Mitt Romney's Missing Foreign Policy - 2 views
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Anna Schutte on 09 Oct 12This editorial written by Danielle Pletka, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute criticizes Romney's foreign policy speech on Monday October 8th for offering little in the way of either vision or specifics to separate himself from Obama. Plettka writes that Romney, "sensed an opening" in foreign policy after the Obama administration appeared to bungle the September 11 Libyan attack. She says that Romney needs to show voters that "he's not simply George Bush retread" itching to declare war on Iran and Syria. It is interesting that this conservative thinks that no Republicans have made a case that they will actually do anything differently than Obama. She suggests that Romney help voters connect American global power with prosperity, its dominance of the world's important waterways with flourishing trade and the exporting of democratic ideals with more open "nourished markets. She refers to the importance of the US's "benign" influence since WWII. Look up benign..it doesn't mean the war, death and violence we seen in Iraq and Afghanistan . What she means is that the U.S. has never interfered for 'malevolent" reasons. It's hard to imagine how the US would be perceived as benign in all of the military intervention.
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John West on 14 Oct 12This connects pretty well to Miles' most recent post, and reinforces the feeling I have that foreign policy isn't that substantial in this election. It seems like a tool Romney can use to attack Obama, to, as you said, "sense an opening." The economy is not just what people seem more concerned about, it's the part of the race that substantive debate actually comes out of. Both presidents have good and bad marks on their record in terms of economy, while I still think Romney has little substantive to say about foreign policy. What you are saying about a "benign" influence is part of what I think Ryan flubbed during the debate: when asked if the US should intervene for humanitarian reasons, he started stuttering and going back to only putting troops on the ground for US security. Whether you believe in a "benign" reason for US action in the Middle East, I agree with the author that Romney needs to work harder to put this image forward, true or not. I'm a little confused about the author's claim that Romney is going to do things the same as Obama: in terms of Iran and his stance on the scale of US military power, they seem entirely different to me. Also (the article reminded me of this), what does Romney/Ryan hope to gain by pushing the whole Russia-as-a-threat angle? It seems pretty pointless to me.
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cody s on 14 Oct 12This article shows pretty well a lot of what we've seen of Romney. It seems like his campaign is just based on criticizing Obama, and since there's an opening in the foreign policy area he's moved away from the economy. He's looking for criticisms to make without offering substantive policy proposals, and I think that's because Obama's policies are basically centrist policies. It's a weird situation that Obama, as a moderate, has this unique ability to inspire so much vitriol among the conservative right, and Romney's trying to capitalize.
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Eli Melrod on 16 Oct 12I'm in the foreign policy group for the issues project at school, and I can tell you with certainty that the differences between Obama and Romney in terms of foreign policy are very small. It is more of a philosophical difference. In reality, the troops will leave Afghanistan in 2014, we will most likely not send troops to Syria or Iran, and we will continue to support Israel, regardless of who is president. Romney is really just trying to create a contrast between his foreign policy and Obama's, but there aren't any major differences, so he has latched onto this whole Libya thing.