I never 100% went in for the whole politicians are really all saying the same thing until today. The academic journal Foreign Affairs (link in the right-hand column) will be giving each Presidential candidate space in the journal to write about his/her foreign policy if he/she is elected President. This month it was Obama and Romney’s turn. It was interesting to note that many of the things these two people were saying were quite similar.
For example, Obama has the heading REBUILDING OUR PARTNERSHIPS and Romney has REVITALIZING AND STRENGTHENING ALLIANCES. Both men suggest re-building and strengthening NATO and reforming the UN. I suppose the most striking similarity, though, is the reference to the UN’s Human Rights Council’s condemnation of Israel but not Sudan or other countries. Obama says
The new UN Human Rights Council has passed eight resolutions condemning Israel — but not a single resolution condemning the genocide in Darfur or human rights abuses in Zimbabwe
Romney says
Nothing shows the failures of the current system more clearly than the UN Human Rights Council, an entity that has condemned the democratic government of Israel nine times while remaining virtually silent on the serial human rights abuses of the governments of Cuba, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, and Sudan.
The only difference is the numbers. Obama says eight, Romney nine. Who is right? I don’t know. Both men also state that we need to strengthen our military. Romney comes out clearly and states that the next President should spend a minimum of 4% of GDP on defense whereas Obama simply states what needs to be revitalised.
I have to say that after reading these two articles I prefer Romney’s. I know I’m signed up to Obama’s campaign but his article was somewhat wishy-washy and too narrative whereas Romney said clearly what he wanted to do and how he wanted to do it, whether or not I agreed with all of it. I suppose, though, that in the end it’s really the speech-writers and other writers on each candidate’s staff that are to blame or commend for these articles. While each man probably had input into the article, they were most likely not burdened with actually writing it. I may be wrong, but as most candidates have speech-writers and writing staff, I doubt that I am too far off the mark.
One final interesting point is the fact that Romney quoted the Princeton Project on National Security. I went to a lecture given by G. John Ikenberry in May that I wrote about on this blog. Ikenberry is a member of this project and many of the ideas he espoused in this lecture have been repeated by both men but especially, I felt, Romney. If you want to go back and read it: The Crisis of the Liberal International Order Definitely interesting to note as Ikenberry mentioned that he was advising Presidential candidates from both parties including Obama who talked about partnerships in East Asia just as Ikenberry suggested a security mechanism in North Asia.