The final debate between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney begins in a few hours, at 8 p.m. The focus is foreign policy. The moderator is CBS’s Bob Schieffer, who says he plans to structure tonight’s debate around these five topics: America’s role in the world; Afghanistan and Pakistan; Israel and Iran; the changing Middle East and the new face of terrorism; and the rise of China and tomorrow’s world.
Five years ago, Foreign Affairs magazine asked each of the candidates who had announced for the 2008 presidential race to submit an essay outlining their foreign policy thoughts and goals. Coincidentally, Romney and Obama’s essays were published in the same issue, July/August 2007, and it was interesting reading those essays from today’s perspective.
Romney titled his essay “Rising to a New Generation of Global Challenges.” He wrote, “We need new thinking on foreign policy and an overarching strategy that can unite the United States and its allies - not around a particular political camp or foreign policy school but around a shared understanding of how to meet a new generation of challenges.”
Romney built his essay around “four key pillars of action”: increase defense spending, committing to spending at least 4 percent of GDP on national defense; achieve energy independence; reorganize the nation’s international civilian agencies into regional theaters similar to the military’s regional commands; and reinforce alliances and pursue new ones.
Romney continues to call for increased defense spending, “at a floor of 4 percent of GDP,” as his campaign website phrases it, and in his Oct. 8 foreign policy speech at the Virginia Military Institute, Romney repeated his desire to invest in defense. He also echoed pillars three and four in his VMI speech, saying he’d “organize all assistance efforts in the greater Middle East under one official with responsibility and accountability to prioritize efforts and produce results” and talking about America’s commitment to supporting allies.
Energy independence tops the five-point plan Romney touts on the campaign trail so it remains a “pillar” of his overall policy agenda. Missing this time around, however, is strong, clear support for what he called in his 2007 essay an “energy revolution.” Five years ago, in addition to supporting more drilling for oil and gas, nuclear power “and a fuller exploitation of coal,” Romney included wind and solar energy in the mix and said he’d push for “our generation’s equivalent of the Manhattan Project or the mission to the moon to create new, economical sources of clean energy and clean ways to use the sources we have now.” The focus now is on drilling, mining and approving the Keystone XL pipeline (which didn’t exist as an issue five years ago). Romney’s Manhattan Project for clean energy might as well be on the moon; that might be where it was last seen.
Obama’s essay was titled “Renewing American Leadership.” In his introduction, he wrote, “America cannot meet the threats of this century alone, and the world cannot meet them without America. We can neither retreat from the world nor try to bully it into submission. We must lead the world, by deed and by example.”
Obama touches on many subjects Romney largely glides by — containing the spread of nuclear weapons and material, for example, which Obama calls “the most urgent threat to the security of America and the world,” and confronting climate change, which partially shaped Obama’s energy policy. Although climate change should be part of any discussion about energy, and military planners and thinkers within the Pentagon consider it a looming major national security issue, it has not been mentioned in either of the first two presidential debates or in the vice presidential debate. It has vanished as a campaign issue.
In the last campaign, Iraq, which Obama called a “strategic blunder,” was a top foreign policy issue. It remains important, though if it’s mentioned at all tonight it’ll be within the context of the broader Middle East, or perhaps as part of a discussion about Iran or the future direction of Syria and Libya.
On Iran, Obama wrote five years ago: “Our diplomacy should aim to raise the cost for Iran of continuing its nuclear program by applying tougher sanctions and increasing pressure from its key trading partners.” That is the policy he has pursued, more or less.
On terrorism, Obama wrote that he would “stay on the offense everywhere from Djibouti to Kandahar.” There was no mention of the use of drones, but that has been a key weapon in Obama’s offensive against terrorism. There are troubling questions about the use of drones, from sovereignty violations to extrajudicial killings. Think any of them will be asked tonight?
Obama wrapped up his essay by writing, “Our global engagement cannot be defined by what we are against; it must be guided by a clear sense of what we stand for.” True enough. The question is whether he’s provided that clear sense, and that’s the question, on both foreign and domestic policy, voters will answer Nov. 6.