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Can Romney Be As Ignorant on Foreign Policy As He Seems?

Spencer Ackerman makes a common mistake of confusing Romney’s intelligence and his understanding of the world (via Andrew): The man who can spot-translate French to search for historical lessons about weighty meta-issues in civic and geopolitical culture does not also believe that diplomacy should the province of military super-viceroys. He does not also believe that […]

Spencer Ackerman makes a common mistake of confusing Romney’s intelligence and his understanding of the world (via Andrew):

The man who can spot-translate French to search for historical lessons about weighty meta-issues in civic and geopolitical culture does not also believe that diplomacy should the province of military super-viceroys. He does not also believe that there is an undifferentiated Islamist menace. He most certainly does not believe that the Russkies are coming.

It would be encouraging if Ackerman were right, but it doesn’t follow that someone has a good grasp of international affairs and foreign policy because he has a sharp, inquisitive mind. We would like that to be true, but it isn’t. Romney may be well-educated and intelligent, but it doesn’t mean that his judgment on foreign policy is any good. A candidate can be smart and ignorant, and he can let ideology fill in a lot of the gaps in what he doesn’t know. Romney very well might believe that “the Russkies are coming,” so to speak, because there are many Republican foreign policy activists claiming to believe the same thing, and he is probably getting his information from some of them. Whether any of them “really” believes it is almost beside the point.

Is Romney opportunistic enough to endorse foolish policies because they conform to the ideological requirements of his party? As Ackerman acknowledges at the end of his post, the answer to that is clearly yes. However, it’s not clear to me that Romney is therefore “pretending to be stupid.” Romney isn’t stupid, but he could easily be as ignorant as he seems.

Trying to determine what Romney “really” believes deep down is a fruitless effort, but to the extent that we can say that Romney believes anything we have to admit that his line on foreign policy has been fairly consistent since he has become a national figure. Will Romney implement the foreign policy agenda he has presented during the campaign? Maybe not, but Romney does seem to base his judgments on the “experts” he chooses as advisers, and we know that his advisers will recommend some very poor policies.

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