Slate.
Conventional wisdom holds that U.S. presidential elections do not
hinge on foreign policy. On this point, conventional wisdom is almost
certainly correct. But it shouldn’t be, for two reasons. First, foreign
policy is the one realm in which presidents can do pretty much what they
want. (Congress may rant at some action but rarely halts it.) Second,
in this election in particular, Mitt Romney’s statements on foreign
policy range from vague to ill-informed to downright dangerous.
Does Romney believe the things that he’s said about arms control,
Russia, the Middle East, the defense budget, and the rest? Who can say?
He has no experience on any of these issues. But his advisers
do; they represent, mainly, the Dick Cheney wing of the Republican Party
(some, notably John Bolton, veer well to the right of even that). While
not all presidents wind up following their advisers, Romney has placed
his byline atop some of his coterie’s most egregious arguments—not
least, several op-ed pieces against President Obama’s New START with
Russia, pieces that rank as the most ignorant I’ve read in nearly 40 years of following the nuclear debate.
