This is an important piece from @onesarahjones pointing to the lack of a cogent foreign policy platform on the left and the dearth of DC foreign policy think tanks that can "supply them with ideas once they take office." newrepublic.com/article/150317… 
This is a real problem. The DC think tank world largely reflects the bipartisan foreign policy establishment & its preferences for endless globe-spanning US militarism. But the left's search for an alternative is overlooking the only consistently antiwar outfit in town
Specifically, the @CatoInstitute's foreign policy department (@CatoFP). The left overlooks Cato as a creature of the right, but we easily put the supposedly left-leaning FP think tanks to shame on their own criteria.
.@CatoFP was warning against getting entangled in Middle East wars in the 1980s cato.org/publications/p…. Our analysts were decrying the "imperial presidency" in 1986 for crying out loud. cato.org/publications/p…
We denounced Reagan's criminal support for anti-communist rebels in Latin America. cato.org/publications/p… We criticized the First Gulf War as a "war for oil" cato.org/publications/f…
In the 90s we opposed military intervention in Somalia & the Balkans. We opposed NATO expansion on the grounds that it would legitimate war for peripheral interests and needless antagonize Russia. cato.org/publications/f… cato.org/publications/f…
We've been railing against America's "world policeman" role cato.org/research/20/ra… and calling for "a substantial reduction of US military forces and the defense budget" for so long, we're almost sick of saying so. object.cato.org/sites/cato.org…
Two weeks after 9/11, @CatoFP scholars were deriding Washington for exploiting the terrorist attacks to boost military spending, crack down on immigration, reinstate the draft, and wage "a global crusade" of endless military action cato.org/publications/c… cato.org/publications/c…
We warned about the perils of nation-building in Afghanistan before it was cool. cato.org/publications/c… @CatoFP was virtually alone in its opposition to the Iraq War (something that, notably, the left-leaning think tanks took years catch up on) cato.org/blog/think-tan…
Throughout the War on Terror, Cato sounded the alarm about executive war powers, the PATRIOT Act, warrantless surveillance, indefinite detention, drone wars, civilian casualties... cato.org/policy-report/… cato.org/publications/c… cato.org/publications/c… cato.org/publications/c…
We've called out America's penchant for backing brutal dictators store.cato.org/book/perilous-…, including recent arguments for cutting ties with Saudi Arabia cato.org/publications/c… cato.org/publications/p… particularly in light of its war crimes in Yemen cato.org/blog/intolerab….
We opposed military action in Libya, opposed intervention in Syria, opposed Obama's & Trump's surge in Afghanistan, called for repealing Trump's war powers cato.org/publications/c…, ending MidEast wars cato.org/publications/p… & closing military bases abroad cato.org/publications/p…
We've also put forth a positive agenda. We praised Obama's diplomacy with Iran cato.org/publications/c… & railed against Trump's withdrawal from the nuclear deal cato.org/publications/c… We continue to support diplomacy w/ NK & Russia cato.org/blog/partisan-… cato.org/blog/trump-put…
We debunked Islamophobic/xenophobic threat inflation that has been the driving force behind the Muslim ban and other anti-immigrant policies, and explained instead why immigration is a net positive for America cato.org/publications/p… cato.org/blog/14-most-c…
I'll stop here cuz the self-reverence is as annoying for me as it is for you. But there's plenty more. @CatoFP is unique in the DC think tank community in providing scholarly FP analysis consistent w/ liberal values & opposed to endless war. cato.org/publications/w…
We're such an outlier, in fact, that this very issue has been the subject of our research object.cato.org/sites/cato.org…. So yes, Democrats need a coherent foreign policy agenda that isn't just a rehash of the pro-war bipartisan consensus. We're over on Mass Ave whenever they're ready.
