Cato on Campus - Foundations of Liberty: peace

Why Muslims Still Hate Us

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:51:00 EDT

By Patrick Basham: "An analysis of Muslim public opinion since 9/11 finds that, on balance, the "foreign policy trumps culture" argument is correct. This finding has important implications for the debate over U.S. Middle East policy and the broader war on terrorism."

Government, War, and Libertarianism

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:23:00 EDT

By Justin Logan: "Why has the war�and post-9/11 foreign policy generally�been so controversial for libertarians? And now, more than six years after 9/11 and more than five years into the war in Iraq, what can libertarian insights tell us about how we got here and what to do next?"

McCain Talking Too Tough on Russia, China

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 12:17:00 EDT

By Malou Innocent: "There is no question that China and Russia have objectionable policies. China's deplorable human-rights record and Russia's authoritarian structure leave much to be desired. But McCain's policy prescriptions will prevent the U.S. from working with them in areas of common interest, and preclude cooperation in meeting shared threats."

Coyne on Exporting Democracy after War

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:40:00 EDT

"Christopher Coyne of West Virginia University and George Mason University's Mercatus Center talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his book, After War: The Political Economy of Exporting Democracy. They talk about the successes and failures of America's attempts to export democracy after a war."

Don't 'Pull an Iraq' in Afghanistan

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:48:00 EDT

By Benjamin H. Friedman: "This week at a NATO summit in Bucharest, Romainia, American officials asked Europeans to send more troops to the war in Afghanistan. Leaders in both the Democratic and Republican Parties agree that higher troop levels and a deeper commitment to state-building are the path to victory in Afghanistan. But both sides are wrong, and Iraq shows why."

Who Says the Surge Is Working?

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 11:27:00 EDT

By Terry Michael: "When it comes Iraq, neoconservative true believers have been allowed to set the bar of "success" below ground level. In this, they're aided by media siding with power instead of challenging it, all while congressional Democrats cower in their cloak rooms."

McCain's Consistent Folly on Iraq

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:16:00 EST

By Steve Chapman: "If so, that may not be a plus for McCain. McCain has been consistent about Iraq, in the sense of being consistently wrong. If the American people get a long look at what he's said and a clear picture of our fortunes in Iraq, he may yearn for the days when he was being pilloried for offering "amnesty" to illegal immigrants."

Learning the Right Lessons From Iraq

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:01:00 EST

By Benjamin H. Friedman and Christopher Preble: "By insisting that there was a right way to remake Iraq, we ignore the limits on our power that the enterprise has exposed and risk repeating our mistake. Deposing Saddam Hussein was relatively simple, but creating a new state to rule Iraq was beyond our grasp. Maybe the United States can improve its ability to manage occupations, but the principal lesson Iraq teaches is to avoid them."

Atlas Hugged

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:07:00 EST

Brian Doherty: "As executive vice president of the Cato Institute, Boaz is one of the media's primary go-to guys on libertarian thought and policy. And in his new book, "The Politics of Freedom," a collection of his short-form journalism from the past 25 years, Boaz pushes an interesting and counterintuitive belief about American politics. The political spectrum, he argues, contains a lot more libertarians than the two major party's stances would lead you to believe."

NATO's West Bank Nightmare

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:54:00 EST

By Ted Galen Carpenter: "Washington is sending up a trial balloon about stationing NATO troops as peacekeepers on the West Bank. The Jerusalem Post reports that former NATO supreme commander General James Jones, now the Bush administration's special envoy to the Middle East, is floating the idea to various European countries.

"It is a spectacularly bad idea."

The Fear Factory

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:21:00 EST

By Guy Lawson: "The FBI now has more than 100 task forces devoted exclusively to fighting terrorism. But is the government manufacturing ghosts?"

The AtomicTerrorist: Assessing the Likelyhood

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:42:00 EST

By John Mueller: "A terrorist atomic bomb is commonly held to be the single most serious threat to the national security of the United States. Assessed in appropriate context, that could actually be seen to be a rather cheering conclusion because the likelihood that a terrorist group will come up with an atomic bomb seems to be vanishingly small. Moreover, the degree to which al-Qaeda--the chief demon group and one of the few terrorist groups to see value in striking the United States--has sought, or is capable of, obtaining such a weapon seems to have been substantially exaggerated."

Is The Domestic Terror Threat �Overblown�?

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 13:24:00 EST

By Benjamin H. Friedman: "Time and again, federal officials held press conferences to announce the break-up of a terrorist plot and vaguely described the disaster prevented. The evening news and the headlines repeated their lurid claims. Months later, the inside pages of the papers would report that the plot was not what we were told � and TV doesn�t even bother. The plans have turned out to be unfeasible or preliminary. "

Redefining Success in Iraq

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 13:42:00 EST

By Christopher Preble: "The surge was certainly successful in one sense: it took sufficient steam out of the "get out now" movement to effectively halt congressional efforts to force a troop withdrawal. It also allowed Sen. McCain to resurrect his moribund campaign. "Thank God [Iraq]'s off the front pages," the leading proponent for the war told reporters on board the Straight Talk Express."

The Terrible 'Ifs'

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 08:25:00 EST

By Benjamin H. Friedman: "We spend vast amounts on defenses against threats unlikely to affect Americans. Experts, defense officials, and politicians justify the expenditures by saying they are necessary to protect the public from worst case dangers. Those claims ignore what is probable and what defenses cost. They exaggerate the danger our enemies pose and strip resources from more probable dangers, making us less safe."

What to Be Thankful For

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 16:36:00 EST

By David Boaz: "Not long ago a journalist asked me what freedoms we take for granted in America. Now, I spend most of my time sounding the alarm about the freedoms we're losing. But this was a good opportunity to step back and consider how America is different from much of world history -- and why immigrants still flock here."

Iraqi Allies Deserve Better than Red Tape

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 16:07:00 EST

By Malou Innocent: "Many Iraqis, desperate to earn decent wages and bring stability to their country, support American forces by working as Arabic interpreters. "Terps" are paid a modest sum, and they enable soldiers to communicate with Iraqi civilians and track down insurgents. But working with the Americans can come at a high cost."

Economics in Many Lessons: A Better Brew for Rwanda

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 15:36:00 EST

By Donald J. & Karol C. Boudreaux: "In some parts of the long-suffering continent, good things are happening and too few people, in Africa and elsewhere, know about them."

The Case for Restraint

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 22:08:00 EST

By Barry R. Posen: "If more activism has not produced better policy, what is to be done? The United States should try doing less: It should pursue a grand strategy of restraint. Less is not nothing, however, meaning in essence that the United States should conceive ways to shape rather than to control international politics."

Understanding Insurgency

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 09:48:00 EST

Malou Innocent, a Foreign Policy Analyst at the Cato Institute, describes the problematic nature of insurgency and argues that fighting them is tricky, and should only be undertaken when vital national interests are at stake. The insurgency in Iraq, she argues, does not qualify.

Inside Track: A Troubling Interventionist Consensus

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 08:30:00 EST

By Christopher Preble and David Rieff: "Presidential hopefuls and policy wonks debate amongst themselves how to improve America�s effectiveness as world policeman and decry any challenge to that role, as if they believed it to be somehow inscribed in our country�s DNA. We believe that the United States should adopt a fundamentally different approach."

A Dangerous Position on Darfur

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 14:50:00 EDT

By Ted Galen Carpenter and Christopher Preble: "The suffering in Darfur cries out for action, but it is not clear that it calls for military action, much less that U.S. troops should lead the effort. There are dozens of countries that have far greater tangible interests at stake in Darfur than does America, and many of these countries also possess the capacity to deploy forces there."

Taiwan's Defense Budget: How Taipei's Free Riding Risks War

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 11:14:00 EDT

By Justin Logan & Ted Galen Carpenter: "It would be dubious enough for the United States to risk war with an emerging great power like China to defend a small client state, even if that state were making a serious effort to provide for its own defense. It would be even worse to incur that risk on behalf of a client state that is not willing to make a robust defense effort."

Petraeus, the Surge & History

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 16:13:00 EDT

"Many have repeated the claim that Iraq is Vietnam all over again. History never repeats itself exactly, so no example is perfect. But the American surge in Iraq bears a striking and little-noted resemblance to the Germans' ill-fated offensive in the last year of World War I."

Peace on earth? Try free trade among men

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:50:00 EDT

"Much of the political violence that remains in the world today is concentrated in the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa -- the two regions of the world that are the least integrated into the global economy. Efforts to bring peace to those regions must include lowering their high barriers to trade, foreign investment, and domestic entrepreneurship."