This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, May 29, 2014.

I'm Caleb Brown.

President Obama has laid out the broad strokes of a reduced role for the U.S. military

abroad, but what exactly would that look like?

Chris Preble, Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute,

evaluates the President's commencement address at West Point.

What would you say the point of President Obama's speech was?

Well the point was to respond to his critics who seem mostly to be concerned that he's not more willing to do more around the world.

Now again, that's a pretty vague concept. so what more do they want him to do?

Some a few are fairly emphatic that we should be using the military more often and

again it's appropriate that he gives a speech at West Point where these people

are actually these new cadets and those who are in attendance who are in the military who will

actually be called on to execute these things if they are actually asked to do something.

And so I do think that there were two passages in the speech that were really a shot across the bow at the most hawkish critics, those who are who think he hasn't used the military often enough.

So one he points out that people are complaining that not

from people are complaining that not every problem has a military solution and he says

some of our most costly mistakes came not from our restraint

but from our willingness to rush into military adventures without thinking through the consequences

or leveling with the American people about the sacrifice required.

I mean that's a pretty pointed shot across the bow.

We know who he's talking about here, especially people who advocated

the war in Iraq, who said it would be easy, you said it would be a cakewalk, so it would be welcomed as

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