Truman National Security Project

Washington, DC – Comments made by Gov. Romney at a meeting of state Republican Party leaders last week demonstrate just how out of touch he and his campaign are when it comes to 21^st century national security. Gov. Romney said that all we need to protect America is a strong military, even if we don’t ever use it. In a post 9/11 world, it takes more than guns, tanks and troops to protect our country from the threats we face, including pandemic diseases, terrorism and cyberattacks.  His comments come just days before a major speech by Vice President Joe Biden on national security and foreign policy.

On a Truman Project press conference call today, Retired four-star general, Gen. Wesley K. Clark said, “It has become clear to us over the last few weeks that Romney is trying to attack Obama on foreign policy but throughout the campaign his comments, and his record with veterans, demonstrate that he doesn’t understand the tools we need to keep America safe in the 21^st century. I certainly believe we need a strong military, but in the global environment today we need a lot more than just a strong military to keep America safe. We need the whole panoply of tools of American diplomacy on foreign policy all working together to keep us safe. We need strong alliances and we need to use international institutions, like NATO and the United Nations. As we learned on 9/11 we cannot simply rely on the military. We face new threats today, like cyber terrorism and bioterrorism, and we are building the capacity to respond, but these are national security functions that go beyond the military.”

Truman Project Vice President Mike Breen said, “We have a Presidential Candidate, Governor Romney, who seems rooted in an outdated view of America’s challenges. Governor Romney has identified Russia as our greatest threat and seems obsessed with missile defense to protect us from Russia. I don’t understand how you look at a world in which a rising Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon or nuclear capability, and al Qaeda continues to threaten us, in which China is modernizing its military at an unprecedented rate, and decide that Russia is our greatest national security threat.[…] There’s a clear naiveté and lack of understanding of the future world we’ll face. This is a guy with little or no foreign policy experience who seems rooted in the 1980s. And that ought to concern us. Because at the end of the day, whoever his advisors are, the Commander-in-Chief has to make the tough call. We’ve seen time and again President Obama has been able to make the tough calls.”