The jury is still out on Democratic national defense and foreign policy.
If you've been paying attention to what's been going on in Russia, the Middle East, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and other troubled areas, you get the impression that nobody out there is really all that worried about us anymore and are pretty much doing whatever they want. As someone I know crudely put it, they "smell pussy."
It's amazing how much "focus and control" can look like "not doing anything at all" from outside.
Cheney and Bush made terrorists nervous. Ask Ghaddafi, who also still remembers Reagan.
Obama doesn't, and he gives them less reason for it every time he shoots the legs out from our own intelligence forces.