Rand Paul’s Non-Isolationism
A preview of an important foreign-policy speech he’ll give Thursday night
By Eliana Johnson
OCTOBER 23, 2014 1:15 AM
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again. That, apparently, is Rand Paul’s approach to convincing the political establishment and, perhaps more important, Republican-primary voters, that he is not an isolationist.
He’s said it on television, he’s declared it in print, and, on Thursday evening, he’ll proclaim it again to a ballroom full of foreign-policy realists.
So, if he’s not an isolationist, what is he? The “non-interventionist” label the Kentucky senator has offered up doesn’t seem to have stuck; in tonight’s remarks, he’ll embrace a new one: “conservative realist.”
In New York to deliver the keynote address at the Center for the National Interest’s annual dinner and to receive an award from the foreign-policy organization, which was founded by Richard Nixon in 1994, Paul will offer a sweeping picture of his worldview for the first time.
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In his speech, an advance copy of which has been shared exclusively with National Review Online, he will outline a number of national-security threats, from Russia to China to the Middle East, and his proposals for dealing with them. But he will cut to the chase early, arguing that “the greatest threat to our national security is our national debt.” That’s why, he will say, the promotion of free trade and technology should lead our public-diplomacy efforts.
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