Foreign Policy: Romney has the goods

U.S. Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has an article in the July/August 2007 edition of Foreign Affairs that details some of his Big Ideas. Or as he labels them: "Four key pillars of action". Noted grand strategist Thomas P. M. Barnett's summary?

 

Romney is totally solutions-based. I don't think he can win the [nomination], but you'd have to consider him as a totally do-something [Vice-President]....doesn't sound like I need to brief him, despite the efforts of several go-betweens.

His four pillars are:

1. Enact the Heritage Foundation's policy recommendation of spending a minimum of four percent of GDP without bureaucratic waste in order to "...add at least 100,000 troops and making a long-overdue investment in equipment, armament, weapons systems, and strategic defense."
2. Energy independence: This would be achieved through a "Manhattan-style project" that the U.S. "...will license...to other nations, and, of course...employ it at home. "
3. The Department of Everything Else: From memory, this is also something I have heard Thomas Barnett propose. Basically, its objective will be to "...[promote] America's political, military, diplomatic, and economic interests in [its] respective regions and building the foundations of freedom, democracy, security, and peace." This is basically from the Rand playbook.
4. Revitalise old alliances/partnerships: The U.N. is broken. The U.S. needs to work with old allies that have common values, possibly through the vehicle provided by N.A.T.O., to confront the challenges of this century.

Note, Romney emphasis the role that each of the above policy pronouncements will have in winning to War on Islamism/Islamofascism/Terror:

 

Merely closing our eyes and hoping that jihadism will go away is not an acceptable solution. U.S. military action alone cannot change the hearts and minds of hundreds of millions of Muslims. In the end, only Muslims themselves can defeat the violent radicals. But we must work with them. The consequences of ignoring this challenge -- such as a radicalized Islamic actor possessing nuclear weapons -- are simply unacceptable.

I more or less agree with his conclusion. This is something that President Bush and his advisers should have been putting together over the last six years. Instead, they have been focused on the tactical aspects of this battle: winning two live battles in Iraq and Afghanistan and containing a bellicose looming threat in Iran. This may be slightly unfair. But as Romney's article testifies, the ideas are already there in the marketplace (some more recently than others). All it takes is some thinking and coagulation to get them into a cohesive policy platform that even far flung pro-Americans, like me, can get behind.

Comments

[political forum]

It's not possible to trust Romney though. He's switched his position on abortion, gay rights, gun laws and government spending. Romney is too unpredictable, IMO. That guy would have to do things to prove himself to his base (which other conservatives would not) just to try to convince them that he is really a conservative. I don't trust a word this guy says.

[Manny]

Political Forum

Have you read "A mormon in the white house?" by Hugh Hewitt?

I haven't. However, I listen to his radio show via podcast. He seems to make a strong case for why he isn't a "flip-flop" on the issues you list.