Center on Peace & Liberty

National security is a major challenge for any modern state aiming to provide for its own defense. The challenge is immensely greater, however, for a society that cherishes its freedoms. The reason, as James Madison explained in 1795, is that issues of war and peace have major implications for liberty on the home front.

Madison’s concerns are no less relevant today. Nearly two decades after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Americans are still paying in blood and treasure for the “Global War on Terror,” and domestic freedoms are still compromised by government surveillance and various “temporary” national security measures.

Other nations have also sacrificed much wealth, lives and liberty in the hope of making life and property more secure from hostile states and non-state actors.

The Independent Institute’s Center on Peace & Liberty was created in the wake of 9/11 to research and communicate the relationship between national security and freedom at home—and to shape policies that promote lasting peace and security while safeguarding traditional American values such as civil and economic liberties, privacy, freedom of opportunity, limited government, and the rule of law. The Center’s guiding principles reflect Independent’s overall mission of boldly advancing peaceful, prosperous, and free societies grounded in a commitment to human worth and dignity.

Through numerous books and other publications, events, and media projects, the Center on Peace & Liberty has addressed scores of topical and enduring U.S. defense and foreign policy issues, including the following:

  • The relationship between U.S. wars and the growth of government (especially executive power) and restrictions of liberties at home;
  • Government surveillance and suspensions of legal due process stemming from U.S. foreign policies;
  • The role of interventionist foreign policies in fomenting international terrorism;
  • How—and how not—to respond to terrorist attacks;
  • The basic military requirements for pursuing a grand strategy of “peaceful trade with all, entangling alliances with none”;
  • The domestic causes of war and reforms that could lead to a better chance of peace;
  • The relationship between private defense contractors, military policymaking, and war;
  • The history of U.S. foreign policy, including the ideological conflicts between interventionism and non-interventionism;
  • “Access to oil” as a misinformed basis for U.S. policy in the Middle East;
  • The decline of government accountability, the rise of presidential power, and the “ideological drift” away from limited government in response to national crises;
  • The abdication of congressional war, budget, and treaty powers that allows unilateral executive wars and foreign policy;
  • The militarization of domestic law enforcement and society more broadly;
  • Peaceful secession and partitioning as policy options for reducing internal strife in conflict zones;
  • The role of free trade and market-based economies in promoting international harmony;
  • Strategies for improving national security and domestic liberty that strengthen civil society.

Center on Peace & Liberty Books

Center on Peace & Liberty News Releases

September 21, 2007
February 1, 2007
February 1, 2006

Center on Peace & Liberty People

Personnel

Director
Ivan Eland
Director and Senior Fellow, Independent Institute

Senior Fellows

Christopher J. Coyne
F.A. Harper Professor of Economics, George Mason University

Research Fellows

David Isenberg
Advisor, Straus Military Reform Project, Center for Defense Information
Christopher Layne
University Distinguished Professor, George Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University
Ian S. Lustick
Professor of Political Science and Director of Graduate Studies in the Political Science Department, University of Pennsylvania
J. Victor Marshall
Research Fellow, The Independent Institute
Edward A. Olsen
Professor Emeritus of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School
Distinguished Research Scholar in Economics, National Defense University
Marvin & Warren Boudreaux Professor of Chemistry, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Charlotte Twight
Professor of Economics, Boise State University

Advisors

Ostrom Chair and Professor of Economics and Director of the Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University; Research Associate, National Bureau of Economic Research
Andrew J. Bacevich
Professor and Director, Center for International Relations, Boston University
Barton J. Bernstein
Professor of History, Stanford University

Richard K. Betts

Leo A. Shifrin Professor of Political Science and Director, Institute of War and Peace Studies, Columbia University; Adjunct Senior Fellow, National Security Studies, Council on Foreign Relations

Bruce G. Blair

Research Scholar, Program on Science and Global Security, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affair, Princeton University

Carl Conetta

Director, Project on Defense Alternatives, Commonwealth Institute

David Cortright

Director of Policy Studies, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame
Professor Emeritus of History, New College of Florida

Charles W. Freeman, Jr.

President Emeritus, Mideast Policy Council; former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia; former Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs, U.S. Department of Defense

Lloyd C. Gardner

Charles and Mary Beard Professor Emeritus of History, Rutgers University

Eugene Gholz

Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Notre Dame

William D. Hartung

Director, Arms and Security Project, Center for International Policy

John D. Isaacs

Senior Fellow, Council for a Livable World
Lawrence J. Korb
Senior Fellow, American Progress; former Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Defense

Michael Krepon

Co-Founder, Henry L. Stimson Center

Donald L. Losman

Professor of Economics, Industrial College of the Armed Forces, National Defense University

Allen J. Matusow

William Gaines Twyman Professor of History and Academic Affairs Director, James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Rice University

John J. Mearsheimer

R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and Co-director, Program on International Security Policy, University of Chicago

Janne E. Nolan

Chair of Nuclear Security Working Group and Research Professor, Elliott School of International Affairs, Georgetown University
Edward A. Olsen
Professor Emeritus of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School
former Ambassador to Mauritania and Chief of Mission to Iraq; former Executive Secretary, American Academy of Diplomacy

Daryl G. Press

Associate Professor of Government, Dartmouth College

Leo P. Ribuffo

Society of the Cincinnati George Washington Distinguished Professor of History, George Washington University

Hugh T. Rockoff

Professor of Economics, Rutgers University
Bruce M. Russett
Dean Acheson Professor Emeritus of International Relations, Yale University

Harvey M. Sapolsky

Director of the Security Studies Program and Professor of Public Policy and Organization, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Susan Shaer

former Executive Director, Women’s Action for New Directions

Melvin Small

Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History, Wayne State University

Monica Duffy Toft

Director of the Center for Strategic Studies, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

Adjunct Fellows

In Memoriam

Center on Peace & Liberty Contact

Independent Institute
100 Swan Way
Oakland, CA 94621-1428
510-632-1366 Phone
510-568-6040 Fax

Senior Fellow and Center Director, the Indepenent Institute
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Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, the Independent Institute
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