If the Crimea crisis has revealed flaws in President Barack Obama’s passive “realism,” it has also exposed the utter incoherence of Rand Paul’s foreign policy—which, despite a reputation for being principled and bold, is in fact all over the place.
If that sounds too harsh, try making sense of the Kentucky senator’s contorted response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. Paul, the latest favorite for the GOP’s 2016 presidential candidate, came out blasting in a recent Time op-ed, declaring that Russian President Vladimir Putin “must be punished” for violating Ukraine’s sovereignty and asserting that Obama isn’t up to the job. “If I were president, I wouldn’t let Vladimir Putin get away with it,” Paul huffed.
Such gasconade seemed out of character for the anti-war libertarian. He opposes U.S. intervention just about everywhere—whether in Syria, which he sees as an invitation to another Iraq-style quagmire, or Iran, where he rejects preemptive U.S. strikes in favor of diplomacy or, failing that, a containment policy. Sure enough, the day after his Time article appeared, Paul was back to his usual dovish tone. In a Brietbart op-ed, he prescribed the “strategic use of soft power” to counter Putin and accused unnamed politicians—clearly his GOP presidential rivals—of beating their chests: “What we don’t need right now is politicians who have never seen war talking tough for the sake of their political careers.” Those who invoke Ronald Reagan to justify their bellicosity, he added, should remember that some similarly overzealous hawks called the Gipper an appeaser for negotiating nuclear arms accords with Soviet leaders.
Confused?
Let’s step back to January 2011, when the ophthalmologist-turned-politician Paul rode the high tide of Tea Party insurgency into the U.S. Senate. Despite having zero international experience, he was nothing if not clear and consistent on foreign policy. Like his father and libertarian icon, the now-retired Texas congressman Ron Paul, Rand called for America to mind its own business instead of trying to solve other countries’ problems. He regularly excoriated GOP neoconservatives for having pushed the nation into protracted and costly wars during the Bush administration, and made no secret of his desire to get America out of the superpower business.
