Since Mitt Romney is not taking on any of the difficult situations the U.S. finds itself in around the world — he’s not visiting Afghanistan, for instance — his tour of European countries and Israel is instead focusing on promoting longstanding U.S. alliances. Though he’s already stumbled on his first stop in London, the theme was designed to go something like this: Mitt Romney will restore U.S. alliances spurned by the Obama administration.

One example Romney constantly holds up is the Obama administration’s decision to cancel land-based missile defense systems in Europe and instead focus on ship-borne systems and interceptor radars placed directly in the Middle East. Obama’s spurning “began with the sudden abandonment of friends in Poland and the Czech Republic,” Romney said at his VFW speech this week. “They had courageously agreed to provide sites for our anti-missile systems, only to be told, at the last hour, that the agreement was off.”

But it turns out that the Eastern European allies themselves don’t feel so spurned by President Obama’s decision, and some even support the new plan put in place. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal in Washington on Thursday, Slovakian foreign minister Miroslav Lajcak, who is also a deputy prime minister, said changing missile defense plans was a non-issue for his government:

People have moved on. We are in a different situation now. We are discussing a different project. I see no reason to revisit discussions from three years back.

In fact, this has been a non-issue for quite sometime. The Polish foreign minister said at the time of the new missile defense configuration announcement: “When President Obama announced the new configuration of the system, we did say that we liked the new configuration better, but I think you didn’t believe us.”

Lajcak went on to give the Journal an explicit endorsement of the Obama missile defense plan, lauding its NATO auspices rather than the abandoned Bush administration’s bi-lateral approach with host countries. While Romney said in his speech that Obama was bowing to Russia — whom he considers the U.S.’s “number one geopolitical foe” — Lajcak, in the Journal’s words, said “the U.S. and its European allies must continue to try and explain the defense plan to Russia, which remains skeptical.”

Romney’s tour theme may be falling flat so far, but at least he didn’t — like his adviser making the same attack — refer to Czechoslovakia in his speech. (HT: Blake Hounshell)

Earlier today British Prime Minster David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party, shot back at Mitt Romney for saying London’s preperation for the Olympics was “disconcerting.” “We are holding an Olympic Games in one of the busiest, most active, bustling cities anywhere in the world. Of course it’s easier if you hold an Olympic Games in the middle of nowhere,” Cameron said referring to Romney running the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Later, London Mayor Boris Johnson, also a Tory, called out Romney in a speech at an Olympics event before to tens of thousands of people in London’s Hyde Park:

JOHNSON: I’ve never seen anything like this in all my life. … people are coming from around the world and they are seeing us and they are seeing the greatest city on earth. And there are some people who are coming from around the world who don’t yet know about all the preparations we’ve done to get London ready in the last seven years. I hear there’s a guy called Mitt Romney who wants to know whether we’re ready. He wants to know whether we’re ready. Are we ready? Yes we are!

Watch the clip, courtesy of the BBC:

In what’s been widely panned as “Romney Shambles,” the presumptive GOP presidential nominee’s trip to Europe hasn’t gotten off to a great start. One senior British official told the Guardian of Romney’s Olympic comments: “What a total shocker. We are speechless,” while Daily Mail politics editor James Chapman quoted a source saying that Romney was “[a]pparently devoid of charm, warmth, humour or sincerity” in meetings with British officials.

British media has also reacted harshly to Romney. “Mr Romney is credited with rescuing the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, now he’s appeared to question London’s readiness to host a successful olympics,” the BBC’s George Alagiah said, adding “If [Romney is] here to make friends, he’s got a funny way of showing it.”

Mitt Romney delivered a major foreign policy address this week before the Veterans of Foreign Wars. While the speech was notable for lacking in substance and facts, Romney also ignored one important constituency sitting before him: veterans.

Romney did warn that spending cuts “would weaken an already stretched VA system” but that was about it, leading one VFW official to point out that Romney hasn’t laid out any specifics of how he’d deal with veterans issues, Reuters reports:

But many veteran advocates are still waiting for Romney to spell out how he would do better than his opponent.

“We haven’t … heard any specific plans yet from Governor Romney or his campaign,” said Bob Wallace, executive director at the Washington office of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, echoing the sentiment of many advocates.

Indeed, Romney hasn’t said what he would do for the nation’s veterans should he become president. He created a “Veterans Policy Advisory” group but it hasn’t issued any policy recommendations to the public. Romney dabbled in veterans issues late last year when he proposed privatizing the VA system but retreated from that position after receiving considerable backlash from veterans groups.

Reuters said it asked the Romney campaign for more information but “the campaign provided a single-page document” that lacked any concrete proposals.

By contrast, in his speech before the VFW this week, President Obama announced an overhaul of job training and transition services for veterans returning from war. Reuters said in a separate report today that life for veterans has “grown more challenging under Obama’s watch,” but CAP’s Lawrence Korb and Alex Rothman noted in February that “Obama has made much progress in tackling veteran unemployment” while urging Congress to pass the president’s $6 billion vets jobs corps program. In March, Obama announced a housing plan to help military vets who were victims of illegal foreclosures and First Lady Michelle Obama said that companies had pledged 15,000 jobs for military spouses as part of the administration’s “Joining Forces” program. (HT: Lauren Jenkins)

During a debate yesterday between top national security advisers to the Obama and Romney campaigns, top Romney aide Amb. Richard Williamson got peppered with questions about where Mitt Romney would get the money to boost defense spending. Though taking the question no less than four times during the debate, Williamson balked at answering directly, haltingly offering up platitudes, deflecting and dodging.

The seeming contradiction between growing military spending and cutting revenue proposed by Romney, while pledging to cut the national debt, already befuddles budget experts. Romney’s plan would increase military spending by nearly $2 trillion with no plan to pay for it while his aides have described the boosts in military spending as mere “target” numbers depending on economic growth.

Debate moderator Marvin Kalb asked Williamson twice successively how Romney would pay for military spending, and followed up again after a Congressional Quarterly reporter asked during the question and answer period. Williamson’s first answer to Kalb was typical of his repeated dodges:

KALB: I don’t know anybody who thinks you can increase defense spending, cut taxes, and do anything about the national debt. So how do you do that, sir?

WILLIAMSON: I should introduce you to more people. [...] It can be done. What the governor’s been clear about is we have to rebuild Navy. He’s called explicitly for 14 more ships a year.

Obviously there’s a philosophical debate between President Obama and Governor Reagan on the economy — excuse me, Governor Romney and President Obama on the economy. It’s one that the American people are intensely interested in. Governor Romney wants to keep discussing that issue and allow the American people to make a decision. Whether you create growth by more revenue, or — I don’t want to — spending on the stimulus and other things that he would argue are a waste of money, versus trying to support and unleash the private sector for growth.

Watch a video of the exchanges:

Kalb then asked how, until the economy supposedly comes around, Romney would get the money in the next few years. Williamson offered to send a campaign economic adviser to discuss the matter, then went back to “philosophical differences.” Later, when CQ asked where the money would come from, Williamson called for “incentives in the private sector,” deregulation, and cutting Obamacare. When Kalb followed up yet again, Williamson cited current economic statistics, blaming the stimulus and Obamacare.

As Dana Milbank pointed out in the Washington Post today:

If Romney wants to make good on his vow to increase defense spending by $2.1 trillion, and he also wants to make good on his support for the tax cuts incorporated in the House Republicans’ budget, he would need to cut the rest of the government’s functions — including Social Security and Medicare benefits — by about 14 percent, according to the Center for American Progress.

Short of cutting those popular programs, Milbank wrote, Romney would “need to shut down all functions of the departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, Interior, Justice, Labor and Treasury as well as the National Institutes of Health.”