Let’s Talk About Foreign Policy

The 47% gaffe wasn’t the most revealing thing Mitt Romney said at his fundraiser back in May. His admission that he sees Palestinians as “not wanting peace” is as bizarre as it is ill-informed. If he were talking about domestic politics, it would be equivalent to him saying that Americans weren’t interested in improving their lives. Worse, it would be him likening his countrymen to belligerent ideologues who would take bloodshed over livelihoods. It would be beyond callous and uninformed: it would be just plain weird. Yet, aside from the odd rumble, it was almost entirely overshadowed by his ill-advised dig at Obama supporters.

This isn’t the first time this campaign season either. Romney, while mostly silent and occasionally awkward, pales in comparison to some of his challengers to the Republican nomination. Herman Cain’s desperate attempt to decipher a straightforward question on Libya led to the feeble admission that he essentially didn’t know what the President did, but would do it differently. Everyone else sounded protectionist at best and isolationist at worst.

There’s something very troubling about this willingness to make daft comments about the rest of the world. Without a doubt, the United States faced less economic competition immediately after World War II than it does now. In an attempt to harken back to the glory days, Republican candidates seem pretty prone to forgetting that it’s 2012, and the United States turns it back on the rest of the world at its own peril. International affairs are hard; dealing with them well requires a nuanced understanding of diplomacy, cultural awareness and a wonkish grasp of trade policy.The scary thing is that the GOP isn’t offering a flawed foreign policy that’s up for debate as much as it’s displaying a complete unwillingness to engage with the complexity. This is dangerous for two reasons. Borders are shrinking, and interdependence has never been more common or important. Secondly, multiculturalism is rising force even within the country. Today, an insensitivity towards foreign cultures translates into an insensitivity towards millions of American citizens.

It almost seems like this election is being fought on two levels. On level one, there’s the economy, on which Romney and the President are neck and neck. They  debate on the size of government, plans to reduce the budget deficit and the tax rate that the nation’s wealthiest citizens should pay. On the other level, there’s international affairs. Two days ago, Obama made an eloquent speech at the United Nations on need for the acceptance of multiculturalism and the stamping out of extremism. This is in stark contrast to his challenger, who in early 2012, brazenly called Russia the United States’ biggest geopolitical foe. In a perilous era for East-West relations, embodied by the recent uproar over an offensive  film,  the thought of a Romney presidency does not fill me with hope.