Romney Was Right About Putin
On October 22, 2012, Mitt Romney sat across a table from President Barack Obama for the final debate of the presidential election. The theme of the night was foreign policy. Obama’s campaign had been working all year to cast Romney as out of touch and inexperienced, and when the moment came, the president deployed what seemed like a devastating putdown.
“A few months ago, when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia. Not al-Qaeda. You said Russia,” Obama told him. “And the 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back.”
In the days that followed, Obama’s allies repeated the talking point. Romney was ridiculed for his preoccupation with Russia and accused of having an outdated Cold War mentality that made him unqualified for the presidency. Nearly a decade later, with Russia carrying out a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, some are offering mea culpas—and wondering whether they should have paid closer attention to Romney’s warnings about Russia.
[Read our ongoing coverage of the Russian invasion in Ukraine]
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