The GOP's Road to Victory

National-security issues should dominate the headlines during Pres Obama's second term, given how little time was devoted to a serious or sustained discussion of these subjects during the 2012 presidential race. If the Republicans win back control of the Senate in the November elections, there will be a fine opportunity for the party to lead and shape a national conversation on foreign policy. Three respected senators are likely to assume leadership roles on the key national-security committees: Armed Services, Foreign Relations and Intelligence, respectively. The objective should be to use this victory to set a foreign-policy agenda that does more than just highlight the shortcomings of the Obama years, as tempting as that will be. A GOP majority in the Senate should also be used to identify those issues of traditional Republican strength and road test new ideas. This would ideally lead to a set of foreign-policy objectives that the party could tee up for the 2016 campaign.