It is the economy, stupid, and two months before the election nobody wants to get sidetracked into discussing a peripheral issue like American foreign policy. The only people who really care about that at the moment are foreigners and the US military - and even they are not following the election with bated breath, because few of them believe that a change of president could fundamentally change the way the US relates to the rest of the world.
Although the Republicans do their best to paint President Obama as a wild-eyed radical who is dismantling America's defences, he has actually been painfully orthodox in his foreign policy. He loves Israel to bits, he did not shut down the Afghan war (or Guantanamo), he uses drones to kill US enemies (and sometimes, anybody else who is nearby), and he tamely signs off on a $US700 billion ($NZ878 billion) defence budget.
How can Mitt Romney top that?
He could say he loves Israel even more. In fact, he does say that, promising to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital. But that is purely gesture politics, since almost no other countries do, and in practice Mr Obama gives Israel almost everything it wants already.
He could pledge to spend even more on "defence" than Mr Obama, but the United States is already pouring 4.7% of its gross domestic product down that rathole. Mr Obama has planned cuts over the next several years that would bring it down to about 4% - and Mr Romney has promised not to let it fall below 4%. Not a huge difference there.
Mr Romney does his best to disguise that fact by declaring that he would reverse certain of Mr Obama's decisions. United States ground forces, for example, would remain at their current level under a Romney administration, rather than being reduced by 100,000 people.
But changing only that and nothing else would put $25 billion a year back on to the defence budget. How do you do that without raising taxes?
The Republican candidate faces a constraint none of his recent predecessors had: a party that really cares about the deficit. In the past three decades, it has been Republican presidents who ran up the bills - Ronald Reagan never balanced a budget, and the Bush-Cheney team declared that "deficits don't matter" - while the subsequent Democratic administrations tried to curb out-of-control spending.
Mr Romney does not have that option: the Tea Party wing of his party actually means what it says about both taxes and deficits. So what is left for him?
Well, he could promise to kill even more of America's enemies than Mr Obama, but he can not get around the fact that it is Mr Obama who nailed Osama bin Laden, and Mr Obama who is playing fast and loose with international law by using drones to carry out remote-control assassinations of hostile foreigners.
So Mr Romney says very little about foreign policy because there is little he can say. The closest he has come to specific policy changes was an "action plan" he laid out during the Republican primaries last year, to be accomplished within a hundred days of taking office. It was an entirely credible promise, because none of it really involves a policy change at all.
He promised to "reassure traditional allies that America will fulfil its global commitments". A couple of phone calls, and that is done.
He declared that he would move more military forces to the Gulf "to send a message to Iran", but he did not threaten to attack Iran, or endorse an Israeli attack on Iran. And he can always move them back again if he gets bored.
He said he would appoint a Middle East tsar to oversee US support for the evolving Arab transitions. That is one more government job, but Mr Romney has even less idea than Mr Obama about where he wants those transitions to end up.
Besides, the United States has almost no leverage on this issue. He will review the Obama Administration's planned withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Not necessarily change it; just review it.
He will also review Mr Obama's global missile defence strategy. He might like to change that - Republicans have loved the concept ever since Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars" dreams - but he has not got the kind of money he would need for a more ambitious policy.
He will increase the government's focus on cyber security.
Ho-hum.
He will raise the rate of US Navy shipbuilding. So far as budget constraints permit, which is not very far at all.
And he will launch an economic opportunity initiative in Latin America. As long as it does not cost much money.
It is not surprising that the rest of the world does not care much about the US election.
Most foreigners, on both the Right and the Left, are more comfortable with Mr Obama than Mr Romney, but US foreign policy will stay the same whoever wins. They might not like all of it, but they are used to it.
• Gwynne Dyer is an independent London journalist.
