Protecting America’s core national interests

Stand Together’s vision is for a foreign policy that prioritizes core national interests and robust diplomacy that articulates the advantages of a free and open society. To that end, we’re working to shift today’s foreign policy from one that seeks to impose American values by force – and that too often employs military action as the default option – to one grounded in realism and restraint.

This shift is long overdue. Since the early 2000s, the United States has spent more than $8 trillion on dubious wars at taxpayer expense. These conflicts have claimed the lives of nearly 7,000 Americans. And more than 1 million veterans have returned home with life-altering disabilities.

Over that same period of time, the world has grown increasingly unstable. Conflicts in Europe, the Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa risk drawing America into multiple wars of peripheral interest, all while millions of American veterans already struggle to reintegrate into civilian life following our post-9/11 wars.

The Stand Together community supports leading scholars, veterans, and policymakers who are bringing a fresh perspective to this outmoded way of thinking. Our partners are filling key roles in the executive and legislative branches, uniting nonpartisan policy coalitions to strengthen constitutional war powers, and providing veterans with better health care through reforms to the VA and expanding access to private-sector options.

As a result of these efforts, 6 million veterans have better access to health care thanks to historic reforms to the VA. Meanwhile, realism and restraint are gaining traction in the national conversation, with one endless war finally ended after 20 years of engagement in Afghanistan and four authorizations for use of military force gaining support for repeal.