He has denounced President Obama for weakness in dealing with Russia, America’s “number one geopolitical foe”. He has criticised the White House’s “policy of paralysis” on the crisis in Syria. And he has accused the President of tipping his hand to the Taleban by drawing up a timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan.
What is less than clear is what Mitt Romney would do if he were the one grappling with American foreign policy from inside the Oval Office. With five months to go until November’s presidential election, many within his own party are still in the dark about Mr Romney’s world view.
A number of senior Republicans remain wary, concerned by statements suggesting that Mr Romney is developing a neoconservative agenda of the kind widely discredited during the Bush Administration.
On Wednesday, Mr Romney received his first endorsements from the party’s foreign policy establishment when two former secretaries of state, Condoleezza Rice and George Shultz, gave him their backing. Yet Henry Kissinger, the most famous former Republican Secretary of State, is said to be holding out over disquiet at Mr Romney’s aggressive posture on trade relations with China.
Colin Powell, Dr Rice’s predecessor, last week criticised Mr Romney’s foreign policy statements as being “quite far to the right” and suggested that he was vulnerable to manipulation by hawkish advisers such as George W. Bush’s former ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton. He also chided Mr Romney for his now infamous remark identifying Russia as America’s greatest foe.
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“Well, c’mon, Mitt: think,” Mr Powell said. “That isn’t the case.”
Others note that while Mr Romney is swift to criticise Mr Obama’s policy, he has provided little clarity on what he would do differently. On Syria, he has condemned Mr Obama for “a lack of leadership” but stopped short of backing military intervention, calling only for the arming of the Syrian rebels, a process that Washington is already co-ordinating. On Afghanistan, he has accused Mr Obama of giving in to the Taleban by issuing a timetable for troop withdrawal, even though he supports that very timetable.
On Libya, he hopped awkwardly from position to position and when Colonel Gaddafi was ultimately driven from power, Mr Romney insisted that the outcome “does not validate the President’s approach”, which had been “unclear”.
Many Republicans are still waiting for a clarification of Mr Romney’s own foreign policy, which aides have hinted may come in a major speech on the subject, now that he has officially clinched the nomination.