Ben Carson doesn’t have a detailed foreign policy platform, but he does have a clear worldview: the evangelical precept that the greatest danger facing America is moral and spiritual decline at home — a decline he often compares to a Roman Empire collapsing under the weight of its own perfidy and corruption.

"If we continue our fiscally irresponsible ways, coupled with our arrogance, there exist no other possibility than self-ruination,’’ Carson wrote in a column last year. "As was the case with the Roman Empire, our fate is in our hands."


In another discussing the re-emergence of Russia, he wrote: "While we Americans are giving a cold shoulder to our religious heritage, the Russians are warming to religion. The Russians seem to be gaining prestige and influence throughout the world as we are losing ours. I wonder whether there is a correlation."

Just last month, during a rally in West Memphis, Arkansas, Carson again mentioned the Romans in warning against fiscal irresponsibility and running up the national debt.

Carson’s views may be simplistic — Rome did not fall in a day, after all, and its long decline was caused by a wide array of interlocking factors, including overexpansion, an East-West split and attacks by outside forces. Yet his explanations strike a chord with conservative Christians already attracted to the retired pediatric neurosurgeon for his compelling life story and opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. Those same voters also appreciate other foreign policy mantras espoused by Carson: that the U.S. must hold fast to its Christian ideals, always lead on the world stage, and use overwhelming force against Islamists who threaten its way of life.

"If one takes the New Testament seriously as evangelicals do, the conflict between the Roman government and the early Christians is something that’s very prominent," said John C. Green, a professor at the University of Akron who studies the intersection of religion and politics. "Many of the early Christians saw Rome as very corrupt."

Carson’s views appear to have been deeply influenced by his main national security adviser, Robert F. Dees, a retired Army major general prominent in evangelical circles. In his 2014 book, “Resilient Nations,” Dees argues that the biggest threat to the United States isn't terrorism or China or Russia but the decline of its "spiritual infrastructure.” Exhibit A in the argument is the Roman Empire:

"At the height of Roman decadence, good became evil and evil became good," Dees writes in the introduction. "One can rightly argue that the United States is frightfully close to a similar fate. Prayerfully, it is not too late."

"Resilient Nations," part of a trilogy, contains a litany of grievances against President Barack Obama, including accusations that he provides "the Muslim religion 'most favored status'" even as he pursues "anti-Israeli rhetoric and policies." Obama, Dees writes, "has consistently denied 'American exceptionalism' and portrayed weakness." Dees did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Carson, who is a member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church and is held up as a role model in Dees' book, has traveled extensively. His campaign declined to offer comment for this story and did not respond to a question about who besides Dees is advising Carson on foreign policy. An aide did, however, say that Carson has visited 57 countries, including living for about a year in Australia.

Many of Carson's foreign policy positions are standard among the Republican White House contenders: He opposes the Iran nuclear deal, believes it’s critical to support Israel, wants to keep open the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay, and says the United States must stand up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and be wary of the Chinese. He has also said he's willing to send combat troops to fight the Islamic State, a more aggressive posture than most others in the GOP field.



Yet Carson often stumbles when questioned about foreign policy specifics.



In an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Carson said the Baltic states should join NATO, even though they already are members, and misstated the origins of Islam. On Fox News, he questioned the need for the U.S. to invade Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, saying there were "better ways to accomplish our goals," which at the time included catching terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. During a call with the Miami Herald, Carson — who resides in Florida — expressed ignorance about the so-called wet foot-dry foot policy for Cuban migrants, which treats them differently depending on when and how they arrived in the United States.

In the wake of those gaffes, he has admitted he has much to learn before becoming commander in chief. And for many evangelical voters, that may be enough. Carson's lack of government or foreign-policy experience suggests he's less corrupted by conventional thinking about the world, an attribute appealing to social conservatives who believe that a president with strong moral convictions will ultimately make the right decisions.

"There’s this notion among some evangelicals that the president is to some extent a spiritual leader," said Dennis Goldford, a political science professor at Drake University.

Carson's critics argue that however pleasing the notion of a faith-based foreign policy may be to religious Christians, it won’t be well-received on the world stage and could inspire anti-U.S. extremists.

"It’s very, very difficult for other nations to see us as morally or religiously inspired, at least in a good way," said Jeremy Shapiro, a fellow at the Brookings Institution with an expertise on U.S. foreign policy. "They don’t believe in our special mission, particularly when we imbue that special mission with that messianic zeal. It makes our partners, not just our enemies, very, very nervous, because they think it will push us to radical destabilizing action, the Iraq War being a main example.”

A strong aversion to radical Islam animates much of Carson's thinking, as it does that of many of his fellow evangelicals. Although Carson once wrote, "As a Christian, I am not the least bit offended by the beliefs of Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons and so forth ... as long as they don’t allow the religion to be distorted by those seeking power and wealth,” he seems to have hardened his views toward Muslims in some respects. He already has said he does not believe a Muslim should be allowed to serve as president.

Carson advocates a no-holds-barred approach to fighting the Islamic State, the terrorist group that has taken over large chunks of Iraq and Syria and casts it as "an existential threat to our own nation and our way of life." And while advocating for the annihilation of the group, Carson also insists political correctness can't get in the way.

"There is no question that unpleasantries brought about by our own forces will be necessary to accomplish our goals and defeat terrorism, but you cannot win a politically correct war," he wrote in a September 2014 column titled "Resisting the Islamic State's Demand for Submission." In his 2012 book "America the Beautiful," Carson also suggests the U.S. shouldn't be transparent about its military tactics, decrying "things that have unwisely been criminalized or demonized that are better left undiscussed in a public forum."

Carson argues that America should use brutal, overwhelming force to bring a quick end to conflicts, thus saving more lives in the long run, and he bemoans that "political correctness dictates we cannot kill innocent women and children in the process of destroying the enemy."

He says, for example, that U.S. forces should have leveled the Iraqi city of Fallujah after giving civilians a 72-hour window to flee. "If the terrorists were foolish enough to choose to remain and to keep people from leaving, any ensuing deaths would clearly be their responsibility," Carson writes in "America the Beautiful." "I can just hear pacifists saying, how horrible and brutal — how could a man of God even think such a thing? But they haven't thought beyond their initial reaction. You would not have to take this type of action very often before people began to realize that having terrorists among them was not a good thing, and they would act accordingly to either expose such individuals or expel them."

Many of Carson's views appear to echo those of Dees, although the retired general comes across as more hard-line, including when it comes to Muslims. Dees once told an interviewer that “trying to appease the Muslim religion by saying that they are a peace-loving religion is problematic … they need to demonstrate how their religion does not lead people to a final end state of violence and oppression.”

Dees takes care to praise African-American icons such as Martin Luther King Jr., but he also makes assertions about the black community that some would find offensive. At one point, he writes: "America has worked hard to repent of its 'original sin' of slavery, and if anything has 'overcorrected' to the detriment of African-Americans (witness the 'Great Society' which created an addiction to entitlements)."

According to his book, Dees is a Texas resident who retired from the Army 12 years ago, afterward working for Microsoft Corp. and remaining active in military causes. He's also affiliated with the Institute for Military Resilience at Liberty University, the conservative Christian school founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell.

Dees' book was endorsed by some controversial figures: retired Lt. Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin, a former top-ranking Pentagon official criticized for his comments on Muslims: the Rev. Franklin Graham, whose attacks on Muslims, gays and the president have made him far more of a lightning rod than his famous father, Billy; and David Barton, a conservative activist whose alternative history depicting America as founded as a Christian nation has been widely denounced and debunked by mainstream historians.

Even when Carson seems to lay out a specific foreign policy goal, he doesn't always game out the consequences.

He has suggested that the United States should strive for energy independence from the Arab world. It's a position that's attractive to many Americans, but how quickly that could happen without damaging the economies of Arab states and unleashing even more anger toward America among their populations is a major question.

Carson also has criticized Obama for not doing more to support the protest movement in Iran in 2009. Still, even many Iranian activists were desperate for the U.S. to avoid a public show of support for their cause, knowing it could be used by the Islamist government in Tehran to paint the protesters as U.S. stooges, undermining the movement.

As the campaign rolls on, Carson may be forced to articulate more specifics on how he will deal with the many global challenges facing the United States. For now, however, he casts his lack of governing experience as a strength to a base sick of Washington insiders.

"I do not have political experience, I have a life journey," Carson wrote in a Facebook rebuttal to critics earlier this month, "a journey that not only made it possible for me to relate to so many different people, but also one where time and time again I was told I would fail, only to succeed."

