It’s time for a foreign-policy debate

I was going to blog the foreign-policy highlights of last night’s Bloomberg/Washington Post debate, but there really weren’t any except for Rick Santorum declaring war on China (It’s around the 6-minute mark): Two quick points: 1. I know this was a single-topic debate on the U.S. economy, but still, there was only a cursory discussion ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.

I was going to blog the foreign-policy highlights of last night's Bloomberg/Washington Post debate, but there really weren't any except for Rick Santorum declaring war on China (It's around the 6-minute mark):

I was going to blog the foreign-policy highlights of last night’s Bloomberg/Washington Post debate, but there really weren’t any except for Rick Santorum declaring war on China (It’s around the 6-minute mark):

Two quick points:

1. I know this was a single-topic debate on the U.S. economy, but still, there was only a cursory discussion of trade policy and the effects of the European financial crisis didn’t come up at all. Other than tough talk on China, this year’s field seems to share Herman Cain’s view that what goes on in other funny little countries with silly names don’t have any effect on the U.S. economy.

2. That being said, this was certainly the best-moderated debate so far and the single-topic format worked well. I’d love to see a similar format used in a foreign-policy debate in the near future. As long as the rest of the world is shunted into five minutes at the end of the debates on the cable news networks, we’re not going to get much beyond "stand by Israel," "stand up to China," and "Reagan, Reagan, Reagan." 

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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