Whose Policy is it Anyway?

Galrahn, over at Information Dissemination, has a very interesting post concerning the prospective foreign policies offered by McCain and Obama. He essentially argues both campaigns lack any real strategic change and tend to just quote the military when either camp discusses foreign policy because Americans trust the military more than politicians:

To a greater degree, the [foreign policy] talking points that have become the position of Obama and already represents the position of McCain, are not being driven by political ideologies, rather the policy talking points of the current military leadership. From our perspective, it looks like the Secretary of Defense is now driving the campaign conversation talking points on both wars and the fragile peace regarding Iran.

There are two ways to look at this, either the political leadership running for president is so absent strategic thinking that they must rely on the current military leadership to establish a credible strategic position for them, or the political leadership believes the current military leadership is doing such a great job they are intentionally following their direction. The first implies two disappointing candidates, while the the second would highlight a military with a bit too much control regarding the direction of the national political debate. One thing is plainly obvious though, both Barack Obama and John McCain have both conceded the position of the nations wars to the military, essentially adopting the positions of Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen, which by extension were the positions of Admiral Fallon.

The position of Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen, despite being top figures in the Bush Administration, are not publicly considered to be holding the same political line that the Bush Administration is. This has given both candidates the ability to accumulate plenty of credibility on the issues, essentially citing the same things military leaders are saying, which allows them to politically be in an alternative position of the administration while also shielding them from political heat from their opponents.

I think Galrahn makes a great point here. However, the argument seems to work better with Obama. While most of the American Left’s arguments concerning a McCain administration being a continuation of Bush are hogwash, they are essentially right when it comes to foreign policy. Thus McCain is going to sound a lot like the SECDEF and will try to keep most of the Gates team intact if he’s elected because he agrees with their vision and believes it’s working. Obama, on the other hand, does seem to quote military leader because he, as well as every other Dem in Congress, has yet to articulate a plausible strategic vision that would serve Liberal goals (diplomacy, getting out of Iraq?) and American interests alike. For example, how would a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces in Iraq contribute to a stable Middle East? Obama’s recent statements concerning Iraq and free trade, though encouraging strategic statements in my opinion, flew in the face of his entire primary campaign message and now he’s backtracking on those statements, so it’s difficult to really know where he stands. So it seems to me Obama’s policy is continuation of the party line: complain and point out problems without offering solutions. Therefore when JCS or DOD complain, Obama immediately seizes those statements as a foreign policy platform. The problem with this kind of politics is platforms can’t just point out problems, they must offer solutions to solve them.