Missive offense and defense

America’s patriots were hard at work this week, not attacking the nation’s enemies but each other.  First the Romney brigade launched a missive, apparently the first salvo in a planned barrage.  The Obama missive defense went ballistic.  The question is this:  how much difference is there, really, between the two presumed candidates?

On one issue, defense spending, there is a clear and present difference:  Obama is in the midst of cutting close to half a billion dollars from projected increases in the Pentagon budget over the next ten years.  Romney says he would not do that (without explaining how he would avoid it).  He has committed himself to a naval buildup, apparently in anticipation of a Chinese challenge that will be decades in the making.  Presumably to cover the interim, he has declared Russia America’s main foreign threat.  Obama is already moving to shore up America’s presence in Asia and the Pacific, but he shows much less concern about Russia and more about Iran.

Romney has said Iran will not get a nuclear weapon if he is elected president.  Obama says Iran will not get a nuclear weapon while he is president.  Romney is clearly thinking more about military threat that enables diplomacy and Obama more about diplomacy enabled by military pressure.  That’s a distinction with a difference in emphasis.

Both candidates are Israel‘s best friend.  Obama has its back.  Romney has its front.  Neither is willing to pressure his best friend to reach a final status agreement with the Palestinians. Romney seems inclined to ignore their existence.  Obama does not but has reached a dead-end on the issue.

Both candidates are also Castro’s worst enemy.  Romney would pursue a tougher isolation policy with Cuba, one that has failed for more than 50 years to bring results.  Obama would try to undermine the Castro regime with soft power, a more recent approach that has also failed to work.

On Iraq and Afghanistan, there are again some real differences.  Romney says it was a mistake for Obama to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq.  Obama asks how they could stay if Iraq did not want them and refused to allow immunity from prosecution.  Romney says the drawdown in Afghanistan is too fast.  Obama leans toward accelerating it.  That difference too is real:  Romney would stay in Afghanistan to win, Obama wants to get out before we lose.

Then there are the issues that have not yet been launched.  Romney will likely say Obama hasn’t done enough to support the rebellion in Syria.  Obama won’t say it, but he hesitates on Syria because he wants to keep his powder dry and needs Russian support on Iran.  Obama will vaunt his accomplishments against Al Qaeda.  Romney will criticize Obama for failing to bring around Pakistan.

There are also the intangibles.  Romney says the United States needs to be number 1 and lead.  Obama says the United States needs to collaborate with others and share burdens.  Romney says he would never apologize for the United States.  Obama apologizes when we are responsible for something going terribly wrong.  Romney will say Obama is too soft.  Obama will say Romney is too simplistic.

There are some who think this kind of missive exchange is clarifying or otherwise edifying.  I’m not so sure, even if I think my team–that’s the Obamites–got the best of it on this occasion.  I guess I am nostalgic, but it would be nice to return to the “water’s edge”:  that’s a foreign policy that ignores partisan differences once we leave the east and west coasts to go abroad.  We shouldn’t hide the real differences, but there is more similarity here than either side would like to admit.  Nor will they do so any time before November.