Cato's vision includes a national defense based on strategic independence, which resists military intervention unless American vital interests are at stake. The extended U.S. defense perimeter of the Cold War -- now outdated -- needs to be retracted. Overseas military interventions required to maintain the perimeter may be making the U.S. homeland less secure by acting as a magnet for retaliatory terrorist attacks, including those with weapons of mass destruction.
Ted Galen Carpenter, Vice President, Defense and Foreign Policy Studies
William A. Niskanen, Chairman
David Isenberg, Adjunct Scholar