Video & Article: US Foreign Policy Speech by Sen. Rand Paul, Discussion by Forbes Op/Ed
Very interesting discussion of Foreign Policy. It’s about time we have substantive discussions about America’s role in the World today.
Rand Paul on Foreign Policy Video at Heritage Foundation, 2/6/2013
In an op/ed article on 2/13/2013 discussing Paul’s speech, Forbes’ wrote the following:
On February 6, Senator Rand Paul gave a speech on foreign policy entitled, “Containment and Radical Islam” to a Heritage Foundation meeting.
Paul began with refreshing realism and candor, pointing out that we are, in fact, at war with Radical Islam. He also noted (correctly) that, within Islam, Radical Islam is not a “small minority”, but a “vibrant, often mainstream, vocal and numerous minority”. Paul dismissed as naïve those who think that Radical Islam would leave us alone if we would just be nice to them.
Having asserted that Radical Islam is “…no fleeting fad but a relentless force”, Paul then seemed to call for a strategy of “containment”, along the lines of the one that George Kennan outlined regarding the Soviet Union in his “Long Telegram” of February 22, 1946. Paul cited this as a needed “middle path” for U.S. foreign policy
What Paul missed in his speech is that it was not Kennan’s “containment” policy that led to the downfall of the Soviet Union, but the approach that Ronald Reagan summed up in the following words: “Here’s my strategy on the Cold War: We win; they lose.”
