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Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. signs copies of his book at the Conservative Political Action Committee annual conference in National Harbor, Md., Friday, March 7, 2014. AP/Susan Walsh

This article originally appeared on Slate.

Sen. Rand Paul may not be a foreign policy hawk but he is a political one. He wrote, in a recent critique of his Republican colleagues: "What we don't need right now is politicians who have never seen war talking tough for the sake of their political careers." Incoming! Paul was talking about grandstanding responses to the Ukraine crisis. It wasn't a pinprick attack about a policy disagreement: Sen. Paul is claiming his rivals--ignorant to the sacrifices of war--are too cavalier about committing American troops to foreign conflicts in their rush to make a name for themselves. He made this point in an essay where he also charged these performance hawks with misappropriating Ronald Reagan's legacy, a special desecration in a party where the 40th president is revered. So: ignorant, heartless, self-absorbed, reckless, and distorting history.

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Libertarian Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., tells audience members at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md., that they shouldn't ...

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Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., says in order for the tea party to succeed politically, "We have to reach out to more people."

Paul is not the only one to link the issue of sacrifice and hot rhetoric. That was a central message of former Defense Secretary Robert Gates' book: Both parties are too quick to threaten war. It's a fascinating question that should engage us between now and the next presidential election. Paul's words pose a problem for all of the GOP's would-be commanders-in-chief, including himself; his charge undermines his party's foreign policy critique of President Obama, which operates on the blunt formula that if you are not rhetorically tough, you invite global aggression.

It wasn't immediately clear who Paul was attacking. He did not name names, but that may simply have been because he had too many targets. He could have been referring to several of his potential rivals for the presidency. Sen. Ted Cruz told ABC News "I don't agree with him on foreign policy. I think U.S. leadership is critical in the world." New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has talked about the dangers of the isolationism running through the party (which led to a public spat with Paul months ago.) Sen. Marco Rubio has been staking out the hawkish position as a part of his effort to present himself as the foreign policy voice in the GOP field.

Paul had more advice: "I will remind anyone who thinks we will win elections by trashing previous Republican nominees or holding oneself out as some paragon in the mold of Reagan, that splintering the party is not the route to victory." That was clearly a shot at Cruz, who had criticized Bob Dole, Sen. John McCain, and Mitt Romney in his speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference last week.

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Rand Paul's preemptive strike