Donald Trump’s demurral to the question in his recent interview with the New York Times — “If Russia came over the border into Estonia or Latvia, Lithuania . . . would you come to their immediate military aid?” — met with gasps of justified horror. But among the horrified were many of the same people who cheered Barack Obama’s dismissal to Mitt Romney’s 2012 comment that Russia is “without question our number one geopolitical foe.”
The New York Times editorial board, in a characteristic display of hackery, wrote at the time that Romney’s remarks “display either a shocking lack of knowledge about international affairs or just craven politics.” They proceeded to issue apologia for the President’s appeasement toward Russia, calling the country “an unsavory player” but insisting that it was not among the “real threats out there.” All of this to defend a candidate that did not take Russia seriously: Obama, you’ll recall, told Romney that the “1980s” want “their foreign policy back.” And Zack Beauchamp, then writing for ThinkProgress, said in 2012: “It’s no secret that neither Romney nor his advisers appear capable of outlining a clear vision of a Romney administration’s foreign policy.”
But the Left now appears to understand the grave threat that Russian bellicosity poses to the Baltic states, to NATO, and to us. The White House press secretary stated: “The cornerstone of [NATO] is the pledge that all of the allies have made to mutual self-defense.” Beauchamp, now writing at Vox, groused: “Donald Trump’s NATO comments are the scariest thing he’s said.” He concluded: “Nice country you got there. Shame if Russia burns it down.”
None of the criticism of Trump’s comments is wrong. But one wonders where the newfound awareness of the Russian threat has come from: The most alarmed are those who just four years ago skewered Romney’s foreign policy, which understood Russia to be a grave geopolitical threat.