Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney speaks during a campaign rally in a downpour in Newport News, Virginia Oct. 8, 2012
In a lecture published Monday, Robert Zoellick, a former Bush Administration official and a current senior Romney campaign figure, had this to say on U.S. foreign policy:
Journalists and commentators expound about wars and rumors of wars, political leaders and upheavals, human rights and duties to intervene, missiles and their defense. All serious and important topics. But how about a question on the eurozone crisis that threatens the integration of Europe, one of the 20th century’s greatest security-policy achievements and America’s closest ally and partner? What about America’s connections to growth in East Asia, where economics is the coin of the realm? The reply is that these topics concern economics, not foreign policy!”
Perhaps Romney didn’t get the memo from the man he has tapped to lead his national security transition team, because the candidate’s Virginia Military Institute speech was devoted almost entirely to wars, upheavals and missiles, without a word on the eurozone crisis or on East Asian economic growth. Instead, he focused on the Middle East, delivering a broad critique of the incumbent. Despite similarities on many or most of the key policy issues, it would be a mistake to dismiss Mitt Romney‘s foreign policy as the status quo repackaged in Reaganesque rhetoric. There are substantial differences between the president and his challenger, even if they’re neither as stark, nor as numerous, as the Romney camp would have voters believe.
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Allies and adversaries in world capitals reviewing Romney’s speech would have sensed a sharp change in the tone of U.S. foreign policy, replacing Obama’s cautious, sometimes halting and largely improvisational retreat from the unsustainable military commitments of the George W. Bush-era, with a new narrative stressing confidence, clarity of purpose, and resolve. “It is the responsibility of our President to use America’s great power to shape history — not to lead from behind, leaving our destiny at the mercy of events,” Romney told the VMI cadets. “Unfortunately, that is exactly where we find ourselves in the Middle East under President Obama.”
But declarations of intent and determination aside, Romney offered only a handful of specific policy changes. Curiously enough, he avoided mentioning his stump-speech standard threat to declare China a currency manipulator in order to restore U.S. manufacturing competitiveness. His only mention of the Middle Kingdom, in fact, was a passing reference to its “recent assertiveness sending chills” throughout Asia. Instead, he made his stand against Obama in the Middle East, which he said was in the throes of an epic struggle between liberty and tyranny that demanded U.S. leadership . Vowing a change of course, he nonetheless avoided specific policy changes to shape the increasingly complex historical forces unleashed by the Arab spring.
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While highlighting the threat posed by the extreme salafists that stormed U.S. embassies, he gave no indication of how he would relate to their primary rivals, the mainstream Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood movement elected in Egypt and Tunisia. And while he blamed President Obama’s “abrupt withdrawal of our entire troop presence” for the increasingly grim situation in Iraq, he neglected to mention that said withdrawal occurred on the basis of an agreement negotiated in 2008 by the Bush Administration, and that it was the choice of a democratically elected Iraqi government to decline an agreement to extend their mission.
The alternative policy route, if there is one, certainly wasn’t spelled out. Indeed, much of the speech laid out U.S. goals in tough terms, without offering much by way of specifics. On Afghanistan, Romney seemed to hedge his bets, on the one hand vowing to “pursue a real and successful transition to Afghan security forces by the end of 2014,” the Obama goal he has previously supported, while bashing Obama for committing to “a politically timed retreat that abandons the Afghan people to … extremists”. He even castigated Obama for suggesting that staying beyond 2014 was to commit to open-ended war, vowing to make his decisions based on “conditions on the ground” and “the best advice of our military commanders.” Generals’ advice will depend on the goal they’re set, and conditions on the ground are such that the Taliban threat won’t be eliminated or contained by 2014.
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Romney also presented Iran’s nuclear progress as a result of Tehran being emboldened by Obama’s alleged weakness. But Iran’s current nuclear effort has progressed steadily, and in linear fashion, since early 2006, when President Bush was in office and 140,000 U.S. troops were on its doorstep in Iraq. The Republican candidate warned he would put Iran on notice that the U.S. will prevent it from “acquiring nuclear weapons capability,” vowing to tighten sanctions and increase military assistance to and in coordination with Israel. It’s hard to distinguish that stance from the one taken by the Obama Administration, and while he insists that there should be “no daylight” between the U.S. and Israel on Iran, presumably he’s not planning to outsource U.S. decisions on war to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, no matter how close their friendship. So, like the Obama White House, a Romney Administration will find itself negotiating the issue with the Israelis.
On Syria, however, Romney signaled a policy difference, vowing to “work with our partners to identify and organize those members of the opposition who share our values and ensure they obtain the arms they need to defeat Assad’s tanks, helicopters, and fighter jets.” Such a plan, he said, would deliver a strategic blow to Assad’s backers in Iran, and would buy Washington influence with Syria’s future rulers who, he said, are being turned against America by Obama’s passivity. Until now, the incumbent has declined to openly encourage the arming of the rebels, and the New York Times reported on Sunday that Washington has discouraged regional allies from funneling heavier weaponry to the insurgents, lest they end up in the hands of elements hostile to the U.S. Romney plans to remove such restraints, although he did not commit to the more direct forms U.S. military intervention urged by rebels, and by allies like Turkey. A calculated escalation in Syria, then.
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Russia was the focus of a second policy difference: Romney vowed to aggressively pursue the missile-interceptor deployments in Europe that have antagonized Moscow, which fears that such deployments — packaged as a counter to Iran — would dilute its own nuclear deterrent. “And on this,” warned Romney, “there will be no flexibility with Vladimir Putin.” That was a direct reference to President Obama’s hot-mic message to Putin that once reelected, he’ll be able to show more flexibility on the issue. Romney’s harder line suggests a willingness to tangle with the country he has identified as America’s “number one foe,” which could imperil prospects for securing Russian cooperation on key U.S. goals such as Iran — although the counter-argument may point to Syria as a sign of just how little cooperation Moscow is willing to offer.
The third policy specific was Romney’s vow to build 15 new ships a year for the U.S. Navy — a 50% increase on the current rate of shipbuilding, as one of the more concrete expressions of Romney’s warning against cutting military spending. Such capacity would certainly expand the Navy’s force-projection capability .
But beyond those specifics, one other notable thematic policy difference advocated by Romney was his emphasis on trade — not simply the free-trade orientation shared by every White House since the end of the Cold War, but a “trade agenda” that recognizes U.S. economic power as a policy tool for engaging with the new Middle East and beyond. That element of Romney’s argument is very much line with the orientation urged by Zoellick, who stresses the centrality of U.S. domestic economic dynamism to its prospects of restoring global geopolitical influence. In Zoellick’s view, the overarching strategic priority for the U.S. is to get America’s own economic house in order. Notes Zoellick:
“The world continues to struggle through a global economic crisis that began in the United States. Fears, fragilities, and failures fuel tensions within and among countries. Leaders are under protectionist and nationalist pressures — in trade, but also regarding currencies, investments, resources, and the oceans. These frictions risk a downward economic spiral and even conflict. Because the United States has not faced up to its economic problems at home, its voice on international economics does not carry, its power has waned, and its strategic designs drift with the currents of the day’s news. Without healthy economic growth, the United States will be unable to lead. Just as dangerously, it will lose its identity on the global stage if it loses its economic dynamism. America’s unique strength is the ability to reinvent itself.”
That suggests that the man heading up a Romney transition should he win in November could be guided by a priority familiar to Bill Clinton’s 1992 election team: “It’s the economy, stupid.”