Interview: Rand Paul on Foreign Policy Realism

On October 23, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) gave a
major foreign policy address at the Center for the National
Interest in which he declared himself a “conservative realist,”
aligning himself with the tradition of Ronald Reagan and Caspar
Weinberger. As he did in a similar February 2013 speech at the
conservative Heritage Foundation, the libertarian-leaning 2016 GOP
presidential contender attempted to sell his foreign policy vision
to fellow Republicans as a middle path between the near-absolute
anti-intervention of his (unmentioned) father and the
hyper-interventionism of the Washington Republican
establishment.

Reaction to the speech varied widely. Of particular interest to
libertarians looking to probe the senator’s foreign policy
principles was his seemingly dissonant support for U.S. air strikes
against the Islamic State (ISIS) and opposition to intervening in
the ongoing Syrian civil war. Four days after the speech,
Reason Editor in Chief Matt Welch spoke with Sen. Paul
over the telephone to flesh out his notion of realism and probe
some limiting principles on taking the nation to war.

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