Thus far, foreign and security policy have received more attention than is normal for the candidate-selection phase of a U.S. election, in part because the domestic economy is in relatively sound shape and much of the world is in turmoil. This makes world events more immediate to the American electorate. Clinton in particular has stressed foreign and national security policy, reflecting her time as first lady, a U.S. senator and, most recently, secretary of state. While Trump has no background in foreign or national security policy, he did use it to distinguish himself during the Republican primaries, staking out an approach very different from the conventional ones of his opponents.

But even given this attention to foreign and national security policy, the two candidates have only provided an outline of their positions. Clinton’s leanings are better known from her time in the Senate and State Department. She has added a few campaign speeches on world affairs, and her campaign website follows the tradition for U.S. elections by indicating her priorities and general perspective. Trump, with no political leadership experience, a campaign website that only includes asketchy description of a few policy positions, and at best a disconnected mélange of ideas in campaign speeches, is harder to gauge. 

This makes it imperative for the media to press the candidates to explain where they stand on foreign policy and national security. The biggest issues will be the size and structure of the U.S. military; the conditions under which it might be committed to combat; America’s relationship with competitors like China, Russia and Iran; and the conflict with transnational extremism, particularly the so-called Islamic State. 

While these are vital concerns, other ones may turn out to be just as important. If tradition holds, the biggest security challenge for the next president will be one that was little discussed during the campaign, like the Balkans for Bill Clinton; the conflict with al-Qaida and the intervention in Iraq for George W. Bush; and the conflict in Syria and Iraq, and the rise of the Islamic State for Barack Obama. This means the media must push beyond today’s headline issues and explore hypothetical situations to get a sense of the candidates’ instincts. 

Three issues in particular may rise to the fore for the next president and are therefore worth examining now. One is whether the United States would participate in international peacekeeping and stabilization operations. At first glance, this might seem a strange question. To many security experts and policymakers, the United States has written off peacekeeping. But reality has a nasty way of compelling great powers to do things they’d rather not. There is simply no chance that transnational Islamic extremism can be eradicated in places like Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen and Afghanistan without an international stabilization effort. Local security forces will never be able to do this on their own. Relying on them to do so means the extremists will continue to find safe haven and operating space. Given this, the two presidential candidates must be pressed on whether they would commit the United States to a multinational peacekeeping and stabilization operation if that was what it took to fully defeat the Islamic State, or if the government of a nation like North Korea collapsed.

If tradition holds, the biggest security challenge for the next president will be one that was little discussed during the campaign.

A second question for the two candidates is how they would deal with friendly dictators. This challenge has confounded the United States since the Cold War. When the Soviet threat was at its peak, American policymakers gritted their teeth and worked with anti-communist despots. Following the 1979 overthrow of the shah of Iran and later the demise of the Soviet Union, Washington backed off from this practice. But the problem has returned in spades with the conflict against transnational Islamic extremism. Hence the candidates must explain just how deeply they would embrace regimes like the current Egyptian military dictatorship. Even more importantly, the candidates must spell out the degree to which they would cooperate with Iran and the sociopathic Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad if that’s what it takes to defeat the Islamic State and al-Qaida. Is the enemy of my enemy my friend, as at the height of the Cold War, or are those days past?

A third important question is how the candidates would respond to cyberattacks on the United States that target the government or the private sector. Clinton at least has staked out a position on this, but she has not explained whether she would consider a large scale cyberattack an act of war, and whether she would use the U.S. military in a defensive or offensive way in such a scenario. As on most national security issues, Trump has given no indication of his position.

There may be other defining foreign and national security questions, but asking the candidates these three would be a solid start. How they respond would give Americans insight as they vote for the country’s future. It is not yet clear whether Trump’s highly unorthodox positions are the bow wave of a revolution in American foreign and national security policy, or more a method to attract attention. Pressing the candidates to flesh out their strategies, one highly unorthodox and one consummately orthodox, is the best and perhaps the only way for the American public to make an informed choice in November.

Steven Metz is the author of “Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy.” His weekly WPR column, Strategic Horizons, appears every Friday. You can follow him on Twitter @steven_metz.