Stephen M. Walt: "Ain't That Tough Enough?"

The point is that you can be tough without being hawkish, and that’s usually preferable to the mindless militarism that most politicians adopt to show their faux “toughness.” And that’s why it’s much more important that a president be smart and strategic and able to identify the right policy choices, and not worry very much about whether he’s being sufficient “tough” to satisfy his critics. And if Obama tries to base his foreign policy on proving to the GOP he meets their definition of "tough," he'll end up exactly where the GOP's former standard-bearer did.

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/11/aint_that_tough_enough