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There’s a great article today on Real Clear Politics illuminating Congressman Paul’s foreign policy both philisophically and in relation to the modern political landscape. Here’s a dosage:

Against such an overwhelming tide of grandiosity and hubris, it sounds farcical to suggest that non-interventionism will some day sway voters and find eventual electoral success. But it will.

First though, it’s important to distinguish non-interventionism from isolationism. The former seeks a more rigorous and delimited definition of America’s interests, while the latter a walled garden that completely cuts America off from the world. Non-interventionists are not pacifists, but they do reserve war fighting for moments of actual national peril. (Paul, for instance, voted to authorize war in Afghanistan in 2001.) They do not view the military as an instrument of social policy. If war is to be fought, non-interventionists demand a Congressional declaration of war to ensure that the conflict is one in which the nation’s resources are fully brought to bear. 

(The italics are mine.) If the standard for foreign policy is what will further America’s self interest–that being what will preserve the freedom and prosperity of the American people–a non-interventionalist foreign policy has a good amount of merit. Here are the basic reasons why:

-It ensures that America won’t entangle itself in costly foreign entanglements.

-It ensures that America won’t sacrifice its health or resources to other nation’s problems or interests, nor engage itself unless American interests are at stake.

-It ensures that America will not engage itself militarily unless the security of its freedom has been attacked or is under imminent threat.

-It ensures that America will not employ military force unless Congress declares war and both the legislative branch and the executive are resolved in doing so.

-It ensures that when America does go to war it does so swiftly and forcefully, for the sake of total destruction of the enemy; it ensures that war will not be fought half heartedly or with mercy, nor that we go to war for reasons relating to occupation or nation building. 

Perhaps I am projecting too positively on Ron Paul’s foreign policy, because it is worth pointing out that I believe that he has applied it poorly in several ways today. He is right to say that Iraq should not have been invaded, he is right to say that Iraq was managed poorly, he was right to say that we should have invaded Afghanistan.

However he is wrong to say that we largely created the threat, he is wrong to say that Iran should not be touched, and he is very wrong to advocate the just war theory. (The fact that he is for the feeble-fighting ways of the just war theory would probably show that Paul would dissent from the first half of my last point, that when we fight we should do “so swiftly and forcefully and for the sake of total destruction of the enemy).

So while Dr. Paul’s domestic policy is unequivocally good, I can find both good and bad in his foreign policy. 

It hurts to be ambiguous.  

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The The Foreign Policy of Ron Paul by New School Politics, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.