Posted under Election 2012 & Foreign affairs & Interventionism & Iran & Republican Party & Ron Paul
I believe that since interventionist premises about America’s role in the world are taken for granted by the establishment and mainstream (left, right, center, neocon, realist, or whatever), it can be safely assumed that any candidate shares them unless there is positive evidence otherwise. Meaning that there are not likely to been any stealth non-interventionist candidates. If they are a non-interventionist we will already know it. There might be stealth realist candidates and ones more or less likely to do something completely foolish, but that is the best we can hope for. For example, when people were speculating about where Cain stood on foreign policy because he hadn’t said much about it, I assumed he was an interventionist because I had no evidence he was not. Ditto with Perry before his foreign policy coming out speech.
That said, I do think it is possible to make educated guesses about just how hawkish a candidate is likely to govern based on subtleties of rhetoric and analysis of their temperament and governing style. So to test my theory, let’s play a game. Rank order the nine “major” announced candidates by their likelihood to plunge us in to war with Iran or some other evil state of the month. I want to see if there is broad agreement on differentiating the interventionists among themselves.
In descending order:
1. Rick Santorum
2. Newt Gingrich
3. Michelle Bachmann
4. Rick Perry
5. Herman Cain
6. Mitt Romney
7. John Huntsman
8. Gary Johnson
9. Ron Paul
1 and 2 were easy and 7, 8 and 9 were easy. 3 through 6 were harder.
This post was prompted by this post by Daniel Larison.
Walter on 06 Oct 2011 at 2:22 am #
I’d possibly rank Rick Perry as the most interventionist (although Gingrich is pretty bad):
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/08/10/rick_perry_the_hawk_internationalist
As I noted previously, Perry is a true ideological believer in the invade the world / invite the world mantra.
Romney, however, is more of a wildcard. The only thing he ideologically believes in is Romney, so he might bend to foster popular support. These wars are becoming more and more unpopular.
Augustinian on 06 Oct 2011 at 12:01 pm #
I mostly agree with those rankings, though I think Perry should probably be higher than Bachmann. Then, one could put the top three into a category all their own. They seem to be WAAAAYYY more likely to entangle the u.S. in another unnecessary ‘war’.
Woden on 06 Oct 2011 at 1:12 pm #
Another interesting question would be; Who are the candidates that would most likely have the world invade us, i.e no borders, mass-immigration.
I’d say:
1. Rick Perry
2. Gary Johnson
3. Ron Paul
4. John Huntsman
5. Newt Gingrich
6. Mitt Romney
7. Herman Cain
8. Michele Bachmann
It’s a tough call between the libertarians and Perry, but I’d say Paul and Johnson would at the very least probably oppose government benefits for illegal aliens, unlike Perry.
brandon adamson on 06 Oct 2011 at 6:47 pm #
Interesting list, Red. I think it may be important to recognize that we really don’t necessarily have much of an idea how many of the candidates will act based on their rhetoric. We all remember Bush in 2000 and his talk of rejecting nation building and the need for a more humble foreign policy. Obama was supposed to be the anti-war candidate, and yet he continued Bush’s adventures and even got us involved in new ones. Perry, Gingrich etc I would fully expect to govern as interventionists as they are neocon true-believers. Much of the alternate right seems to have embraced Huntsman, but I fail to see much paleoconservatism there as a whole or evidence that he would govern as a non-interventionist(especially considering his Iran statements.) I see him as simply a less obnoxious Mccain, sharing many of the same views. Huntsman is a free trade internationalist at heart, likely to plunge us into anything the UN thinks we should take the lead in…meaning more Obama style meddling. Gary Johnson and Ron Paul are the only sure bets, but I don’t really care for their views on some domestic issues.
RedPhillips on 06 Oct 2011 at 7:26 pm #
Brandon, I don’t consider Perry a true believer in much of anything except the advancement of Rick Perry. On foreign policy I see him as a parrot. Once I get more input I’ll explain my reasoning, but for now I don’t want to bias other people’s lists.
Walter on 06 Oct 2011 at 11:28 pm #
On mass immigration, Rick Perry is definitely a true believer, as evidenced by the fact that he won’t even modify his rhetoric. Romney, on the other hand, has touted some pretty strong anti-immigration positions. Whether Romney truly believes his rhetoric I don’t know, but he wants to be popular and he knows that most Americans oppose immigration. My point is that if Perry won’t even talk the talk, I doubt he’d ever walk the walk. Perry is probably like Bush: A diehard believer of open borders and will pursue this regardless what his base wants.
Why I Rank Ordered the Candidates on Foreign Policy as I Did | Conservative Heritage Times on 10 Oct 2011 at 8:38 pm #
[...] my attempt to get people to rank order the candidates in order of likelihood to plunge us into a new war seems to have run its course (without the type [...]