LOS ANGELES — Mitt Romney's foreign policy argument against a second term for President Barack Obama has been sharp: He says his Democratic rival has made the U.S. less safe by failing to lead on the world stage.
Romney has roughed up Obama with a hawkish tone — at times bordering on belligerent. Yet for all his criticisms of the president, it has been difficult to tell exactly what Romney would do differently.
He has argued that re-electing Obama will result in Iran having a nuclear weapon — without explaining how. He has charged that Obama should have taken "more assertive steps" to force out the repressive regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad — but has said he is not "anxious to employ military action." He accused Obama of tipping his hand to the Taliban by announcing a timeline for withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, but also accepts the 2014 timeline.
Christopher Preble, a foreign policy expert at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, says he does not yet see "a huge difference" between the foreign policy approaches of Obama and Romney.
"A lot is made of Romney's tough talk with respect to Russia and Iran and China, but even there it's not like I see a dearth of toughness on the part of President Obama," Preble said.
By portraying his opponent as a feckless commander in chief, Romney is playing on historic Republican criticisms of Democrats as insufficiently tough. But that task is more difficult this year as he faces a war-weary public and an incumbent president with some notable foreign policy victories, including the targeted killing of Osama bin Laden.
Foreign policy is not Romney's strength; 2008 GOP nominee John McCain defeated the former Massachusetts governor in primaries that year in part because of his international expertise. In Washington Post-ABC News poll last month, 53 percent of respondents said they trusted Obama to do a better job handling international affairs. Thirty-six percent picked Romney.
Two areas where clear differences exist are on policy toward Syria and on defense spending. Last Sunday, Romney reiterated his call for the U.S. to work with Turkey and Saudi Arabia "to organize and arm Syrian opposition groups" with the goal of forcing Syria's Assad from power.
Obama has said Assad must step down, and the administration has backed the peace plan brokered by United Nations special envoy Kofi Annan.
On defense spending, Romney has railed against cuts that amount to as much as $1 trillion over the next decade (half of the cuts were initiated by Obama and the other half negotiated in a deal with Congress). In January, Obama called for shrinking the Army and Marines by 100,000 troops, along with other reductions meant to make the military leaner.
Romney, by contrast, has called for increasing active-duty military personnel by 100,000 troops and boosting the nation's fleet. He has also said he would increase defense spending — by ensuring that the budget would not fall below 4 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. He has not said, however, how he would pay for that increase.