Romney pledges to launch an armada of galleons if elected.

[seanobr]

What I find interesting, if unsurprising, is the apparent reluctance within the Republican Party and media to actually take Romney's truculent and outlandish foreign policy pronouncements at face value.  It's emblematic not only of a lack of accountability, a party that is unwilling to even consider that the Bush administration's formula was ideologically and strategically deficient and ultimately devastating for America's national interest, but also the ambiguity and sheer absence of conviction that has become Romney's defining quality.  Romney is a political chameleon; no one who may be inclined to support him has any reason to believe the substance of his rhetoric, and that has created a situation in which anyone can project their own conception of how a prospective Romney administration would behave onto him.  Romney also had the benefit of entering the campaign with a reputation as a technocrat, someone who was willing to value empiricism over conservative orthodoxy when he saw fit.  Due to the media's embrace of that caricature, as well as the orientation of Romney's primary challengers in relation to him, Romney has been the race's moderate from the outset, the paragon of reason and intelligence, someone who, it's implied, can't actually believe the more extreme rhetoric that he has been forced to indulge in to prevent Gingrich or Santorum from outmaneuvering him on an issue.  In effect, there is a tendency to rationalize away Romney's delusional, even dangerous judgments because of a depiction of him that has become woven into the fabric of the campaign.  It may be too difficult or provocative for him to criticize Obama's handling of foreign policy from a more traditionally conservative position, but once his administration is securely in place, a more sober, prudent Romney will allegedly emerge, one willing to adapt to the reality that any future exertion of American power will encounter.  From this perspective, the contempt that Romney has evinced for Gingrinch and Santorum in debate is only further proof that Romney is, in fact, capable of understanding the complexity of diplomacy; that a nuclear Iran can be mitigated against; and the need to negotiate with the Taliban or otherwise depart immediately to bring a conclusion to the situation in Afghanistan.

For much of the past year, I tried to accept that soothing proposition.  Unfortunately, I'm no longer convinced that Romney is concealing a more rational view of the international arena in the incendiary lexicon of a neoconservative.  Furthermore, even if Romney is only styling himself as a fervent believer for the purpose of the election, it may not actually be relevant.  Romney has already made several declarations -- refusing to allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, deferring to the military unconditionally on Afghanistan and his China demagoguery being the most salient -- that will almost certainly inhibit his agility to act and be quite detrimental for our national interest.  His proposal to expand the navy is yet another unfeasible commitment that he will either have to uphold, indefensible in our fiscal environment, or ignore, opening himself up to criticism and eroding his credibility still further.  For example, what will Romney's response be if, after having proclaimed to everyone who'll listen that he cannot tolerate an Iranian nuclear weapon, they defiantly conduct a nuclear test, like the D.P.R.K. in 2006 or 2009?  Assuming he is unwilling to use force to eliminate the program -- which would require an invasion of the country, since there has never been any guarantee that aerial bombardment could incontrovertibly accomplish that objective -- then Romney's inaction would be immediately discrediting.  Romney, unknowingly or not, is creating a problem of path dependency for himself in some of the most sensitive areas of American foreign policy, and if he were to recant everything upon election, that mendacity would fatally compromise his legitimacy.

One lesson that we should take from the Bush experience is that, while a President's perspective is important, it can be diluted and even distorted by the individuals responsible for interpreting and presenting information and analysis to him.  There has been some reference to the repulsive John Bolton's ascent within the Romney campaign over the last week, his shadow National Security Council portends a high degree of continuity with Bush's administration, and many of the advisors he is arraying around himself were connected to it in some fashion.  It is simply unfathomable to me that Romney will exclude the majority of those experts from his government, or fundamentally alter the approach to foreign policy that he is institutionalizing within his campaign.  If he is elected, we have every reason to believe that his administration will be as irresponsible and myopic as the last, probably immediately undoing any semblance of cooperation with Russia, taking a more aggressive and fraught posture toward China, and perpetuating our over-involvement in the Middle East.

As I abhor neoconservatism and foreign policy is my primary interest, I will not be voting for Romney, or any other Republican in the Presidential election.  That is unfortunate, but when the Republican Party is ready to return to some semblance of traditional conservatism in this sphere, I will again consider its Presidential candidates as being worthy of my vote.