The Washington Post asked foreign affairs analysts and other experts for their take on what the candidates should discuss in the first debate. Michael Rubin and Danielle Pletka offered these thoughts:

Resident Scholar Michael Rubin

The Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs will remain challenges for the next administration. Iran continues to enrich uranium despite three U.N. Security Council resolutions, and North Korea announced this week that it is resuming work at its plutonium processing plant. North Korea was also allegedly responsible for helping Syria construct a covert nuclear facility that the Israeli Air Force destroyed in a strike last September. It is all well and good to say that you favor diplomacy, but what actions will you take if diplomacy does not succeed? What evidence will you look for both to determine that diplomacy is working or, conversely, that it is failing?

Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at AEI.

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Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies

Barack Obama has said that he opposes the Iraq war, opposes the surge and wishes to withdraw troops on a specific timeline regardless of our success on the ground or the views of our commanders. He has said that he wants to sit down with the Iranian leadership and negotiate without preconditions, a position rejected by America's allies in Europe. He has also suggested that the United States should threaten to and possibly attack Pakistan for harboring al-Qaeda. Each of these positions can be explained in a vacuum, but together they add up to a confusing picture of how President Obama would defend America against enemies abroad. How would he weave together or reconcile these disparate views and explain to the American people the principles that underpin his national security policy?

Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI.