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The main political point the Obama re-election campaign gets from this is it will be tough for the Repub contenders to sell that old tired campaign line of theirs about "Democrats being softies and pushovers when it comes to terrorists". 
Sam "and before that it was the Commies" V
Sam, since when has reality had any connection to G.O.P. talking points? To the extent that there is a Democratic foreign policy that can be traced back more than a century, it is to keep our enemies few in number and go after them with a rifle, not a shotgun. That kind of policy doesn't grab a lot of headlines and, unfortunately, doesn't lend itself to purple rhetoric. It was, ironically, a Republican who advocated "speaking softy and carrying a big stick". His party hasn't followed him.
The Cold War was an interesting period. American policy, set by Truman, was to contain Communism. That, of course, wasn't good enough for the Republicans of the time, so in 1956 John Foster Dulles proclaimed "Containment Plus" to be our policy, whereby we would contain Communism and throw it back where possible. Unfortunately, the Hungarians believed the lying asshat. Likewise, in 1959 Dulles refused to acknowledge Tibetan sovereignty when China invaded. It's like Bush's military record: He speaks loudly and carries no stick.