Dubowitz is chief executive of the Washington think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). He has long worked on Iran’s nuclear program and sanctions on Iran and has testified more than twenty times before the U.S. Congress and foreign legislatures; a prominent critic of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, he and FDD were placed on a sanctions list by Iran’s Foreign Ministry in 2019.Open the full entry, chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, on episode 473 of the Lex FridmanLex FridmanLex Fridman is a Soviet-born, US-raised computer scientist and podcast host who works as an MIT research scientist on human-AI interaction and autonomous driving. His Lex Fridman Podcast is known for hours-long conversations with guests including heads of state and technology leaders.Open the full entry Podcast, recorded on June 24 after the Iran-Israel ceasefire was declared.⁠[19]

In July 2025 the U.S. Army War College published a review by Lt. Col. Josh VanBuskirk, which describes the book as blaming the Washington bipartisan foreign policy consensus for the Russia-Ukraine war and bills it as a “must-read for military professionals.”⁠[20]

He appeared on episode 478 of the Lex Fridman Podcast, whose description calls him a staunch critic of U.S. military interventionism for three decades; topics ran from the Cold War to the War on Terror, the Iraq wars, bin Laden, the Afghanistan war, the military industrial complex, Syria, Iran, Israel-Palestine and “Cold War 2.0.”⁠[21]

In October 2025 he launched the Scott Horton Academy of Foreign Policy and Freedom in collaboration with Tom Woods, with initial long-form courses by himself on the war on terrorism and by Jim Bovard, Ramzy Baroud and William Buppert.⁠[22]

In August 2026 he listed on his blog thirteen occasions, starting in 2008, on which he had said on his show that the end of the Afghan war would look like the fall of Saigon.⁠[23]

As of October 2026 he is director of the Scott Horton Academy of Foreign Policy and Freedom and of The Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, host of The Scott Horton Show and co-host of Provoked with Darryl Cooper; he is married and lives in Austin, Texas.⁠[24]

His Antiwar Radio airs Thursdays on KPFK 90.7 FM, where he and his guests discuss America’s foreign interventions, with a special focus on the terror wars in the Middle East.⁠[25]

Personal website: Public link: https://scotthorton.org/ (opens in a new window)⁠[21]

X: Public account: https://x.com/scotthortonshow (opens in a new window)⁠[21]

YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry: Public channel: https://youtube.com/@scotthortonshow (opens in a new window)⁠[21]

The Libertarian Institute: Official website: https://libertarianinstitute.org/ (opens in a new window)⁠[21]

Antiwar.com: Official website: https://antiwar.com/ (opens in a new window)⁠[21]