Trump’s Dangerous Escalation with Iran
President Trump’s decision to order the killing of Iranian General Qassim Suleimani threatens to draw the United States even more deeply into a region that has already claimed too much American blood and treasure. The president, writes Christopher A. Preble, Cato’s Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies, now seems poised to add an enormous new one into the mix. Because, let’s be clear, while the United States and Iran have been locked in a cycle of confrontation for four decades, neither side has been prepared to engage in full‐scale and direct conflict with the other. And yet that is a step that may very well follow from these actions — if cooler heads don’t quickly prevail.
- “Trump’s Dangerous Escalation with Iran,” by Christopher A. Preble
High Anxiety: How Washington’s Exaggerated Sense of Danger Harms Us All
The United States is arguably both the safest nation in the world and among the most fearful. An unremitting hysteria permeates the news media, public opinion, and especially, the policymaking process. National security discourse generally depicts trivial threats as existential ones and, through overapplication, has so neutered the meaning of “threat” that almost any phenomenon, foreign or domestic, can qualify. The resources Washington devotes to mitigate these “threats” are correspondingly disproportionate, and the policies enacted to combat them are often counterproductive. The result is an overly aggressive, militarized foreign policy that wastes taxpayer money, provokes international hostility, instigates unnecessary wars, and erodes constitutional checks on the exercise of arbitrary power here at home.
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“High Anxiety: How Washington’s Exaggerated Sense of Danger Harms Us All,” by John Glaser and Christopher Preble
It’s Time to End the War in Afghanistan
Recently, the Washington Post obtained a trove of government documents showing that, contrary to public statements, the war in Afghanistan has been a failure nearly from the start. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) even told the Post that Americans have “constantly been lied to.” Cato Director of Foreign Policy John Glaser argues that the reason the war has lasted for so long is because of this inability for government officials to confront hard truths, and that the American public needs to be more skeptical of official assessments of war efforts.
- “Special Inspector General for Afghanistan: ‘The American People Have Constantly Been Lied To.’ ” by John Glaser
- “Will Trump End the Endless Wars?,” by A. Trevor Thall and John Glaser
- “Overcoming Inertia: Why It’s Time to End the War in Afghanistan,” by John Glaser and John Mueller
Experts
