G.O.P. Field for 2016 Is Light in Foreign Policy Credentials

Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky likes to note that he didn’t have a foreign policy three and a half years ago, when he was a full-time ophthalmologist.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas was an appellate lawyer in Houston before he was elected in 2012, a job that put him in front of judges, not world leaders.

Gov. Bobby Jindal has little reason to worry that a foreign crisis is going to rock Louisiana. So when Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state and current Stanford professor, visited him last year they spoke mostly about education reform.

As President Obama prepares to announce his strategy on Wednesday for combating the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, there is no shortage of condemnation from Republicans like Mr. Paul, Mr. Cruz and Mr. Jindal, who are considering running for president in 2016. Yet they, like almost every Republican who might try to succeed Mr. Obama, have a common résumé gap: foreign policy experience.

In fact, several of them will have to confront an especially glaring paradox. Like Mr. Obama when he first ran for president, they are relatively young first-term senators, with limited experience beyond the country’s borders.

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