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Today on The Atlantic, Iraq war veteran Scott Beauchamp discusses US military intervention with MIT professor Barry Posen, whose new book, Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy, argues the US should drastically rethink its current strategy. Beauchamp sums up Posen's thoughts on the US's current intervention philosophy here:

A number of writers and thinkers have been wrestling with similar questions, and Barry Posen, a political-science professor at MIT, is one of them. His latest book, Restraint: A New Foundation for U.S. Grand Strategy, gives a name to the general consensus among the American foreign-policy establishment that I sensed as a soldier, calling it “liberal hegemony.” The term encompasses two philosophies that arose after the fall of the Soviet Union. The first is the neoconservative philosophy of “primacy”— overwhelming military force projected around the world to enforce America’s will. The second is “cooperative security,” embraced mainly by Democrats, which only differs from primacy in that it seeks approval from international organizations like the United Nations and NATO when exerting military force. In both cases, the question is how to use force, not if it should be used in the first place.

Posen’s response is the philosophy of “restraint”—a scaling down of the expectations and demands that decades of liberal hegemonic thought has placed on the United States.

Posen aims to shake out a consistent but not concrete idea of how and then the US should respond to "potential national security threats," which could also be called, "bad things happening in the rest of the world." Here's Posen's definition of a true threat to national security:

It’s reasonable for the United States to pay attention to a small number of threats. We don’t have to transform the world, spread democracy, expand NATO, or any of these other things. But there are a few things that we need to pay attention to. We need what I would call moderate, pragmatic strategies to work on those problems.

One problem is the potential rise of China. In the fullness of time, China may become such a tough competitor that we need to contain it the way we contained the Soviet Union. Is that time upon us? I don’t really think so. China is asserting its interests in its own area, mostly its coastal areas, a little bit on its land periphery. It’s a country that’s going through rapid change. It’s got a lot of internal problems of its own. It’s got a lot of security problems. Its military isn’t gigantic.

The whole interview is great, and while I don't agree with every idea Posen offers, he skews closer to my own ideology than the current all-intervention, all-the-time model.

I completely agree with Rich's comment. Without a doubt, war is at the forefront of America's political agenda. The way war and armed conflicts are justified to citizens through mainstream media is absolutely horrifying. Avoiding war should be every country's primary goal; however, we must consider America's dominance above the majority of countries in the world. America has the upper hand on almost every country because they are essentially a superpower.

War is constructed to benefit the dominant party while simultaneously oppressing the lesser party, or the "others". Despite all the atrocities associated with armed conflict and horrifying consequences of wars, America still chooses to actively engage in these conflicts. They still choose to glorify the deaths of thousands in the name of "freedom" and "liberty". They still choose to paint these conflicts as "peacekeeping missions". There is no truth in any of these claims, yet America engages in war because it is beneficial to their agenda. The reality of it is as simple and horrific as that.

A long trend of Republican power also contributes to that war-first perception. "Hawks" like John McCain and Lindsay Graham always want the military to stay active. And while Obama may not be the pacifist — or "dove" — many hoped he would be, the staggering amount of international conflicts that have occurred during his short time in power, coupled with a far-right dominating Congress, left him with little hope or chance to behave any differently. He tried to diplomatically solve many of the issues he faced and failed to do so. Often, intervention — let's draw at least some distinction between military action and real, actual "war" — was his only option.

Moreover, a lot of the time America is asked to intervene on behalf of international allies, if you look at recent examples like Libya, Syria, or even older but less remembered instances like Kosovo. It's rare that America sees a problem and jumps right in, boots first, with guns drawn. There are checks and measures in place to prevent such actions, both domestically and internationally.

But! But! I do agree that intervention probably happens much more frequently than it should and that America should avoid military action as much as possible. Especially with examples like Libya, where intervention did more harm than good in the long run, America should let the major regional powers sort out major regional issues.