If you read the blog regularly, you might have noticed a pattern recently: Cato’s foreign policy scholars weighing in to see if Santa might be able to improve U.S. foreign policy for us. After all, American leaders seem perpetually unwilling to do so, and the Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy doesn’t seem to offer much more hope for a more realistic, sensible approach to foreign policy either.

Our scholars asked for a variety of foreign policy changes, some big and some small. Some would be relatively easy to achieve if the political will were there, such as Chris Preble’s request for a new round of Base Reallocation and Closure (BRAC), or Eric Gomez’s desire for a better North Korea strategy. Others might be more challenging, like Trevor Thrall’s call to rebalance civil-military relations in favor of civilian leadership.

But all the suggestions share one thing in common: they would all make U.S. foreign policy more rational, effective or accountable to the public. You can check them all out here, along with a more satirical take on the question in the Christmas episode of Power Problems, our foreign policy podcast.

So all we want for Christmas is…

…a BRAC (Chris Preble)

…Information about U.S. Military Deployments (Emma Ashford)

…to Fight Just the Necessary Wars (Erik Goepner)

… Civilian Leadership of U.S. Foreign Policy (Trevor Thrall)

…the Travel Ban to End (Sahar Khan)

…a New North Korea Strategy (Eric Gomez)

…and an F‑35 (or just better defense policy, budgeting and a partridge in a pear tree)