USA Final 2012 Presidential Debate (#3) Observations

[Mentalist]

Obama's relationship with Israel's Netanyahu was seen as a weakness going in and Obama was obviously trying to preempt that issue by bringing it up as often as possible before Romney did.

Personally, if I were Romney, I would have crossed him up and not brought it up until the very end - and then asked Obama if he were Netanyahu's poodle.

I also think the less time actually spent debating foreign policy, the better for Romney, so the diversions into economic policy were a plus for Romney.

I think the "horses and bayonette" comment went over well (although the issue of naval ships won't go over well in a ship building state such as Virginia).

I still think Obama won this debate overall. The challenger is usually at a disadvantage in foreign policy debates and at least Romney kept it from being a total disaster.

Obama and Romney were practically foaming at the mouth with their pandering to Israel. So, Romney calling Obama Netanyahu's poodle wouldn't make him look good. If that were to be said, I think, that would be the end of his presidential bid even though it was true.

 

[Alfi]

Name one modern warship that didn't fare well against the Somali pirates.

The Good Ship Lollypop.?? But I don't remember it being mentioned in the debate.

ok now my turn for irrelevant questions.
Name one bully that didn't fare well against the small skinny kid?

I'm not an American. I think this gives me and others like me ( not Americans ) a perspective about American foreign ( as in us ) policies.
A few of us get a little irate when we keep hearing that we ( the rest of the world ) are protected by the US military.
Some of us don't spend the big bucks on the chance we might be invaded. Perhaps we don't live in the same kind of fear that Americans seen to have.

Warships cannot stop and inspect ALL the containers that arrive every day. Adding more warships will not change the weakest points in American defences.
I agree, It's not a 'game of battleships' when talking about foreign policy.

I observed in the debate, talking to other countries leaders is not a Romney goal.

“And so we can be a partner with China. We don’t have to be an adversary in any way, shape or form. We can work with them. We can collaborate with them if they’re willing to be responsible.”

"We don’t have to be an adversary in any way." In any way. Got it. Literally seconds later:

“That’s why on day one I will label them a currency manipulator which allows us to apply tariffs where they’re taking jobs. They’re stealing our intellectual property, our patents, our designs, our technology, hacking into our computers, counterfeiting our goods.”

This Romney guy is a business man and ONLY a business man.

as Obama said:

“And the fact is while we were coordinating an international coalition to make sure these sanctions were effective, you were still invested in a Chinese state oil company that was doing business with the Iranian oil sector. So I’ll let the American people decide, judge who’s going to be more effective and more credible when it comes to imposing crippling sanctions.”

The company is called China National Offshore Oil Corporation, and it does, in fact, do business with Iran.
I do not believe Romney will cripple his own investments.Oh, and speaking of intellectual property theft, Romney has investment holdings in Chinese companies that are knee-deep in theft. The Huffington Post reported:

Among them were New Oriental Education and Technology, a company in which the Romneys’ blind trusts invested nearly $60,000. New Oriental is famous for stealing copyrighted U.S. academic tests, and was fined hundreds of thousands of dollars by a Chinese court for it.

The company Romney talked about purchasing in his “47 Percent” video, a Chinese outfit called Global Tech, was also involved in patent theft.

As the president said in the second debate, Romney is the last person who’d get tough on China.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Half in jest, completely in earnest.

 

[D H]

Name one modern warship that didn't fare well against the Somali pirates.

The Good Ship Lollypop.?? But I don't remember it being mentioned in the debate.

ok now my turn for irrelevant questions.

My question was not irrelevant. The issue at hand is whether our Navy is big enough. Romney contends that it isn't based on the false metric of the size of the US Navy in 1916 vs now in terms of number of ships. Someone else raised the issue of Somali pirates, implying that the Navy isn't faring well against them.

I'm not an American. I think this gives me and others like me ( not Americans ) a perspective about American foreign ( as in us ) policies.
A few of us get a little irate when we keep hearing that we ( the rest of the world ) are protected by the US military.

Every country is threatened by that piracy in the Horn of Africa. Many countries, not just the US, provide naval ships to counteract that piracy. Anti-piracy is the primary mission of Combined Task Force 151. Note very well: CTF 151 is currently commanded by the Turkish Navy. It's not just the US that is working to remove these pirates from the seas.

 

[Vanadium 50]

One ship? We've sent a lot more than one ship. Try task forces 150, 151, and 152.

TF-151 has (or had) on US destroyer assigned to it. TF-150 is there, but assigned to the GWOT. Not sure about 152.

 

[russ_watters]

If the gnats figure out smarter tactics (whether on land in Afghanistan or at sea off Somalia), one modern tank or one modern warship doesn't work so well.

I disagree. History is littered with examples where superior technology has created an extreme mismatch, but few if any instances where tactics have been able to significantly mitigate, much less overcome such a mismatch. Lucky for us, there are a large number of modern examples of this. Some are well known (stealth, laser guided bombs, UAVs, night vision), some less so (our tanks vs Saddam Hussein's tanks).

Piracy is such a low-tech endeavor, by such small forces that pirates never stand any chance, should we choose to engage them. When we committed a small number of ships to the effort and then didn't allow those ships to use any of their firepower, it made it a tough battle to win. The pirates' tactical adjustment -- going further out into the ocean -- mitigated the impact of our half-hearted effort, but still made their job harder and less profitable. But this isn't really a good example of either side because our attempt was so half-hearted.

In Afghanistan or even Vietnam, success or failure depends a little on how you measure it. Our enemies there focused on being annoying and never giving up, despite the massive mismatch in capabilities and therefore causalities. They didn't need to kill a lot of us, they just needed to kill a few of us at a time for a long time. Tactics, of course, play a role but that role isn't really significant enough to be applicable to the big picture (strategic level).

 

[Pythagorean]

Yes, it could apply universally. Aren't you arguing against your point?

The issue with saying our military is strong enough or technically advanced enough is that we have a duty to protect our soldiers, sailors and airmen as best we can and people have a low tolerance for watching them die unnecessarily (see the MRAP/Hummer story from the Gulf War). Now clearly, funding can't be infinite and not all wars are well chosen, but our forces need to be large enough to meet whatever goals we have -- and we should never stop advancing them technically.

Equally important is when to use them. I think our Navy is fine the way it is (sizewise), but when we don't even have the stones to use it to solve a relatively minor piracy problem, that's a historically unprecedented level of impotence.

I didn't see an argument for increasing the navy in this reply, either.

 

[Angry Citizen]

Now that Romney and Ryan have made a clean sweep of the debates, I expect that they will head into Nov. 7 with a slight lead in the polls.

The consensus is that Romney only won the first debate. It's fine to have blinders on for your candidate, but come on. Stay grounded in reality.

 

[russ_watters]

It's fascinating how the mind works. If you're independent and have watched the debates, two of which Romney was aggressive, why would you vote for him because of a calm demeanor in the third debate? That doesn't make sense.

Agreed. Similarly, Obama's varying demeanor. I heard some analysis this morning that pointed out that Romney agrees with Obama on a lot of foreign policy points. The host suggested that since there aren't many points to be scored if you don't disagree, Romney chose a safe, non-confrontational course. Given that Obama leads Romney in foreign policy polling, even agreeing with Obama and losing the debate can help him by letting people know that he's a viable alternative to Obama. In other words, you don't lose much on foreign policy by electing Romney. Weighed against a perceived significant gain in economics, that could swing a few voters.

 

[Angry Citizen]

I think the "horses and bayonette" comment went over well (although the issue of naval ships won't go over well in a ship building state such as Virginia).

I find this logic to be thin. Just because Virginia has a large contingent of ship-builders doesn't necessarily mean they're all going to vote against Obama for daring to say we don't need as many ships as we used to. For instance, I'm an aspiring aerospace engineer. I plan to enter the space industry. I also support massive cuts to our defense on the order of at least two hundred billion per year. Where are all those people going to go who were formerly employed by Lockheed, Boeing etc building aircraft? Right into my field, like as not. People sometimes do vote against their personal economic interests if they believe it will be in the long term interests of the country.

 

[Angry Citizen]

Agreed. Similarly, Obama's varying demeanor. I heard some analysis this morning that pointed out that Romney agrees with Obama on a lot of foreign policy points. The host suggested that since there aren't many points to be scored if you don't disagree, Romney chose a safe, non-confrontational course. Given that Obama leads Romney in foreign policy polling, even agreeing with Obama and losing the debate can help him by letting people know that he's a viable alternative to Obama. In other words, you don't lose much on foreign policy by electing Romney. Weighed against a perceived significant gain in economics, that could swing a few voters.

I think the charge that Romney is inconsistent may well earn Obama some votes on the subject. Fact is Romney is all over the place with regard to foreign policy. Romney's flip flopping will end up hurting him on November 6th.

 

[russ_watters]

I'm not an American. I think this gives me and others like me ( not Americans ) a perspective about American foreign ( as in us ) policies.
A few of us get a little irate when we keep hearing that we ( the rest of the world ) are protected by the US military.

Then perhaps you should tell your politicians that they should increase military spending, so it stops being true!

Some of us don't spend the big bucks on the chance we might be invaded. Perhaps we don't live in the same kind of fear that Americans seen to have.

We don't live in fear of being invaded -- we're the ones with the military. Our military doesn't exist primarily for protecting our shores/borders, it exists primarily for projecting power abroad. Whether you agree that it should or not, yours almost certainly does too (not sure which country you live in...). So when problems happen that the world community decides it wants fixed, the US always has to take the lead. Kosovo, Iraq, Libya -- not to mention aircraft carriers for earthquake and tsunami relief -- these things just don't happen without the US taking the lead. Not even the tiny little Libya no-fly-zone was doable without us leading it last year.

So if you ever agree that there is a time when power projection is or may become necessary, you have two choices: 1) Tell your politicians that you want to increase your military's spending to enable your country to contribute an equal share. 2) Call your big brother the USA to do it for you.

Currently, the only other country that even comes close to meeting such an obligation is the UK.

Warships cannot stop and inspect ALL the containers that arrive every day. Adding more warships will not change the weakest points in American defences.

That's not a military job, that's a Coast Guard/border control job. Militaries exist to fight other militaries, not locally police commerce.

I observed in the debate, talking to other countries leaders is not a Romney goal.

If other countries aren't going to contribute an equal share to foreign power projection, why should we be consulting them for decision-making?

 

[russ_watters]

I didn't see an argument for increasing the navy in this reply, either.

Correct: I made no such argument. I merely pointed out that your reasoning on the issue was flawed.

 

[russ_watters]

I think the charge that Romney is inconsistent may well earn Obama some votes on the subject. Fact is Romney is all over the place with regard to foreign policy. Romney's flip flopping will end up hurting him on November 6th.

It could, yes. At the same time, the irony is that Romney can't profit from Obama's flip-flops and failures on foreign policy, since they mostly ended up going in the direction Americans want. Examples:

-Failing to close 'Gitmo.
-Doing an Afghan surge after criticizing the Bush Iraq surge.
-Extending the patriot act.

 

[Pythagorean]

Correct: I made no such argument. I merely pointed out that your reasoning on the issue was flawed.

Er... no, you set up a strawman and took it down; I figured you were just practicing for the real thing.

 

[Skrew]

Obama's relationship with Israel's Netanyahu was seen as a weakness going in and Obama was obviously trying to preempt that issue by bringing it up as often as possible before Romney did.

Personally, if I were Romney, I would have crossed him up and not brought it up until the very end - and then asked Obama if he were Netanyahu's poodle.

Perceived as a weakness by who? The only thing I got out of it is that they blindly support Israel in every way possible. While I agree Israel has some common interests the amount of pandering was bizarre. I don't understand why most Americans would care about Israel, in fact I would assume most would be offended by the way it was focused on.

This was a debate over what will benefit America not who will best be AIPACs lapdog.

 

[Angry Citizen]

Perceived as a weakness by who? The only thing I got out of it is that they blindly support Israel in every way possible. While I agree Israel has some common interests the amount of pandering was bizarre. I don't understand why most Americans would care about Israel, in fact I would assume most would be offended by the way it was focused on.

This was a debate over what will benefit America not who will best be AIPACs lapdog.

Israel is often the focus of America's foreign policy in the middle east. Personally I think we need to end our relationship with Israel and focus instead on one with Turkey - a far more moderate, respected, democratic, and secular country than Israel.

 

[mheslep]

Compare 1982 to 2012. ...

Ok, compare spending on defense. With the cold war still on, in 1988 and with Reagan's 600 ship navy, US defense spending was $468 billion in 2012 dollars. Now w/ the Soviet navy on the trash heap of history, US defense spending is $900 billion.

 

[Alfi]

My question was not irrelevant. The issue at hand is whether our Navy is big enough. Romney contends that it isn't based on the false metric of the size of the US Navy in 1916 vs now in terms of number of ships. Someone else raised the issue of Somali pirates, implying that the Navy isn't faring well against them.


Every country is threatened by that piracy in the Horn of Africa. .

NO
not every country is threatened.

The issue at hand is whether our Navy is big enough.

yes - no need to make it any bigger.
imo.

The number of ships is 'a battleship game' - loser = Republican candidate in the debate.

 

[CAC1001]

I'm sorry, but this doesn't seem like a good line of reasoning you're pursuing about the navy. Maybe there is a good line of reasoning somewhere, but you're going to to have to be more descriptive. "No one knows with any certainty what the future requirements will be for our military" is not an argument for why we would need a bigger navy in particular. That line of reasoning could apply equally to missile silos or helicopters, or military satellites.

I'm not arguing for a massive Cold War-sized navy, my point is just we oculd seriously regret it if we go into the future with too small a navy. We want the Navy to be adequate in size to meet any potential challenges.

No. You completely missed the point. Our Army doesn't need or want lots of horses and bayonets.

I don't think I missed the point at all. And BTW, the modern infantry still carry bayonets.

One modern tank will take care of army of gnats in short order. Our Navy doesn't need or want hundreds and hundreds of small boats. Suppose you and I have a mock naval battle. I'll let you have the entire 1917 Navy, I'll take just one modern carrier group. Who wins?

Counting the number of troops, or the number of aircraft, or the number of ships is a false metric. Our modern service has chosen killing quality over sheer quantity of troops/aircraft/ships. It's killing power, not number, that counts.

Who said anything about small boats? Yes, we don't need loads of ships, but could we get by with just a few carrier battle groups as well? Numbers still do count.

That killing power is expensive. An Arleigh Burke class destroyer costs $1.8 billion each. The newest class of destroyers, with USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) to be the first of the line, will cost $3.3 billion each. Aircraft carriers are even more expensive, $9 billion (estimated) for the new Gerald R. Ford class of carriers. We can't afford hundreds and hundreds of such ships. We don't need hundreds and hundreds of them.

Right now, we don't, but my point was we could end up facing a conflict in the future where a larger navy is needed.

Some of us don't spend the big bucks on the chance we might be invaded. Perhaps we don't live in the same kind of fear that Americans seen to have.

Most other countries don't need to as the United States protected them throughout the Cold War, and now serves as the backbone of NATO and underwrites global security and global trade.

This Romney guy is a business man and ONLY a business man.

as Obama said:The company is called China National Offshore Oil Corporation, and it does, in fact, do business with Iran.
I do not believe Romney will cripple his own investments.

Romney's wealth is managed by a blind trust. Obama's pension, as Romney pointed out in the second debate, also has investments in Chinese companies: http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin...-says-obama-also-has-investments-chinese-com/

 

[mheslep]

Suppose you and I have a mock naval battle. I'll let you have the entire 1917 Navy, I'll take just one modern carrier group. Who wins?

There's a limit to relying simply on lethality multipliers of a given ship. If your modern carrier group happens to be in the Pacific while the 1917 Navy is in the Atlantic, any number of east coast cities are still destroyed, even with ye olde battleships.

 

[Evo]

Let's try not to dwell to much on specifics of the navy, the thread is about all debate topics and getting too detailed about one topic tends to derail the thread a bit.

 

[D H]

Getting back on the main topic, this debate probably means less to the outcome of the upcoming election than does today's big drop in the Dow. This election is going to be about economics, not foreign policy. Most people have had it up to here with foreign policy given that we have been at war for the last 11 years.

 

[Evo]

Gas prices have had a huge price drop this past week, over 50 cents a gallon. That's good since people blame the president for gas prices.

 

[SixNein]

I thought the foreign policy debate was worthless. The most interesting thing in the entire debate was its lack of real content.

1. No mention of Europe! If Greece sucks Europe into a black hole, it will do serious damage to our economy and to the world economy. We export to Europe, and other nations we export to are often financed by European banks.

2. No mention of torture policy.

3. No mention of climate change?!

4. No mention of the power transition in China?

5. Plenty to talk about with developing nations like India, Brazil, etc


But no... our foreign policy consisted of Israel and talk about how an already gigantic military needs to be super duper gigantic.

 

[mege]

I'm very glad that Gov. Romney called out the President on his claim of 'increasing fundamental research' (via green loans). The president was not prepared to defend that statement, and it was pretty clear.

I don't know if Gov. Romney would necessarily increase academic research (except to restore it to former levels), but he sure wouldn't be funding companies to build already-developed technologies and call it 'fundamental research'.

 

[mheslep]

I thought the foreign policy debate was worthless. The most interesting thing in the entire debate was its lack of real content.

1. No mention of Europe! If Greece sucks Europe into a black hole, it will do serious damage to our economy and to the world economy. We export to Europe, and other nations we export to are often financed by European banks.

Of what use is debate time on that which is outside US control, especially out of a President's control.

 

[D H]

1. No mention of Europe! If Greece sucks Europe into a black hole, it will do serious damage to our economy and to the world economy. We export to Europe, and other nations we export to are often financed by European banks.

4. No mention of the power transition in China?

What could either one say? The US is pretty much powerless regarding whether Europe drives itself into a black hole, and is even more powerless with regard to the power transition in China. Subjects over which the President has no control are anathema to standing Presidents and Presidential wanna-bes alike.

3. No mention of climate change?!

The only ones who want to hear the candidates directly address climate change are the far right and far left, people whose votes were cast in concrete before the election cycle started.

These debates were about convincing that small segment of undecided voters in a small number of states to finally choose a candidate. Neither candidate was going to touch something as politically toxic or boringly wonkish as climate change.

 

[SixNein]

Of what use is debate time on that which is outside US control, especially out of a President's control.

So foreign policy = domestic policy?

0.o

 

[SixNein]

What could either one say? The US is pretty much powerless regarding whether Europe drives itself into a black hole, and is even more powerless with regard to the power transition in China. Subjects over which the President has no control are anathema to standing Presidents and Presidential wanna-bes alike.


The only ones who want to hear the candidates directly address climate change are the far right and far left. Their votes are cast in concrete. These debates were about convincing that small segment of undecided voters in a small number of states to finally choose a candidate. Neither candidate was going to touch something as politically toxic or boringly wonkish as climate change.

The purpose of foreign policy is to influence or respond to events outside of US control.

The US does have ability to apply pressure on key European states that are dragging their feet. And it has been involved in the crisis through the Treasury Secretary. But suppose Europe is uncontrollable. What is the President planning to do to mitigate the damage that such an event would create? How would the president handle the situation? In fact, how does the US plan on getting the economy up to full pace with Europe on the brink?

How does the president feel about the trans-Atlantic alliance in general? Is he going to weaken, strengthen, or do nothing at all with the alliance?


As far as the power change in China, what opportunities and risks do the candidates see from this transition?

This is the first series of debates since 88 that climate change hasn't been mentioned. And it's perhaps the most challenging and dangerous foreign policy issue on the table.

 

[BobG]

Perceived as a weakness by who? The only thing I got out of it is that they blindly support Israel in every way possible. While I agree Israel has some common interests the amount of pandering was bizarre. I don't understand why most Americans would care about Israel, in fact I would assume most would be offended by the way it was focused on.

This was a debate over what will benefit America not who will best be AIPACs lapdog.

It only makes sense to pander to a nation that has a defense budget greater than the next 10 nations combined - especially when you have hostile enemies on both your Northern border and Southern border ready to invade you as soon as you let your guard down.

Or did I mix something up from the debate. Maybe it was us that had the defense budget that was greater than the next 10 nations combined. And maybe we won't be invaded by Canada and Mexico.

In a way, one does wonder why the US is so much more concerned about pleasing Israel than Israel is with pleasing the US.

We seem to have a knack for those type of relationships. We gave another one of our allies - Pakistan - lots of military aid, hoping they'd use that military aid to help us track down al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Most of that military aid went to beefing up Pakistan's defenses against India. I'm not sure we were getting much bang for our buck. (And then people wonder why Obama would suggest that Pakistan might not be such a close friend, regardless of the relationships we established immediately after 9/11 when Musharraf pledged a full commitment to combating terrorism in spite of Pakistan being one of the major breeding grounds for terrorism.)

 

[rootX]

Of what use is debate time on that which is outside US control, especially out of a President's control.

Is there anything that's even under President's control especially when it comes to foreign affairs?

I think it was very important to discuss more on China, other growing economies, and Euro. The debate was mainly focused on what candidates could blame each other on not what is important for the US in the long run.

 

[rootX]

It only makes sense to pander to a nation that has a defense budget greater than the next 10 nations combined - especially when you have hostile enemies on both your Northern border and Southern border ready to invade you as soon as you let your guard down.

Or did I mix something up from the debate. Maybe it was us that had the defense budget that was greater than the next 10 nations combined. And maybe we won't be invaded by Canada and Mexico.

In a way, one does wonder why the US is so much more concerned about pleasing Israel than Israel is with pleasing the US.

We seem to have a knack for those type of relationships. We gave another one of our allies - Pakistan - lots of military aid, hoping they'd use that military aid to help us track down al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Most of that military aid went to beefing up Pakistan's defenses against India. I'm not sure we were getting much bang for our buck. (And then people wonder why Obama would suggest that Pakistan might not be such a close friend, regardless of the relationships we established immediately after 9/11 when Musharraf pledged a full commitment to combating terrorism in spite of Pakistan being one of the major breeding grounds for terrorism.)

I recall reading an interesting article that no matter what Pakistan does, US will have to spend quite a bit of money on it. Israel seems also similar to Pakistan as you pointed out. Israel can do whatever it wants and still enjoy the US support IMO.

 

[mheslep]

Gas prices have had a huge price drop this past week, over 50 cents a gallon.

Over 50?

10/8: 3.85
10/15: 3.82
10/22: 3.69, California $4.35


with diesel flat.

 

[Evo]

Over 50?

10/8: 3.85
10/15: 3.82
10/22: 3.69, California $4.35


with diesel flat.

Regular $3.37 here, just updated 2 hours ago at the station I go to. Costco & Sam's club $3.33, but I don't get gas there.

Oh, I forgot, it's cheaper on the MO side, 3 miles from here $3.09 a gallon, same gas station brand I use and it says prices are falling.