End the war in Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan!

It reminds me of the conclusion of Michael Howard's book, "War and the liberal conscience":
"They may be uninterested in foreign affairs, hostiles to alliances and sceptical about such abstract concepts as the balance of power. On the other hand their ignorance of foreign politics makes them suspicious and xenophobe, prone to paranoia, and passionately vindicative in proportion to the shattering of their peaceful ideals" (p 116 of the 2008 edition).
He was writing in 1975 and it is probably still relevant...

It is his lack of innate personal need to KNOW, comprehend and render thought which is a worry.

Don't get me wrong, I think on domestic issues he is the winner. But it takes more, and as far as experts, well .... We can go as far back to AT LEAST the Dulles bros to see the mistakes experts can make.

Does that mean someone else would be a better prez?

Not, I think with the present choices, especially the one already serving.
As for what kind of FP prez Cain might be, well that depends on if the experts he chooses are (analytically) a William Kristol, and Walid Phares or a Juan Cole and Andrew Young, but I think from what he has said on other matters we can guess which way he is going to go.

. . . is a stooge for the Koch brothers, as Cain is -- he can just ask his bosse what his policies should be.

you must be a racist or something, right?

;)

Dan,

Your general point is valid, but Cain has about as much chance of getting the Republican nomination as you do. I still eagerly await your comparison of Romney's foreign policy expertise with that of Senator Obama from 4 years ago.

As a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, China Division, I am not at all scared by someone who doesn't understand the complex nature of our disgusting foreign policies. We have thousands, if not millions of defense employees, and you don't think they could bring him up to speed on key issues in a short amount of time? If not, we really have a problem. We will have a Sec of State and hundreds of diplomats, won't we? The President doesn't need to micromanage everything, just listen to their advice. If the President already needs to know and control everything, we shouldn't appoint these people. Others have already stated what I feel, that just because Romney, Obama, etc.have more money for foreign policy experts to write up plans, does not mean they have any more knowledge on foreign policy, just good advisers.

Cain has spent years working on monetary issues and I imagine you could ask him about trade issues with countries like China, but probably not how we will hegemon them. We saw McCain fall on his face because he knew very little about the economy. Cain may be the polar opposite, but with JD Gordan on Cain's side, I doubt we will see Cain falter like we have in the past. Even if he does falter on foreign policy, job creation is something Obama seems to know very little about, which benefits Cain. When China, a communist country, is beating the US at their own free market game, maybe there is a problem and it's time to be a little introverted.

Cain will likely be the VP this time around. In the three facets of the party, (Romney, Cain, and Paul) Cain represents the base and will be used by Romney accordingly. But, like I said, since Romney has more money to spend on foreign policy experts, the media will believe he actually knows something. No matter what, I think they all know as much as the community organizer did. Well, maybe that's not true. Obama's "mentor," Rev. Wright was quite vocal on issues of foreign policy. Wouldn't we rather have someone with no FP experience than someone with the baggage of Rev. Wright's rantings?

G W Bush proved how dangerous it is to have a president who lacks a sense of history in the White House.

It's his apparent basic lack of intellectual curiosity about the world that frightens me. Anyone worthy of being the leader of the US from either party who has no intellectual curiosity about the world frightens the hell out of me. We have over 300,000,000 people in the US. Surely the Republicans can find one with intellectual curiosity and not just a blind focus on Mammon.

If defense of Herman Cain, he's an equal-opportunity anti-expert thinker, as recorded in this recent NYT piece on his 9-9-9 plan: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/us/politics/herman-cains-tax-plan-changes-gop-primary-math.html

His top economic adviser, his proclaimed "economist," is Rich Lowrie. Who is not an economist. Who has no PhD or, to my knowlege, has never presented a single paper in economics or ever had to defend a position in an academic setting.

He is, however, a fan of Jude Wanniski, whom even many committed supply-siders now agree, has gone certifiable.

I agree that Cain is not going to get the nomination - may not even be seriously seeking it - but WHAT a gasbag...

All of the repugnicans are certifiable, with the possible exception of Romney.

By the way, if Mitt Romney's father wasn't famous, he'd be selling barbeques at Ace hardware.

"This is an axiom which never fails:that a prince who is not wise himself will never take good advice, unless by chance he has yielded his affairs entirely to one person who happens to be a very prudent man. In this case indeed he may be well governed, but it would not be for long, because such a governor would in a short time take away his state from him."

As an IR prof it is disheartening when presidential candidates know little about foreign policy, and the lack of interest is certainly problematic. But this article has me wondering if having little knowledge is better or worse than having bad knowledge..

The very "smart'" Woodrow Wilson had very strong ideas about foreign policy that were wildly wrong, while the foreign policy neophyte Truman managed fairly well.

Additionally Dan glosses over the Obama example too easily. Yes later Bush policy was different than early Bush policy, but Obama ran against later Bush policy as well. Where he charted a new course things have not gone well (extended an open hand to Iran, Russian reset,, world apology tour). It is fair to talk about those ideas which Obama brought to the table versus those he ended up adopting. We are fortunate that Obama's more naive ideas were quickly rebuffed by global events and that the new president quickly adopted policies completely at odds with his own previously stated beliefs.

I recall a Reagan line about it not being the case that liberals were ignorant but that they knew so much that wasn't true.

So I continue to wonder which is worse, ignorance, or misguided knowledge.

Yes, there are decisions where the individual President does matter, that's true. But could you have predicted from Candidate Bush's statements about a humble foreign policy (versus Candidate Gore's statements) that Bush would be the one to invade Iraq?

Could you have predicted from Candidate Obama's statements that he would more likely to send troops everywhere, including Uganda, than McCain?

It doesn't matter if the President affects a lot, if you can't predict from their statements as a candidate what they'd do, then those candidate statements don't really matter.

And it's ridiculous to put the debt ceiling at the same level as those other things. It's a blip, no more important than the Senate failing to pass a budget under Obama ever or the 1995 government shutdown. The announcement today of an impending French downgrade makes that even more clear.

Foreign Policy is, you know, exotic. It deals with foreign peoples like black folks in Georgia. I recall a black pharmaceutical rep telling me that, if Obama were elected, 'he would get in there (the White House) and they would tell him how was going to be.'

We have thousands, if not millions of defense employees, and you don't think they could bring him up to speed on key issues in a short amount of time? If not, we really have a problem. We will have a Sec of State and hundreds of diplomats, won't we? The President doesn't need to micromanage parenting blog everything, just listen to their advice. If the President already needs to know and control everything, we shouldn't appoint these people.