The Case for Restraint: What Should It Look Like?

The final panel of last week’s foreign policy conference continued the discussion of the political obstacles to restraint and provided further details on what such a strategy would look like today. Cato’s Emma Ashford kicked off the discussion by explaining how U.S. involvement has undermined U.S. interests in the Middle East, recommending instead that the United States adopt an offshore balancing approach to the region.

John Mueller, also of Cato, used his time to downplay the many commonly cited threats to U.S. security, including rising powers, proliferation, and terrorism. He also cast doubt on whether our large, powerful military is well-suited to deal with these minor threats, most of which are exacerbated by the use of force.

Ben Friedman discussed why primacy enjoys so much support in Washington, despite its flaws. U.S. safety and wealth, he argued, insulate most Americans from the consequences of foreign policy, making them indifferent to it, and enabling special interests that benefit from primacy dominate policy-making. He discussed policy reforms that would heighten appreciation of primacy’s costs in order to increase support for restraint.

The conference’s final speaker, Jacqueline Hazelton of the Naval War College, challenged those who seek a more restrained U.S. foreign policy to develop a plan to bring make it a reality. Picking up on that point, panel moderator Trevor Thrall brought the conference to a close by noting: “Our work is not done.”

The conference’s hosts, Cato’s Ben Friedman and Trevor Thrall are editing a book featuring chapters by the experts who presented at “The Case for Restraint” conference. For more information on the book, please email tevans@cato.org.

You can watch full discussion from final panel below.