A question that will be an issue now that both tickets are set for the presidential countdown is the relative foreign affairs experience of the Republican and Democratic candidates for president and vice president.

Even given my own parochial bias I would not argue that foreign affairs experience should be the litmus test for the two slates. That honor will likely fall, as it usually does, to perceptions of the two teams' approach to the problems of the economy.

At the same time, looking at the years of the Bush-Cheney administration, it is clear that some of its major failures are due to disinterest, distortion or misreading of international signals.

The granddaddy of all George W. Bush blunders was his lack of comprehension of the significance of the Aug. 6, 2001 President's Daily Brief entitled, "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike U.S." It went on to include his not grasping that it was essential to finish the job of making Afghanistan safe from a Taliban resurgence that would make it again a safe haven for al-Qaida.

Instead, he erred again, this time in the Middle East, attacking Iraq on either misunderstood or deliberately cooked intelligence about Saddam Hussein's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and nonexistent links to al-Qaida. A moment's informed, unideologically-based thought would have suggested to Mr. Bush that an alliance between the consistently secular Saddam and the fanatically Islamic al-Qaida was improbable to the point of requiring indisputable, hard proof before being used as the basis for a U.S. invasion. Iraq is a complex Middle Eastern country that is historically a very hard nut to crack militarily. (See the British experience in Iraq in the 1920s.)

Finally, among major errors made on behalf of the United States by a president better at clearing brush than acting effectively on the world stage, is the slippery slope back toward a Cold War with Russia, based on Mr. Bush's misunderstanding of that former enemy and its relationship to the Caucasus, which sits in Russia's back yard.

So how do the two tickets stack up on foreign affairs?

The Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain, has some solid knowledge based on his travel as senator and his six years of grim experience as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese.

On the Republican side, the scary part is his new running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska, who has virtually no foreign affairs experience. Her foreign travel has been limited to Canada and Ireland, and a trip to Germany and Kuwait to visit Alaska National Guard forces. She is reportedly a quick study but, as Mr. McCain would tell you, knowledge and understanding in international relations is gained cumulatively over time and requires constant updating. (See, for example, his own recent gaffes on the former Czechoslovakia and on the difference between Sunni and Shiite Middle Eastern states.)

And, like it or not and without seeming ghoulish, Mr. McCain is 72, has a history of skin cancer and counts as part of his medical history the very bad years in North Vietnam.

The Democratic side should be stronger on international affairs.

Sen. Barack Obama has served four years on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has traveled a fair amount. He lived four years in Indonesia with his mother and stepfather. He also lived eight years in Hawaii, the most polyglot of American states, different from the mainland.

His running mate, Sen. Joseph Biden, is probably the most traveled and best informed of the 100 U.S. senators with respect to global issues and personalities. He has 35 years of service on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, including the past two years as chairman.

In the end, it is important to remember that it will be the president, either Mr. McCain or Mr. Obama, not Mr. Biden or Ms. Palin, who will represent America at summits and state visits, interfacing on a personal level with the Hu Jintaos, Nicolas Sarkozys and Dmitry Medvedevs or Vladimir Putins of this world. At the same time, the important role played by Vice President Dick Cheney in the foreign affairs and national security decisions of the current administration makes it clear that the foreign affairs savvy -- or lack thereof -- of Mr. Biden and Ms. Palin are not negligible factors.

Given that the primary issue influencing voters' final decision is likely to be the state of the American economy and how it impacts on their lives, it is important that the four candidates understand well America's foreign economic relations. Every aspect of that complex subject bears on the ultimate well-being of every American. A job exported to India or Mexico leaves an American high and dry. Unregulated Chinese imports into the United States might poison an American child.

An unfavorable trade balance means that America has to indebt itself further to China, India, Russia, other Europeans and the Middle Eastern states. How do we imagine that Washington can finance even the interest on the country's growing national debt, which now stands at nearly $10 trillion as a result of deficit spending? It is through foreign borrowing. The Russians hold some $60 billion in U.S. subprime mortgage debt, backed by properties in the United States. (This is to say that foreclosures could result in Russia's oligarchs or its government owning significant pieces of California's Silicon Valley or Bethesda, Md.)

All of this is apart from the elected president and vice president needing to be able to make sense of free- and fair-trade issues in front of the World Trade Organization, among G-8 and ASEAN leaders at summits and in other international organizations, where the interests of the United States will need to be vigorously represented in person, without cheat sheets.

It is fair for us to ask ourselves which team, McCain-Palin or Obama-Biden, is better able to master these subjects and represent us to the world.