Americans should focus on civil liberties at home rather than try to uphold them in the rest of the world, Boston University professor Andrew Bacevich said on Tuesday.
Bacevich, a nationally renowned international relations professor, spoke about his book, "Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War," to about 50 people at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, covering everything from the war in Afghanistan to Mexican immigrants.
Bacevich said that for a long time, American military policy has been based on the belief that the U.S. must constantly "lead, save, liberate and transform" abroad.
However, due to the loss of American dollars and lives in the Afghan War, Bacevich said the U.S. needs to find a new approach.
"These rules don't work anymore," he said.
Despite this, Bacevich said that the government has not changed its policy and continues to remain entrapped in wars.
"[Politicians] don't want to look like wimps," he said, explaining their refusal to back down from a military confrontation.
Bacevich said that it was up to the American people to take on the status quo.
"America no longer has the ability to ask questions of what makes sense to U.S. policy," he said. "I would like to see the capacity to challenge Washington."
He continued to say that politicians should adhere to the Constitution's Preamble and "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and posterity" at home.
The phrase, he said, epitomizes a new credo Americans must adopt to escape what is becoming a permanent war in Afghanistan.
He said that America had no "moral obligation" to single-mindedly focus on countries such as Afghanistan, and that it ought to place an equal amount of attention on others, such as Mexico.
"Why does Afghanistan come first if we are going to pay our obligations? [Mexico] should be at the top of the list," he said.
He continued to say that the U.S. was more intimately connected with Mexico than Afghanistan because of territorial disputes, demands for drugs and lax gun laws.
Bacevich said America should welcome afflicted populations to its borders rather than wage war against their nations in order to satisfy a sense of "moral obligation."
"Should we really wreak violence continually?" he asked. "Shouldn't we have a policy to protect the women, to bring them here?"
But Bacevich conceded that immigration reform of this sort was unlikely to occur.
"The American public has an aversion to those people coming here," he said.
At the end of the evening, Bacevich laid out the path he feels America should take on its way to becoming a more modest power in the global community.
"Turn off the switch in parts of the world where security threats are at an ebb," he said.
Attendee James Williamson said he agreed with Bacevich's analysis.
"[If the American government had] the guts to say how many resources go to war, people would be more likely to bring it to an end," Williamson said.
"[Bacevich is] one of the most important voices around today," he added.
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