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Wesley Clark: Romney has no national security experience

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has no national security or foreign-policy experience and also has avoided giving details on how he would handle important foreign- policy issues, according to Gen. Wesley Clark, retired four-star general and former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe. "[Romney] doesn’t bring any real national security experience to the issues at ...

By Josh Rogin

July 26, 2012, 12:44 PM

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has no national security or foreign-policy experience and also has avoided giving details on how he would handle important foreign- policy issues, according to Gen. Wesley Clark, retired four-star general and former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.

"[Romney] doesn’t bring any real national security experience to the issues at hand. He doesn’t have any foreign-policy experience. He has less foreign policy experience than Senator Obama had when he ran," said Clark, who launched his own unsuccessful run for president in 2004.

Clark also echoed comments by some conservative pundits criticizing the Romney campaign for avoiding detailing specific policies on major world issues, such as the wars in Afghanistan and Syria.

"Mr. Romney hasn’t delivered answers to the critical questions, such as what we he actually do beyond the current actions to isolate and pressure Iran?" said Clark, who accused Romney of "throwing out a bunch of generalized charges and Cold War bromides that actually have no basis in reality."

The 2008 campaign of Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) for president also focused on Romney’s lack of overseas experience during its primary fight with Romney. The McCain campaign prepared an extensive opposition research file that spelled out several of Romney’s position shifts on foreign policy and painted him as naïve and inexperienced.

"Romney has no foreign-policy experience," reads the first bullet point in the foreign-policy section of the 200-page McCain opposition research file, posted in January by Buzzfeed.

Clark was speaking Thursday on a conference call organized by the left-leaning Truman National Security Project, along with former congressman and Iraq veteran Patrick Murphy and Mark Jacobson, former deputy NATO civilian representative on Afghanistan.

The trio discussed Romney’s trip to Europe this week, which has been marked by a controversy over Romney’s comments that London might not be ready for the Olympics and by comments by an unnamed advisor saying that the Obama administration didn’t fully appreciate the "Anglo-Saxon" relationship between Britain and the United States. (The Romney camp has disavowed those comments.)

"He’s simply not ready for the diplomatic dance necessary when handling our nations’ relationships abroad, much less handling sensitive national security issues," said Jacobson. "If he can’t handle the Olympics, how can he handle being commander in chief?"

Murphy, the first Iraq veteran to serve in Congress, noted that Romney had not discussed veterans’ issues in his Tuesday speech to the Veterans of Foreign War conference. He also pointed out that Romney suggested a private sector voucher system for veterans’ healthcare in a speech last November,

"He didn’t say anything about what he would do for our veterans. That was odd at best, insulting at worst. Vets are not props," said Murphy. "Mitt Romney had an awful record on vets issue when governor, so it’s not surprising he avoided the topic."

The Romney campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.

Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.

A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.

Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin