The foreign policy debate

We don’t expect Mr. Romney to offer an explicit defense of the Bush Doctrine, never mind that its core tenets—keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of rogue regimes and promoting liberal democracy in places like Egypt—are ones Mr. Obama rhetorically endorses. Nor do we anticipate that Mr. Romney will retreat from the protectionist rhetoric he’s been peddling on China, though it would be nice to hear him recognize that the biggest “currency manipulator” in the world today is the U.S. Federal Reserve. …

But Mr. Romney can help himself by offering a serious critique of Mr. Obama’s foreign policy that doesn’t descend to clichés (e.g., “I won’t ever apologize for America”), and by laying out a vision that answers the needs of both the national interest and the self-interest of everyday Americans.

Mr. Romney should also give full credit where it’s due, not least because some graciousness would be a refreshing contrast to Mr. Obama’s abrasive partisanship in an area where Americans yearn for consensus. That means not only commending the President for the bin Laden raid, but also for the areas in which the Administration has adopted the policies of its predecessor…

Mr. Romney can also play to his own strengths by pointing out that a U.S. economic revival is crucial to world stability. One reason America has less sway now than it did when Mr. Obama took office is that the world won’t heed a great power whose policies produce slow growth and runaway debt.