Sarah Palin a Modern Cold War Hero in the Making

COMMENTARY | It is considered unusual for a former governor who holds no public office and is not currently running for another to have a foreign policy adviser. But Sarah Palin, not known for being conventional, has chosen Peter Schweizer for that job.

Schweizer is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution with expertise in international relations, national security affairs, and the U.S. presidency. He is also the author of a number of books, including two on President Reagan, one on the Bush family, and a critique on the effects of big government on the world economy.

Most recently, Schweizer published a critique of President Obama's policy in Libya, which he says has all of the elements of, what he calls an "overused analogy," another Vietnam. His critique echoes that Palin, which may partly explain why he is now working for her.

One can make the obvious analogies. Schweizer may be Palin's version of Condoleeza Rice or, even, Henry Kissinger, the power behind the throne who helped shape foreign policy in a White House second only to the president. Palin has not even announced a run for the presidency, not to speak of actually winning the office. But it may well be that we already know whom her National Security Adviser will be should she attain the Oval Office.

This suggests that a President Palin's foreign policy will be at once less and more aggressive than what has been conducted during the past 10 years. Noting the five-point "Palin Doctrine" articulated recently, there would be fewer deployments of conventional American forces overseas. Those that occur will be engaged in sharp, overwhelming campaigns of limited duration and clear, measurable goals. These campaigns would more resemble Grenada during the Reagan administration and Panama and the Gulf War during the first Bush administration than Afghanistan, Iraq, or especially Libya.

At the same time, a President Palin would strike at the enemies of the United States, such as Iran, and assist her friends with a whole panoply of tools, ranging from economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and support for protesters and insurgents. In short, Palin would deal with Iran, Syria and North Korea, among other countries, the same way Reagan dealt with the Soviet Union, as Schweizer chronicled in his book on Reagan's strategy to end the communist regime in Russia, "Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union."

Palin would learn from the successes of Reagan's Cold War strategy and adapt it for the realities of the 21^st

Century.

Sources: Peter Schweizer, Hoover Institution Biography

Sarah Palin Refines Foreign Policy Doctrine with Five-Point Criterion, Mark R. Whittington, Associated Content, May 3, 2011

Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union, Peter Schweizer, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1996