As the world prepares to face another US presidential election, thoughts turn to the likely foreign and national security policies of America’s first ‘Mormon’ White House under Mitt Romney. Widely derided as either weird or a cult, a foreign policy true to Mormon beliefs would likely see radical shifts – a massive rollback of American military forces from Afghanistan, reduction of the threatening attitude to Iran, a reversal of blanket support and aid to Israel, and slashed military spending. America would ‘come home’ and experience a real peace dividend that so patently failed to materialise after the end of the Cold War. But there’s a difference between authentic Mormon beliefs and ex-Bishop Willard Mitt Romney, the Church of Latter Day Saints’ establishment and, it must be noted, the majority of American Mormons. So ‘Americanised’ are Romney, the LDS establishment, and lay Mormons that a Romney White House would differ little in practice from previous administrations – including JFK’s ‘Roman Catholic’ and Obama’s ‘African-American’ ones. And that is testimony to the almost overweening assimilating powers of the American Way of Life – the subordination, or hollowing out, of any beliefs beliefs that challenge free enterprise, limited government, American exceptionalism, and US proactive global leadership