I was thinking over that question last night as I fell asleep at the Army War College, where I am visiting. I think one reason President Obama excites so much emotion is that he represents the end of the Reagan revolution.

Look at this way. FDR's New Deal lasted about four decades, until it began collapsing under President Carter. Then Reagan came along. In a nutshell, he inverted the New Deal: Government was not the answer, he said, it was part of the problem. He also began a massive transfer of wealth from the middle classes to the top 1 percent of our society. One reason he could do this is that he didn't get us into an expensive war.

In both cases, eventual successors from the other party lived with the work of their predecessors. Just as Eisenhower did not try to undo the New Deal, Clinton did not try to reverse the Reagan revolution.

I don't think Obama killed the Regan revolution. I think it was getting old -- it had lasted nearly three decades. But I think the Reagan influence effectively was killed by President Bush's lengthy Iraq war, which proved so expensive that it was no longer possible to transfer wealth to the rich at the Reagan-era rate without running up huge deficits.

Obama, I think, buried the corpse, especially with his second inaugural. Government, he is saying, often is part of the answer. I think people are ready to hear this. They don't mind paying taxes as long as they believe the results are concrete: fewer potholes, longer library hours, healthier kids -- and disaster relief for the victims of Sandy.

The WTF moment for me in Obama's second inaugural address, delivered Monday at noon, was his use of the phrase "peace in our time." This came during his discussion of foreign policy, and in such circles, that phrase is a synonym for appeasement, especially of Hitler by Neville Chamberlain in September 1938. What signal does his using it send to Iran? I hope he was just using it to jerk Netanyahu's chain.

I also simply didn't understand what he meant by "a world without boundaries." But my immediate thought was, No, right now we need boundaries -- like those meant to keep Iran out of Syria and Pakistan out of Afghanistan.

Two things I did like:

• His emphasis on "the rule of law" in foreign policy. Now if we could officially renounce torture as U.S. government policy, and hold a truth commission on the issue. If only people who supposedly believe in the rule of law could bring the energy to this that they brought to Benghazi. 

• His comment that "our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it."

Overall, I'd give it a C-. It wasn't a terrible speech, but I am grading on the curve because I have seen him do so much better. Overall, the rhetoric seemed tired, like second-rate Kennedyisms, which may reflect the pack of Hill rats and political hacks staffing the White House. It made me wonder if the president is depressed. I mean, I wouldn't blame him. But not a happy thought. 

Kill the people who killed our ambassador to Libya.

By Jim Gourley and Mike Gore

Best Defense gory analysts

Last night's presidential debate on foreign policy is already old news, with most commentators hanging their hats on "horses and bayonets." History will no doubt remember these as some of the most memorable words of the campaign. But beyond declarations of winners, losers, and meme-worthy moments, the real significance of the dialogue lies in other words both spoken and unspoken.

An analysis of key terms indicates how the candidates' arguments represent the greater American dialogue on foreign policy. There were several items mentioned enough times to merit a Twitter hashtag. Others were peculiarly absent.

A foreign policy discussion usually involves relations with other countries, so it's probably most informative to assess which countries came up most often in the conversation. According to the transcript from last night's debate, the rank-ordered list is:

Iran: 47
Israel: 34
China: 32
Syria: 28
Pakistan: 25
Iraq: 22
Afghanistan: 21
Libya: 12
Russia: 10
Mali: 5
Latin America: 4
North Korea: 1
Somalia: 1
Yemen: 1
Palestine: 0
Mexico: 0
Canada: 0

It is evident that the single issue represented by tensions between Israel and Iran allow them to trump China, which presents a vast array of foreign policy challenges for the United States. It is also puzzling that Iran and Syria can be mentioned more than four and twice as many times as Russia, respectively, when that country is so instrumental in shielding them in the U.N. Security Council, not to mention its resurgence as a power broker in its own right. Afghanistan, the only country where the American military is actively engaged in a full-scale war, is number six.

Also remarkable are those left unmentioned. Completely left out of the discussion are the United States' closest neighbors, as well as Palestine, the diplomatic gravity of which is inescapable by the second-most talked about country in the debate. Especially troubling is Mexico. When one considers the political instability, rising violence and influence of the cartels, the infiltration of drug gangs into the United States, and the increasing sophistication of their networks, it is arguable that narco-terrorism to the south is a greater existential threat to national security than fundamentalist terrorism based overseas.

To further contextualize the shift in American foreign policy dialogue, we examined the transcripts for all three debates during the 2000 presidential election and select phrases in the 2008 foreign policy debate. None of the debates focused on specific issues, which led us to aggregate the total mentions in conversation. The countries, by number of mentions:

Russia: 21
Middle East: 18
Europe: 8
Africa: 7
Bosnia: 7
Mexico: 6
Iraq: 2
Canada: 2
Iran: 2
China: 1
India: 1

A comparison before and after 9/11 indicates significant changes in the dialogue. Before 2001, only two countries in the Middle East were mentioned by name in the debates. The rest were considered part of a larger amalgam. In 2012, half a dozen are mentioned by name. Though Russia is arguably as relevant today as it was then, it only received half as many by-name references in this debate. This precipitous decline in noteworthiness seems only to have occurred in the last four years. In the 2008 foreign policy debate, it was tied with Iran for most-mentioned country with 31 by-name references.

There was also no mention of Europe last night, which twelve years ago was the third-highest trending word in the debate. This is especially relevant in the context of Afghanistan and Iraq. Despite the support received from allies in both wars and the prominence of NATO's role in Afghanistan now, NATO was not mentioned a single time in this debate. In 2000 it came up fifteen times in the course of three debates.

Other proportions seem odd. Mali's name was spoken five times with regard to the emergent terrorist threat there, while Yemen and Somalia only received mention in passing despite our existent military presence there for the same reasons. Though the last combat troops were declared withdrawn from Iraq over a year ago, that country was still mentioned more times than Afghanistan. Interestingly, this is a repeat of the 2008 foreign policy debate, in which Iraq out-mentioned Afghanistan by a margin of 35 to 33. Though the fear of nuclear proliferation drove much of the conversation, North Korea was only mentioned once.

There are indications that the United States' foreign policy dialogue has been gradually yet increasingly laced with the vocabulary of fear and force. "9/11" still found its way into the debate on three occasions, while "Arab Spring" only came up once. The word "threat" was used ten times in three debates in 2000. In the 2008 foreign policy debate it surfaced 17 times. It was uttered 25 times last night. It appears that "nuclear" is the only type of threat the candidates cared to discuss. It came up 38 times during the debate, compared to only one mention apiece of cyber and space (both by the President, neither of which he elaborated on). "Military" was mentioned 49 times compared to 56 twelve years ago. Forms of "diplomacy" came up only one-fifth as many. Curiously, in the context of the looming sequestration threat, references to defense and military spending were approximately the same -- six times in 2000 versus seven times in this debate.

Still other causes for concern exist when last night's potent potables are considered in light of this decidedly economy-driven election. The word "economy" came up 25 times; the same number of mentions as "threat." But if economics are so tied to American foreign policy concerns, there is a perplexing absence of certain countries in the discussion. Mexico has already been mentioned, but India, Argentina, Japan, Germany and South Korea join it in the cast of unmentionables.

In all, the debate primarily revolved around American preoccupation with fears of imminent danger and hostility. The candidates spoke to the issues in a distinctly martial dialect. The prevalence of key terms and the glaring omission of others leads one to wonder if the candidates believe politics is the conduct of war by other means. Both candidates are certainly knowledgeable about countries and issues beyond those discussed, but their time was limited. With that said, it is a rational conclusion that the debate was limited to those items perceived as most important to the American public consciousness. Such being the case, this debate was a disconcerting indication that Americans' fixation with bayonets is more troubling than it appears.

Mike Gore is a Journalism and Communications Student at Western Washington University. Jim Gourley is Best Defense's number one commenter.

I wish generals and admirals would get out of the business of endorsing presidential candidates. It's a bad business and can only result in politicization of the relationship between our presidents and our military leaders.

The upside of this list is that it is very heavy on Marines and Navy, and surprisingly light on Army generals (with the notable exception of Tommy R. Franks!). Is the Army the most reliably obedient of our services? I remember an admiral saying at the Naval War College that the Navy is a golden retriever, the Air Force is an airedale, and the Army is a loyal Labrador. (He wasn't sure if the Marines were mastiffs or pitbulls.) 

Not quite sure how to interpret it, though.

Marc Theissen complains in a column that President Obama doesn't attend enough intelligence briefings. I wonder if it is better to not attend them, or to go but not heed them.

Please, no flowers. Instead, the family of the writer wishes that contributions be made the American Amnesia Society. 

By Joseph Singh

Best Defense department of remote-controlled warfare

The international laws governing the use of force are fundamentally outdated, reflecting a lost age of acutely-defined zones of war and peace, according to a speaker at this week's panel discussion on armed drones and targeted killing. Hosted by the German Marshall fund, the event was run under Chatham House rules, thus none of the speakers will be identified in this post.

While both panelists supported a convention governing drone usage, there are convincing reasons to suspect that new international laws enacted to reflect a changing global environment will remain wholly ineffective. Any legal framework governing drone use will confront the perennial challenge of state behavior in an anarchic system: Irrespective of the international laws and norms in place, states will disregard codes of conduct if they perceive them to be contrary to their national interests.

We know that current international rules technically prohibit targeted killings, just as the U.N. charter prohibits war. Even the federal government imposes its own ban on assassinations. Issued by President Reagan, Executive Order 12333 strictly prohibits target killings, asserting that "no person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination."

However, the expansion of drone use under the Obama administration does not result from a murky international laws. It simply proves that a new legal framework will fail to chart new norms on future drone use. Give a lawyer the task of justifying any policy "and he will find the legal regime," said one of the panelists.

The debate over the use of drones has often been misconstrued as a debate on the ethics, legality and unintended consequences of using remotely piloted vehicles to engage hostiles abroad. Yet drones have been used by nations for decades and their specific technological attributes should not be the focus of debate. Instead, killing by drone speaks to a larger question of defining the conditions under which nations should deploy such force.

Panelists noted that in Afghanistan, ISAF has been very effective at using drones as part of the larger military campaign. Strict rules govern the use of drones under ISAF command. Under no conditions, for example, are drones used to attack buildings, given the possibility that unidentified civilians may be inside. Such rigidity results not solely from a belief in abiding by the rules of war, but from a conviction that any civilian deaths threaten greater instability. In the hinterlands of Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, where ground troops are unable to help vet potential targets or engage with local populations to redress errors, drones have struck more fear and resentment in local populations than confidence, one panelist concluded.

One panelist said that new norms governing drone use are necessary to ensure the security of America and her closest allies. I am not so sure. U.S. drone activities could hypothetically be used to justify targeting American civilians by hostile states, but America's military dominance should always deter such behavior. Instead, limits on the drone program are necessary for America's strategy in the Middle East, in order to rectify the long-term trend towards radicalization that is seeded by short-term gains in targeted killing.

In a post-Afghanistan and post-Iraq world, the use of drones speaks to a wider unwillingness to use large-scale, high-risk military force to project American power abroad, as both panelists noted. Drone technology allows the president to remain active in the fight against terrorism without having to make unpopular and costlier "boots on the ground" commitments. Ultimately, however, the Obama administration must confront the difficult truth that what is a useful tactic in a broader military campaign cannot be substituted for an overall strategy.

While targeted killings constitute a centuries-old practice in international relations, the rapid rise in drone strikes raises important questions for the Obama administration. Are the strategic gains achieved through drone deployment sustainable given rising public outcry over targeted killings in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen? Can targeted killing programs co-exist with efforts to help support good governance, when those programs are perceived to undermine U.S. credibility? Will those nations continue to tacitly permit the U.S. to operate drones in their airspace when their public condemnations prove insufficient for satisfying domestic audiences?

In the near term, targeted killing has crippled Al Qaeda's leadership, and may serve as an immediate deterrent to future recruits. Yet a whack-a-mole approach to confronting the world's largest terrorist network should not be considered an effective long-term strategy. Incentives to change these norms will only follow an honest assessment of the long-term strategic benefits and drawbacks of an expansive use of drones.

If he's lucky, I think the national security advisor lasts until January. If he is not, he blows up on the launchpad in the middle of the presidential election campaign. His fate, it seems to me, rests in the hands of David Sanger, who broke the news that the American and Israeli governments were jointly conducting a cybercampaign against  the Iranian nuclear program, and had successfully inserted a virus that wrecked Iranian centrifuges. If Sanger cooperates with the special counsels looking into the leaks about this highly classified program, things are going to get interesting very quickly.

It wouldn't matter if Sanger, a fine reporter, first got wind of highly classified info from an underling. What matters is what Donilon said when asked by him. The moment of truth likely will be when a government lawyer says, "Mr. Donilon, when Mr. Sanger asked you about 'Olympic Games,' how did you reply?" If Donilon discussed the program with Sanger, he's got a legal problem, I would think.

Hmmm -- anyone remember who Scooter Libby's lawyer was?

Just when you think Pakistan couldn't make a stupider move, it does. Dissing Obama in his hometown was a dumbass play. Oddly, no American president probably had more initial sympathy for Pakistan, which Obama visited as a student. (He had Pakistani roommates at college, he said, and learned to cook Pakistani dishes from them.) Yet it looks like the Pakistani government has managed to piss him off.

Yesterday he pointedly left Pakistan out of the countries he thanked for help in Afghanistan: "I want to welcome the presence of President Karzai, as well as officials from central Asia and Russia -- nations that have an important perspective and that continue to provide critical transit for ISAF supplies."

This time it was the former head of the Shin Bet, the internal security agency. Apparently it was the first time Yuval Diskin has spoken in public about the Iran issue.

These statements are more significant than they may seem, because they provide support to skeptics of the official Israeli position that Iran must be attacked soon. And so I think this eases election-year pressure on President Obama: All he has to say to hawkish critics is, What do you think you know that the chief of the Israeli defense forces and the former head of Shin Bet don't know?

Brett McGurk, who I ran into in the Green Zone when he was negotiating the SOFA with the government of Iraq, has been named U.S. ambassador to Iraq. This is good because he knows all the promises Maliki has made over the years, not just to the U.S. but to Kurds and others, and so might be able to better forestall the prime minister's various attempts to re-negotiate all his deals.

No word on whether he had to take an oath renouncing all support for the Bush administration. 

This is the first presidential election in many decades, I think, in which the Democrats have the upper hand in foreign policy and national security. I have only dim memories of the 1964 campaign, but I recalls Lyndon Johnson having an advantage over Barry Goldwater in that area. Hard to remember that now, in light of how badly LBJ handled the Vietnam War in the following four years.

Ironically, Obama is likely only to get a small boost in votes for this, because -- just a bit more than a decade after 9/11 -- Americans frankly don't give a damn about foreign policy, Scarlett. By a 81 to 9 percent margin, they care more about the economy. (Hey, imagine if we still had all the money spent on the Iraq war to spend on domestic infrastructure, which is crumbling…)