Deterrence and Foreign Policy...

As a former International Relations student I found the following question and answer between Hugh Hewitt and Mitt Romney to be interesting...

HH: "Now Governor Romney, China's been pretty helpful with North Korea. They've done some good things. But with Iran, they have not been helpful at all, and now Iran announced yesterday 3,000 more centrifuges towards uranium enrichment. They're on a path towards nukes. And the question I hope gets asked of every presidential candidate is if George Bush comes before the people of the United States in the next two years and says absent military action, Iran is going to go critical and acquire nukes, and therefore, I'm going to take that action. If he made that statement, would you support him in that, Governor Romney?"

MR: "Well, you know, the challenge with threatening a military strike is that that becomes a headline in and of itself. I think America has to maintain the option of military action, any time its interests are threatened. And certainly, having a nuclear weapon in Iran would threaten not only our interests, but the interests of our friends, and would threaten the entire world. It's a setting which would justify military action. The only time one could ever consider such an action is if every other reasonable option had been exercised to keep from having to use that option, and we're a long way from there at this point. You point out, one of the key ways of influencing and putting pressure Iran, and that is through China. China really is the key, both to the nuclear armament of North Korea, as well as to Iran. They're a huge trading partner with both. And China, of course, wants the oil very badly to keep their economy going, and therefore, they don't want to iritate the Iranians. But we're going to have to build our own type of pressure, to make sure that we get from them the kind of support that we need from someone who we want to become more of a friend in the world, and that is by them putting in place very tough restrictions, and supporting our tough acts against the Iranians, our sanctions against the Iranians, as they develop nuclear weaponry."

I think it is evident from this quote that Romney understands something about deterrence. Romney understands that how we talk about Iran is almost as important as what we do. We want Iran to think we might use military action but we also don't want to be irretractable from that position. Eisenhower was one of the greatest Presidents we have had in terms of keeping the pressure up but not letting the folks who want to run off into war get the better of the situation. He kept the generals and Chang Kai Shek in line when they were trying to prod the U.S. into nuclear war with China during the 1950's. I sensed from Romney's response some of the same understanding of the need to have a flexible deterrent.

Thanks to Evangelicals for pointing out the exchange.