Mitt Romney Presents ‘New Generation of

Global Challenges’

Like Senator Obama, whose foreign policy was reviewed in this space last month, former Governor Mitt Romney has shared his thinking in the current issue of the journal Foreign Affairs. He is the first presidential candidate of his party to do so in such a comprehensive manner and in such a scholarly forum.

The former governor‘s platform, entitled "A New Generation of Global Challenges," has two basic themes. First, our nation’s capabilities and alliances have not changed to reflect the post-Cold War generation of global challenges. These challenges include: Iraq, the Taliban, global terrorist networks, nuclear proliferation, genocide, pandemics, China, and Hugo Chavez.

To meet these challenges, he says, the American people will have to accept difficult changes and that will require sacrifice. This need for sacrifice is his second theme.

Mr. Romney offers "four key pillars of action" for meeting today’s challenges. The first addresses what he sees as inadequacies in our nation’s military capabilities. This pillar calls for increasing our investment in national defense by at least $30-$40 billion per year, to a level equivalent to about 4% of our nation’s gross domestic product. Such a funding level, he believes, would adequately support both adding 100,000 troops to our armed forces and replacing or updating our military equipment, weapons systems, and strategic defenses.

His second pillar, energy independence, would increase our nation’s financial flexibility by strengthening the economy. Here he proposes a 20-year goal to produce as much energy as we use.

To do this he calls for a national project that would create "new economical sources of clean energy and clean ways to use the sources we have." While waiting for the innovative results of that project, he would open up additional offshore areas and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for renewed oil drilling, expand nuclear power and the use of ethanol and coal, and work to ensure that technology could make all of our current uses safer and more efficient.

The third pillar would make the execution of foreign policy more effective by creating joint regional commands for the management of our non-military efforts overseas. Modeled after the military commands that place all wings of the military services under a single regional commander, he would have similar, high-level, civilian commanders oversee the foreign operations of our trade, diplomatic, foreign assistance, and democracy-promotion programs.

His last pillar would increase our diplomatic effectiveness by strengthening old partnerships and alliances and by inaugurating new ones. Here Mr. Romney presents himself as a clear multilateralist who would pursue reform at the United Nations, expand the role of NATO, strengthen global networks of intelligence and law enforcement, create regional security partnerships, and host a summit meeting to develop a strategy to defeat radical Islam.

There is much to recommend Mr. Romney’s strategic vision, as it provides a reasonable framework for developing specific policies. It is also a vision that skillfully blends traditional elements of conservative realism and liberal optimism with our national self-image as a world leader—all of which are considered by many observers to be the essential ingredients for any politically sustainable foreign policy.

What Mr. Romney’s presentation does not detail, however, is his second basic theme having to do with sacrifice. Without such details, the general public could reasonably assume that the financial cost of his military build-up would be met by proposals to further curtail such non-defense services as social security benefits and health care. Environmentalists could assume that his plan for energy independence would require more nuclear waste, and more coal consumption.

Congress could assume that creating joint commands for non-defense operations would disrupt the power-wielding fiefdoms of its existing committee structure. And nationalists could assume that his multilateralism would compromise our traditional notions of sovereignty and unilateral action.

These may or may not be worthwhile sacrifices. But without more clarity and debate, an American public suspicious of its government and generally uninformed, if not uninterested, on international affairs is left in the dark about the costs it will be expected to bear, and it may well balk when presented with the domestic bill. Hence, Mr. Romney runs the risk that no workable public or congressional consensus would be formed around any plan to achieve his four pillars for action.

Admittedly, a politician walks on eggshells when he speaks of costs to a public that does not like to pay taxes and that has become more accustomed to partying than to paying. But effective leadership requires followers who are as committed to doing as to dreaming. Recognizing that "we the people" must be willing to shoulder the costs of his foreign policy proposals is a great strength of Governor Romney’s platform. His failure to tell us what the required sacrifices might be, or even to indicate his preferred range of options for bearing those costs, is its great weakness.