There may be no sadder political spectacle than a Republican governor running for president. He knows nothing about foreign policy. But he panders to Neocons who dominate the GOP and expect the nominee to advocate perpetual war. Then his presidential campaign collapses.

So it was with Rick Perry. Now it is with Scott Walker, who last week abandoned his presidential bid.

The Wisconsin governor won some significant domestic political victories. He tried to compensate for his nonexistent foreign policy credentials by claiming to be tougher and meaner than any other Republican presidential candidate.

Walker assumed that to prosper “we need a safe and stable world.” Which was simple nonsense. When has the earth been “safe and stable”?

Naturally, Walker lauded Ronald Reagan, who deployed the military in only three limited actions. Reagan was appalled by the possibility of war. Neocons denounced him as an appeaser for dealing with the Soviet Union’s Mikhail Gorbachev and withdrawing from Lebanon’s civil war.

Walker contended that “America is not safer” than seven years ago. True, but mainly because of the dangerous military interventions he and other Republican candidates reflexively supported.

The Wisconsin governor talked in clichés: “We just need to lead again,” he declared. The U.S. did lead in Iraq, with disastrous results.

On the Islamic State Walker declared: “I’d rather take the fight to them than wait for them to bring the fight to us.” Alas, Walker confused ISIS with al-Qaeda. The latter attacked the U.S. The former wanted to create a state, which gave ISIS reason not to attack America—until the U.S. joined the Mideast’s latest sectarian war. Yet, argued Walker: “we have to be prepared to put boots on the ground.”

Walker wanted the U.S. to jump into the Syrian quagmire: train more “moderate” guerrillas, establish a no-fly zone, and create “a broader, U.S.-led regional coalition, with real buy-in and iron-clad guarantees from our allies that they will help us shoulder the burden.” The first has been a bust. The second would trigger much deeper American military involvement. The third is a joke.

The governor promised to tear up President Obama’s nuclear agreement on his first day in office. Then, he said, he would apply “crippling economic sanctions and convince our allies to do the same.”

How? America’s friends would be less than pleased with Washington leaving them high and dry. Nor would Tehran be likely to yield to American pressure, having responded to every previous U.S. rebuff by expanding its nuclear activities.

Walker also pledged to continue treating American defense policy as welfare. He echoed other GOP contenders in arguing that “we need to stand with our friends” since “our allies are among our greatest source of strength.” In fact, Washington collects allies like Facebook Friends. The Europeans, South Koreans, and Japanese all could defend themselves but don’t.

Of course, Walker wanted to spend more on the military, even though very little of the Pentagon’s effort actually goes for America’s defense. The bulk is devoted to defending wealthy allies, rebuilding failed societies, propping up dictatorial allies, engaging in foreign social engineering, and undertaking other similarly dubious tasks.

Being a superpower means America has interests everywhere, but few of them are vital or even important. Being a leader means distinguishing between critical and minimal interests.

 “America will not be intimidated,” Walker insisted. But that’s not the issue. Avoiding involvement in unnecessary wars is the issue. He claimed: “we can no longer afford to be passive spectators while the world descends into chaos.”

But as I pointed out for Forbes online, “there is little the U.S. can do to create order out of chaos. Far more often Washington inadvertently delivers disaster. It would be far better to stay out of foreign imbroglios instead.”

Other candidates likely soon will follow Walker out of the presidential race. Posing as uber-hawks is likely to work no better for them than for Scott Walker.

Earlier this year, Senator Diane Feinstein (D‑CA) inserted language into the annual Intelligence Authorization bill that would have forced social media companies like Twitter to act as de facto law enforcement agents and censors of the users of their service. The language in question read as follows:

SEC. 603. Requirement to report terrorist activities and the unlawful distribution of information relating to explosives.

(a) Duty To report.—Whoever, while engaged in providing an electronic communication service or a remote computing service to the public through a facility or means of interstate or foreign commerce, obtains actual knowledge of any terrorist activity, including the facts or circumstances described in subsection (c) shall, as soon as reasonably possible, provide to the appropriate authorities the facts or circumstances of the alleged terrorist activities.

(b) Attorney General determination.—The Attorney General shall determine the appropriate authorities under subsection (a).

(c) Facts or circumstances.—The facts or circumstances described in this subsection, include any facts or circumstances from which there is an apparent violation of section 842(p) of title 18, United States Code, that involves distribution of information relating to explosives, destructive devices, and weapons of mass destruction.

(d) Protection of privacy.—Nothing in this section may be construed to require an electronic communication service provider or a remote computing service provider—

(1) to monitor any user, subscriber, or customer of that provider; or

(2) to monitor the content of any communication of any person described in paragraph (1).

In a social media context, what constitutes “terrorist activity”? And how would a social media company “obtain knowledge” of undefined “terrorist activity” absent active monitoring of all of is users?

Feinstein’s proposal was constitutionally dubious and wildly impractical. It also generated strong opposition from social media and tech companies, the privacy and civil liberties community, and some of her own Senate colleagues.

In placing a hold on the bill after the Feinstein language surfaced, Senator Ron Wyden (D‑OR) noted

“There is no question that tracking terrorist activity and preventing online terrorist recruitment should be top priorities for law enforcement and intelligence agencies. But I haven’t yet heard any law enforcement or intelligence agencies suggest that this provision will actually help catch terrorists, and I take the concerns that have been raised about its breadth and vagueness seriously. Internet companies should not be subject to broad requirements to police the speech of their users.”

Earlier this week, Wyden won the fight, as Feinstein agreed to drop the language–for now.

Feinstein spokesman Tom Mentzer told NextGov “Sen. Fein­stein still be­lieves it’s im­port­ant to block ter­ror­ists’ use of so­cial me­dia to re­cruit and in­cite vi­ol­ence and will contin­ue to work on achiev­ing that goal.”

In truth, if Feinstein got her way and social media companies managed to achiece the complete blocking of ISIS’ use of U.S.-based social media–a technically and operationally dubious proposition–it would have exactly the opposite effect she seeks.

A recent Fordham Law School study shows the FBI’s effectiveness in exploiting ISIS’ use of social media services like Twitter to try to radicalize and recruit young Muslim-Americans to find and charge alleged ISIS militants in the United States. Most of the ISIS-related indictments or convictions obtained by the FBI to date against alleged or actual ISIS-recruited terrorists in the United States are attributable to the FBI’s tracking of such activity on Twitter and other U.S.-based online services. Shutting down ISIS’ access to American-run social media services would simply lead to an ISIS migration to other, non‑U.S. social media and messaging platforms–very likely in countries that would be less inclinded to cooperate with U.S. government agencies seeking information on known or suspected overseas terrorists communicating with individuals in the United States. This trend may already be underway with respect to ISIS’ use of encrypted messaging services.

When Members of Congress advocate censorship as a means of combating terrorist violence and propaganda, they give those same terrorists an unearned victory by sponsoring legislation that subverts the Bill of Rights. Kudos to Senator Wyden for reminding his Senate colleague of those facts.

Today’s Cato Online Forum essay comes from economist Laura Baughman, who laments the typical methodological approaches to estimating relationships between trade agreements and jobs, pointing out how those approaches seem to be used to validate a priori positions, either pro- or anti-trade, rather than reveal best estimates. While economists are better at estimating the relationships between trade agreements and output or between trade agreements and trade flows, Baughman explains that if the likely impact of on jobs is sought, there is a more objective approach to take. And the results of that method suggest that “it will be hard to argue that [TTIP] will not be a job ‘winner’ for the United States.”

Read it. Provide feedback. And sign up for the Cato TTIP conference on October 12.

A sense of historical perspective and responsible rhetoric may be too much to ask of candidates at this stage in a presidential campaign. With fifteen contenders all looking to score points some hyperbole is to be expected. Even so the level of threat inflation and “world in flames” talk last night was troublesome given how at odds it is with fundamental trends in world affairs.

Here is just a sampling of last week’s overheated discussion of global dangers:

Donald Trump: “The world is blowing up around us. …These are extraordinarily dangerous times that we live in.”

Ben Carson: “We’re talking about global jihadists who want to destroy us. …They are an existential threat to our nation.”

Rick Santorum: “Yes, they (Iran) are radical Islamists, that’s true. But their particular version of it, which is an apocalyptic version, which is a death cult, they believe in bringing about the end of the — end of the world. If you — if you poll Iranians and Iraqis, Shiites in the region, more than two-thirds of them believe that the end of the world is going to come within their lifetime. …They believe in bringing about the end of times. That’s their theological goal and we are in the process of giving them a nuclear weapon to do just that.”

Mike Huckabee: “This is really about the survival of Western civilization.”

With the candidates competing to outdo each other’s apocalyptic visions of the threats facing the U.S., it is no surprise that their policy prescriptions for Russia, Syria, Iran, and ISIL displayed a distinct tendency toward irresponsibility and overkill. Of the candidates in the debate, only Rand Paul and John Kasich articulated more temperate visions of U.S. foreign policy, Paul suggesting that sometimes intervention makes things worse and Kasich that the U.S. should actually wait to see how Iran behaves before simply ripping up the Iran deal and pursuing more aggressive options.

Just a few of the GOP debate’s policy proposals included:

• Spending billions of dollars to “rebuild” a military that is already by far the most powerful in the world
• Arming Israel with earth-penetrating ordnance to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities
• Conducting offensive cyber attacks on China as a form of deterrence
• Sending 10,000 (or more) U.S. ground troops in to Syria to take on the Islamic State

The reality is that the world, though troubled, is more peaceful than at any other point in modern history. As scholars like Steven Pinker (The Better Angels of our Nature), John Mueller (Retreat from Doomsday), and Joshua Goldstein (Winning the War on War) have powerfully argued, warfare – indeed conflict of all kinds – has been on the decline for decades. The result, concludes the recent Cato volume, A Dangerous World?, is that the United States enjoys unprecedented security despite the presence of the Islamic terrorism and other troubles abroad. Nor is the good news limited to the decline of war. As the Cato project Human​Progress​.org documents, the world has made steady progress in the past 100 years on all fronts from life expectancy and poverty reduction to the expansion of political and economic freedoms.

Unfortunately, this kind of good news won’t help Republicans get elected. And thanks to this relentless overselling of global dangers, few Americans understand the world’s peaceful trajectory and too many support shortsighted and counterproductive interventionist strategies.

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs just released its 2015 survey documenting American foreign policy attitudes. Entitled “America Divided: Political Partisanship and U.S. Foreign Policy,” the Council’s report emphasizes the stark disagreements between Republicans and Democrats over foreign policy goals and the means for achieving them. While there are certainly important differences between the two camps, there is a dangerous underlying consensus today that unites left and right: Americans of all stripes suffer from an “interventionist itch.” With respect to fighting terrorism and the Islamic State, Americans are far too supportive of the kinds of military intervention that have proved ineffective and counterproductive in the past.

As 9/11 receded and the war in Iraq descended in to insurgency, Americans became less interested in having the United States play an active role in world affairs and more wary of military intervention. Over the past year, however, as concerns have mounted over the Islamic State, so has the public’s willingness to support various measures to combat terrorism. Drawing on the CCGA survey, Table One reveals public support across party lines for a host of interventionist activities. In addition, the CCGA report notes, a majority of Americans would support cyberattacks and airstrikes (though not the use of ground troops) against Iran should Iran renege on the nuclear agreement.

American Support for Military Intervention: In order to combat international terrorism, please say whether you favor or oppose each of the following measures (% favor)*

These figures suggest several sobering conclusions. First, they clearly indicate a stable interventionist consensus that includes both obvious advocates (Republicans) and less obvious advocates (Democrats and even Independents). Such a consensus is somewhat surprising considering all evidence from the past 14 years of intervention makes clear just how poorly such tactics have worked and because the public has repeatedly come to oppose the interventions they previously favored after they prove ineffective. On the other hand, the presence of this consensus is understandable given the interventionist agendas of the Bush and Obama administrations and the vocal support from both Republican and Democratic leaders for more intervention of various kinds.

Second, the consensus illustrates the degree to which the threat of terrorism has come to dominate the U.S. conversation about national security. The 2015 CCGA study finds no increase in support for the use of military force to aid Taiwan, or Israel, or South Korea. But terrorism, even 14 years after 9/11, remains a lighting rod capable of inducing overheated rhetoric and overheated fears.

Finally, these figures indicate that interventionist cries from the candidates will find a receptive audience as we approach the 2016 elections. All of the Republican candidates (Rand Paul aside) as well as Hillary Clinton have staked out positions arguing for more intervention. There is thus every reason to believe that the United States will find itself further entangled in the Middle East in the near future.

Today’s essay for Cato’s Online Forum on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership comes from Berkeley Political Science Professor Vinod K. Aggarwal, who explains the growing popularity of trade liberalization outside the WTO, and discusses how third countries might react to a TTIP agreement between the United States and European Union.

This essay and this forum are associated with an upcoming TTIP conference at Cato on October 12.

We had our second debate of the primary season on Wednesday, a grueling five hour affair pitting fifteen Republican hopefuls against each other in two debate sessions. When CNN’s hosts weren’t asking inane questions – i.e., whether candidates had considered their Secret Service nickname or whether they would trust Donald Trump with the nuclear codes – they did find some time to focus on foreign policy issues. I have a piece over at the National Interest discussing the debate, and highlighting some of the misleading narratives underlying much of the GOP debate.

Though there were some factual errors, the bigger problem was the reliance of most candidates on fundamental ideas which are effectively untrue, like the idea that the U.S. military is weak or small compared to that of other nations:

Ben Carson noted that “our Air Force is incapable of doing the same things that it did a few years ago. Carly Fiorina argued that “we need the strongest military on the face of the planet,” while Marco Rubio noted that “… we are eviscerating our military.” Such claims are entirely false: the U.S. military is among the world’s largest, spending more than the next 13 countries combined in 2013 (including China and Russia)! Today, the United States makes up 38.4% of all global military spending, and spends substantially more on the military than it did on average during the Cold War.

Many candidates also expressed support for the idea that it is U.S. absence from conflicts which creates problems, rather than U.S. intervention itself. Again, this narrative has proven to be demonstrably false in the last ten years, as examples from Libya, Iraq and elsewhere show:

Jeb Bush noted that “when we pull back, voids are created. We left Iraq… and now we have the creation of ISIS.” Again, this narrative is convenient for many candidates, allowing them to blame President Obama’s troop withdrawals, rather than the initial disastrous decision to invade Iraq, for the rise of ISIS. Unfortunately, it is similarly false: Iraq’s sectarian problems existed long before the U.S. withdrawal of troops in 2011, and the rise of ISIS is at least partly a result of the Bush administration’s decision to disband the Iraqi army.

When we base our foreign policy debates on such misleading ideas, candidates will present policy options which are unworkable or even counterproductive. Voters deserve a better debate, one which acknowledges the nuance and complexity of foreign affairs. You can read the whole piece here.