So who's got the worst job on Mitt Romney's campaign team? My pick: the head of his national security brain trust, former World Bank chief Robert Zoellick, followed by Romney's lead foreign policy speechwriter (whoever that is).
Why? Because crafting a critique of Barrack Obama's foreign policy and explaining to Americans how Romney will have a better one (more effective, more appealing to them) resembles a Mission Impossible.
Romney's domestic policy folks have it easier. They can make a case that could get some traction. Romney has already, a la Ronald Reagan, been asking voters whether they are better off now than four years ago. This query could strike a chord. Unemployment remains high (8.3 percent). The economic recovery has been anemic. Polls reveal persistent pessimism about job prospects and the economic outlook more generally.
Sure, the president can point to the mess George W. Bush handed him, but after having governed for almost a full term, he can't do too much of that with sounding like a whiner. Yes, the Democrats will attack the Republicans' favor-the-rich tax cuts, plans for a voucher system for Medicare, etc., but Obama's team knows that the economy is the one issue on which he's vulnerable.
Foreign policy is a different story. How will Romney's team make the case that the president has been a failure on that front? Voters pay attention when the country is at war. But Obama has fulfilled his pledge to end the war in Iraq, and his plan to withdraw American combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 is already underway.
These two wars have cost over a trillion dollars to date: close to $807 billion for Iraq and nearly $562 billion for Afghanistan -- and the bills keep mounting, even for Iraq because of post-war commitments. The final tally taking into account follow-on costs, such as interest payments and the care of maimed veterans, could approach $4 trillion by 2020. And of course there's the human cost: approximately 2,107 American soldiers have died in operations in and around Afghanistan; for Iraq, the number is more than twice that: approximately 4,486. Americans soured on the Iraq war toward the end of Bush's second term and most want out of Afghanistan. So a "cut-and-run" critique on Afghanistan by Romney won't wash. Worse, it would imply that he thinks we should keep fighting a war most people think is unwinnable. It will also make it even harder for him to sell himself a fiscal conservative -- already a tough sell.
Romney has hammered Obama for abandoning Israel. In his speech to the Republican convention he accused him of throwing Israel "under the bus." But what's the evidence for that? Has Obama truly twisted Israel's arm, forcing it to dismantle a single West Bank settlement, or even to stop constructing new ones? No. Has he cut economic or military aid? No again. He hasn't done what Israeli hawks, but not Israelis as a majority, want, which is to attack Iran's nuclear installations. But most Americans aren't eager for him to do that: they know bombing Iran would initiate a chain on unpredictable events, none of which would be positive. Obama's tough sanctions strategy hasn't stopped Tehran's nuclear program, but look for concrete ideas about on Romney would (really) do differently. You won't find them.
The Republican Party's most prominent foreign policy hands, notably Senator John McCain, have excoriated the president for not helping the anti-Assad resistance in Syria. They favor establishing a no-flight zone, creating sanctuaries and providing arms. Here again, there's no proof that the president's popularity has been reduced because he hasn't taken these actions. Most Americans are leery that any one of them could place the country on a slippery slope. While they're appalled by the savagery of Assad's assault -- estimates of the number of people killed, mostly civilians, run as high as 20,000 -- they're not eager to become enmeshed in another conflict and are unsure about the political program of what is a heterogeneous Syrian opposition. On Syria, the president's caution mirrors that of most Americans.
Then there's the "leading-from-behind" charge. It featured in former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's speech to the convention and dates back to Obama's response to the Libyan uprising. There, Obama navigated opposing currents in his administration, avoiding the level of intervention that some advisers favored while heeding the warnings of others that he risked getting sucked into what might prove a protracted war. Obama took the lead in establishing the UN-authorized no-flight zone, but then quickly handed off to America's NATO partners. It took months for Qadhafi to fall, but fall he did. Has Obama's handling of the Libyan war upset the public? Hardly.
What about Romney's claim that Obama has allowed Russia, which he calls America's "number one geopolitical foe" (whatever that means), to run riot? There are three problems with this accusation. First, not even the Republican Party's foreign policy luminaries (Henry Kissinger, or even Rice, herself a Russia expert), let alone most voters, believe Russia poses the biggest threat to the country; that's because it's an absurd proposition. Second, Romney/Ryan won't be able to show voters any instances in which Russia has trampled on vital American interests. Third, when it comes to foreign policy challenges, Russia ranks low on most people's list.
Has Obama been ineffective against terrorism? Well, there's been no 9/11-style attack. Osama bin Laden is dead. Obama's drone strikes against terrorist redoubts in Afghanistan and Pakistan (and elsewhere) have exceeded Bush's by a factor of five.
Would Romney be tougher on China? How exactly, at what cost, and at what risk? Would he boost defense spending big time (he thinks Obama hasn't spent enough) to bulk up against Beijing? If yes, how would he then reduce overall spending without slashing social programs further?
There's another thing: most voters just aren't focused on foreign policy. The Republicans know this. The New York Times presented a word-by-word analysis of speeches given at the Republican convention (what offense did the person who got that assignment commit?). Those relating to foreign policy accounted for the smallest proportion by far.
My point is not that Obama's foreign policy has been flawless, or even a particular compelling (I don't think it has been, but that's a subject for another piece). It's that Romney's people don't have a lot to work with to present a sensible, substantive alternative. Part of the reason, though neither those who back Romney nor those who support Obama will admit it, is that Obama's foreign policy hasn't been all that different from George W. Bush's.
Benjamin Zycher: Unfounded Hand-Wringing Over Military Spending Cuts
But as shareholders of oil companies and weapon industries both GW Bush and Cheney took their personal profit from those wars they started. They just did business - you want another businessman ruling the US?
I think there have been some important differences. Bush would not have handled Libya so deftly. He would have sided with Mubarak. Bush would have been far more aggressive against Syria and Iran. I don't think Bush would have gone after Bin Laden at all. But if he had... he would never have authorized a commando (boots on the ground) attack to get Bin Laden. Rather if he had made the decision to go after Bin Laden in Pakistan, he would have pulverized the Abbotabad compound using JDAM's until the rubble bounced. And lastly I reckon Bush would have antagonized any progress toward democracy in Myanmar, tenuous and reversible as it is.
In the last 4 days Gen Dempsey has come out saying he will not be complicit with any illegal Israeli attack, Ambassador Shapiro has told Netanyahu off, and just yesterday VP Biden juxtapositioned Romney' s Neocon foreign policy team and policies (and by extension, Israeli policies themselves) as an existential danger to the American Middle Class and economy
This is a brilliant move by the Obama administration - if Romney and his Neocons are actively collaborating with Mr Netanyahu's office then the Obama team must go after both Romney and Israel
That would be a useless proposition AND a huge waste of money. You can't "bulk up against" the country that OWNS your economy. The Chinese needn't fire a single shot to take us down. All they'd need to do is call in their markers. Of course, they know that would kill their own economy too, but how can you mount ANY kind of ill-advised offensive against someone that could cripple us into a non-war-ready state by calling in a fraction of their positions in the US debt market.
Besides, we can't even make a stealth aircraft without the rare earth minerals China sells to us. We don't mine/extract/manufacture the stuff ourselves any more. We out-sourced that entire industry to them.
This argument/fear-tactic only works against those who don't realize who's been picking up our tab through this crisis. We've left ourselves with no military recourse, which I'd call a good thing given the warmongeriness of this lot. China used classic, ancient tactical strategy and negated our entire monstrous military. Find your opponent's weakness, and exploit that, rather than confronting their strength. Our greed made us simply hand them the keys to our treasury.
If it came to war, the Chinese wouldn't need a military to defeat us. They could do it with a fountain pen.
US bonds are owned by everyone, and in an old-style big war, they would lose all value. China faces the same issue as everyone else there. The only pressure China could bring would be refusing to buy new bonds, but that would have almost the same effect if they went through with the threat, and they would lose the most.
Rare earths are easy to extract. It's a global market. China produces lots, but there's nothing special about their availability in China. If you're smarter you can get by with less of them. It's just the easiest way to make a powerful magnet, not the only way.
Besides, in spite of China's "westernization", they have always had an internal policy of self-sufficiency, which they've kept in most senses. China imports commodities: iron and steel, oil and mineral fuels as well as machinery and equipment, plastics, optical and medical equipment... none essential to China's survival in a time of big war except for the loss of raw materials for their machinery. We'd have a far worse time weathering the crash of the entire US bond market's value than China would.
No one wants this scenario, but it certainly argues against using China as an excuse for ridiculous military expenses.
Considering, as you say, that China now controls the whole supply of rare earth minerals that make the magnets to guide our missiles and smart bombs, thinking we could go to war against China is insane.
On top of that, the Chinese make most of our crucial electronic components for our military jets, helicopters, ships and subs. All they'd have to do is halt shipments of those crucial components and the US military would be dead in the water within two weeks. I really believe Romney doesn't know that.