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In his acceptance speech for the Republican party’s presidential nomination, John McCain’s central message was "I fight for Americans." His main focus was to display his commitment to the American people and what is right for his country, but he almost entirely forgot to mention exactly whom and how he is "prepared to fight."

One might argue that his acceptance speech was geared toward American citizens and was not the right arena for a detailed outline of foreign policy proposals. Barack Obama, for example, also might have left much to be said on his policies; however, Obama still went into many more issues than McCain, leaving many to wonder, what does McCain plan to do about the US role in the world?

In fact, it is rather difficult, at least maybe for the average voter, to get specifics on his views on this subject in general. Some information on his opinions about Europe can be found here on the Atlantic Community website but McCain's own website, which is supposed to be the source where voters can get specific information about McCain's policy proposals, also lacks any specific information about his foreign policy ideas. Barack Obama's website, on the other hand, has an entire section for foreign policy and gives detailed information on specific subjects. His public attention to global issues may be just another reason the international community seems to favor an Obama presidency. But, then again, maybe McCain is just confining his topics to the one that matters to American voters: America.

McCain did indeed mention some global issues in context of US interests. The most detailed of which was Russia's invasion of their "small democratic neighbor." He stressed the importance of working "to establish good relations with Russia" without turning a "blind eye to aggression and international lawlessness that threatens the peace and stability of the world and the security of the American people." Interestingly enough, out of all the issues facing the US in foreign policy, he chose to share his opinions about Russia, opinions that seem to actually be relatively similar to those of his opponent. Barack Obama, on the other hand, geared the foreign policy aspects of his speech to focus upon the discrepancies between him and McCain.

One of McCain's largest issues of his speech was American energy independence. He not only fails to go into specifics about from which countries the US needs to gain energy independence, but instead, even stated Americans need to "stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like [them] very much."

McCain's only mentions of Iraq were praises of the current 'surge' strategy. Can one assume that, because he does not mention his plans for policy changes, it will just be a continuation of Bush's policies?

It seems that after his first speech as an official presidential candidate, McCain left many questions unanswered for those in the international community whose lives are effects every day by US foreign policy. Is this just an issue of what most US voters want or do not want to hear? Or is lack of information a signal of how high (or low) foreign policy stands on McCain's agenda?

Meredith Nicoll is an editorial intern at atlantic-community.org