One thing that becomes clear when reading the Constitution and the minutes from the Constitutional Convention is that our Founding Fathers didn’t really know what to make of the American President.

Article II generally speaks in vague terms about the President, unless it’s referring to primarily procedural matters outlining the method of election, length of term, oath of office, criteria for impeachment, and obligation to provide Congress information regarding the state of the union.

Even by the standards of our intentionally sparse Constitution, there’s not much to go on when it comes to the President’s substantive authority.  Indeed, in comparison, the authority of Congress is spelled out in great detail.  The President?  He has “the executive Power,” is the Commander in Chief, can grant pardons, make treaties, appoint ambassadors, and must faithfully execute the law.

But as vague as Article II is, it makes one thing clear: the President has a substantial role to play when it comes to the foreign affairs of the United States.  Indeed, one of the primary embarassments of the Articles of Confederation was the utter inability of the United States to prosecute a coherent foreign policy.  Everything that Congress did (or tried to do) was subject to the whims of individual states, and, as a result, the “United States” (when they could negotiate treaties) weren’t able to fulfill their obligations.

And so the Founders, with all their intentional vagueness about the President made clear that he would *the guy* (even if not the sole guy) when it came to foreign affairs.

And the area when individual Presidents have most clearly impacted the history and development of the United States (things domestically are usually much more fuzzy when it comes to attributing responsibility) is in foreign policy.

But Presidential elections don’t often turn on questions of foreign policy, even if they should.

And this election doesn’t appear to be an exception to the rule.  Despite all the obfuscation and intentional vagueness, the domestic policy positions of President Obama and Mitt Romney are relatively well-defined.

Not so when it comes to foreign affairs.

With President Obama, we know a few things: (1) he killed Osama bin Laden, (2) he pulled American forces out of Iraq, (3) he put more troops in Afghanistan, (4) he favors greater diplomatic engagement, (5) his administration panicked about the recent terrorist attack in Libiya and latched onto a storyline that just wasn’t credible, (6) the whole thing about the NDAA, and (7) he will pull American forces out of Afghanistan by 2014.  We don’t know much about what he’d do when push comes to shove with a nuclear Iran.

But with Mitt Romney we know almost nothing.  And, while this is a relatively common complaint from Democrats when it comes all aspects of the Romney/Ryan ticket, the vagueness about foreign policy is the only vagueness concerns me a bit.  When it comes to the economy, when it comes to healthcare reform, when it comes to balancing budgets and bipartisanship, Mitt Romney has a strong record of accomplishment.

But when it comes to foreign affairs, he stands where President Obama did four years ago (minus one anti-Iraq War vote — which was all that candidate Obama had to recommend him).

Romney’s tried to differentiate himself from the President when it comes to military spending, on free trade, talking tough with China, on Israel, and on the Benghazi debacle.  And in advance of the upcoming foreign policy debate, he gave a speech that didn’t say much, striking a different tone instead of drawing many significant substantive contrasts.

My opinion is that the reason we haven’t heard much about the details of a Romney/Ryan foreign policy is because it would likely mimic much of what President Obama has done and has promised to do.  Foreign policy, like everything else, suffers in an intensely political climate (witness both campaigns’ dismal responses to Benghazi:  Mitt with a press conference to condemn the President, with the President, in a moment of political panic, starts peddling an unbelievable story and then persists in the error long after it’s utterly discredited), and I think Romney’s not saying much because the President has done a much better job when it comes to foreign affairs than he has to the United States’ domestic challenges.  And, frankly, it’s difficult to give details about complex international issues when the precise contours are still developing.

But still, the area where the President can most clearly affect the immediate direction of the United States is foreign policy, and I’d like to see both candidates pressed and provide some details (to the extent they can).  It’s probably too much to expect them in the upcoming debates, but anytime prior to November 6 is good enough for me.