August 2011: A meeting on "Reassessing the U.S.’s Global Security Commitments"

What are the U.S.’s security commitments abroad, what are these commitments intended to achieve, and how can they be reconfigured to better advance the national interest while reducing their economic and political costs?

A group of thirteen scholars and policymakers addressed these questions at a Tobin Project meeting led by Benjamin Valentino (Dartmouth College, Government) in August.  Participants explored the topic through regionally-focused discussion sessions on NATO and Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia.  William Wohlforth (Dartmouth College, Government), Jennifer Lind (Dartmouth College, Government), Jeremy Pressman (University of Connecticut, Political Science), and M. Taylor Fravel (MIT, Political Science) presented short papers to serve as a basis for the discussion, which was greatly enriched by the participation of policymakers from the Departments of State and Defense.