Record shows little foreign experience

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin visited Army Private James Pattison during a morale tour at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany, in 2007. (US Air Force via Reuters)

ST.PAUL - Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin got her first passport in 2006 and has visited just four countries, and has had little involvement in her state's cross-border issues, raising questions about her supporters' assertions that Alaska's proximity to Russia has given her unique experience on foreign affairs.

In seeking to demonstrate the first-term Alaska governor's readiness to be John McCain's second-in-command, campaign officials have maintained that Palin has had to deal with unusual security challenges and a variety of diplomatic and trade issues in a state sandwiched between Russia and Canada.

However, a review of Palin's 20 months in office shows that aside from overseeing the National Guard's state-level emergency missions, as all governors do, the first-term governor played no role in any territorial defense or other national defense operations involving military forces.

In an interview with the Globe, the head of the Alaska National Guard said her role commanding the National Guard was no different from that of any other governor.

Palin has also visited one fewer country than originally stated by her Alaska office. Earlier in the week, the governor's Alaska spokeswoman was quoted as saying Palin had traveled to Iraq, Kuwait, Germany, and Ireland, in addition to Canada. McCain campaign spokeswoman Maria Comella acknowledged yesterday that Ireland was only a refueling stop on a trip in July 2007 to visit Alaskan National Guard troops in Kuwait and Iraq.

Comella said yesterday that the 2007 trip was her only foreign travel apart from visits to Canada. Comella said Palin first received a passport in 2006. The New York Times reported last week that Palin had needed to apply for a passport so she could visit the troops, but it was not clear whether it was her first.

According to business leaders and academics familiar with foreign-policy issues and Palin's administration, she has demonstrated little interest in expanding the state's trade ties with Canada or Russia compared with some of her predecessors.

"So far as I know, Sarah has not been involved in international affairs whatsoever," said Victor Fischer, professor emeritus at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

"Alaska is a large state, there's a lot going on within the state," added Fischer, who is a former Democratic state senator and delegate to the Alaskan state constitutional convention in 1955. "We've had governors who have been very involved with world issues, but she's concentrated pretty much on the domestic side."

Palin's knowledge of international affairs and security issues is likely to be tested when she debates her Democratic counterpart, Joe Biden, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Comella said yesterday she had been huddling with the campaign's top foreign policy and national security aides this week to study the issues.

This week, McCain and his campaign officials have emphasized that being head of the Alaska National Guard gives her special experience in national security matters.

"She's been commander-in-chief of the Alaska National Guard," McCain said on Fox News Sunday, in a refrain repeated often by GOP leaders this week. "I am proud of her knowledge."

McCain's wife, Cindy, meanwhile, has cited Alaska's proximity to Russia as offering her preparation for the vice presidency. "Remember that Alaska is the closest part of our continent to Russia," she said this week in an appearance on ABC News on Sunday.

Due to its strategic location, Alaska has a large number of military installations established during the Cold War to keep watch on Russia, including Elmendorf Air Force Base, home of the Air Force's 3d Wing, and Forts Wainwright and Richardson, where active-duty Army units are stationed for operations in the Pacific. The Aleutian Islands chain that runs toward the Russian coast is also home to sensitive radar installations.

But those units are under the control of the president, not the state governor, according to top military officials and specialists.

And while the Alaska National Guard operates a launch site for a US antimissile system at Fort Greely, about 100 miles south of Fairbanks, the Alaskan governor is not in the site's chain of command and has no authority over its operations, according to Major General Craig E. Campbell, the adjutant general of the Alaska National Guard who commands the roughly 3,800 state militia members.

"Our National Guard is basically just like any National Guard," said Campbell, a native of Springfield, Mass., in a telephone interview. "You could call [Adjutant General] Joe Carter in Massachusetts and he would say he is organized the same way."

Nor are the recent deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan by the Alaska National Guard under Palin's purview, despite assertions this week by McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds to that effect. "She is head of the National Guard that has been deployed overseas," Bounds said. "That's foreign policy experience,"

Palin's authority over the Alaskan National Guard applies to domestic missions - such as fighting wildfires and rescuing stranded residents - but she has a limited role in determining how the forces are trained, Campbell said.

About 75 percent of the Guard's budget, he said, is the purview of the National Guard Bureau in Washington, which is responsible for ensuring the Guard is prepared to be called up by the president in a time of war. Palin's primary role, he said, has been in recruiting Guard volunteers.

Campbell said he meets with Palin about once a month, but communicates with her by phone and e-mail more frequently. This week, he noted, her office ordered the Air National Guard to fly a planeload of supplies to hurricane victims in the Gulf Coast.

"She is very much engaged in what we are doing and she asks a lot of questions," Campbell said. "Maybe not the most engaged, but definitely engaged. She is very much involved in ensuring that I am recruiting enough people."

Meanwhile, some independent security officials said overseeing state National Guard units has rarely proven to be significant experience for governors seeking higher office.

"The notion that she is experienced because she is commander-in-chief of the Alaska National Guard is not going to get you very far," said John Pike, an analyst at GlobalSecurity.org, an nonpartisan think tank in Alexandria, Va., who has written extensively about Alaska's military installations.

The McCain campaign has also cited other foreign policy experience, including in the area of trade and energy issues.

"She's got experience in a state which has unique features," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a McCain policy adviser. "It has to address issues in international trade in a way most governors don't."

But Palin has demonstrated limited initiative on cross-border issues compared to previous governors, according to Alaskans who deal with trade.

Among her predecessors, Walter Hickel, a Republican first elected in the 1960s who returned to office in the 1990s, proposed a "Multi-Modal Transport Corridor" across the Bering Strait, which he imagined would link the Trans-Siberia Railway to American train lines. Democrat Tony Knowles, whom Palin defeated in 2006, pursued expanded trade opportunities with Taiwan during the 1990s.

Russell Howell, director of the American Russia Center in Anchorage, said that while many Alaskan oil-exploration companies have strong interest in pursuing Russian partnerships, Palin has not played a noticeable role.

Howell's organization has helped facilitate contact between Russia and Alaskan business and government leaders during past gubernatorial administrations.

"I have not heard that Governor Palin has done anything like that and we have had no contact with her about visiting Russian officials," said Howell.

Asked to respond to contentions that Palin does not have sufficient foreign policy experience, her spokeswoman Comella said: "Governor Palin has the judgment required for these dangerous times and the background as an executive making tough decisions needed to manage large organizations. She oversees responsibility for the National Guard and State Defense Force responsible for responding to state emergencies and has displayed leadership in the energy security discussion."

Bender can be reached at bender@globe.com