Republicans vs the world

During the 2008 US presidential election cycle, the respected journal Foreign Affairs invited the leading presidential candidates from both parties to outline their views of world politics. All of them responded with essays that, one presumes, they at least read if did not write. This year, ahead of next year’s elections, Foreign Affairs has proffered the same invitation to the leading Republican aspirants. To date, they have all refused or not responded. This parallels the trend of not talking about international affairs in their endless series of presidential debates: mentions of Afghanistan and Iraq are reported to be down 65 per cent from 2008.  

One could argue that these candidates are denying Americans an opportunity to understand their thinking about international relations. Having investigated the policy platforms of the Republican field, however, I have concluded that most of them have done Americans a huge favour. The Grand Old Party candidates’ current thinking on foreign affairs is a noxious mixture of cowardice, belligerence, ignorance — and, unfortunately, political savvy.  

To understand the parlous state of foreign policy thought in the 2012 Republican field, consider the curious exception of Mitt Romney, the former chief executive of Bain Capital and former governor of Mass-achusetts. In October, Romney published a policy white paper called ‘An American Century’. It reflected a significant effort on foreign affairs, and yet it contained multiple inaccuracies, contradictions and omissions. Romney repeatedly implied that President Obama had gone on ‘an apology tour’ abroad without a scintilla of evidence to back up the claim. Japan and South Korea received only perfunctory mentions, and Turkey was treated like a pariah state rather than a Nato ally. President Romney’s policy toward China would include arming Taiwan to the hilt — and yet, at the same time, he’d try ‘to persuade China to commit to North Korea’s disarmament’.