[piercehawkeye45]

Article criticizing current Republican views on foreign policy and ideas of what they need to change.

The Republican Party has a long and distinguished foreign policy lineage that currently lies in tatters. The ghosts of Iraq haunt the GOP's foreign policy mandarins, and the antics of right-wing pundits and politicians have further delegitimized the party. As a result, the GOP has frittered away a partisan advantage in foreign policy and national security that took half a century to accumulate.

Absent an Obama foreign policy fiasco -- a real one that commands the country's attention, not the sort of trumped-up ones that resonate only on Fox News and in the fever swamps of the Republican base -- the only way to repair the damage will be for the GOP to take foreign policy seriously again, in Congress and in the 2016 election. This does not mean railing against the isolationists in the party; in truth, their numbers are small. Nor does it mean purging the neoconservatives or any other ideological faction; no group has a lock on sense or wisdom, and there will and should be vigorous policy debate within both parties.

Rather, it means rejecting the ideological absolutism that has consumed the GOP's foreign policy rhetoric in recent years. It means recognizing that foreign policy has nonmilitary dimensions as well as military ones. And it means focusing on the threats and priorities that matter, rather than hyping every picayune concern. Most of all, it means that Republican politicians need to start caring about foreign policy because it is important, not because it is a cheap way to rally their supporters. The GOP has a venerated tradition of foreign policy competence; it is long past time to discover that tradition anew.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articl...licy?page=show