It took just 48 hours, but the tragic terror attacks on Paris have quickly cleaved the 2016 Republican primary into a contest between those with serious foreign policy experience and those without, shifting the race, at least for now, from a campaign for the presidency to a test for commander in chief.

The disparity between candidates has been present and glaring for months, of course, but it took a back seat in a primary where experience has been akin to a dirty word, and early state voters haven’t demanded great familiarity with world affairs. The question for 2016 now turns on whether foreign policy fluency and the seasoning of elected office somehow morph into assets, a development that could dislodge the two outsiders who are currently perched comfortably atop the polls — Donald Trump and Ben Carson — and reorder the race.


"It's one thing to have a protest vote," New York Republican Rep. Peter King, chairman of the Homeland Security subcommittee on counterterrorism and intelligence, told POLITICO. "If anything good can come of this tragedy, I would hope it would steer the debate toward who can handle Al Qaeda and ISIS and away from sound bites."

It did on Sunday. As Speaker Paul Ryan ordered the flags at the U.S. Capitol lowered to half-staff to honor the 129 people killed in Paris, including one American student, Nohemi Gonzalez, the Republican presidential field was quizzed on U.S. refugee policy, no-fly zones in Syria, NATO's Article 5 and the use of military force abroad.

Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, called for a declaration of war against the Islamic State. Sen. Marco Rubio said America is engaged in a "clash of civilizations." But Carson struggled to articulate how exactly his foreign policy vision would translate in the real world.

“Well, obviously, extending, you know, our support to the French,” he said on Fox News Sunday when asked what a President Carson’s first steps would have been following the Paris terror attack. When host Chris Wallace pressed him three times on whom he would call first to put together an international military coalition, Carson demurred three times before saying he would call "all of the Arab states" and "all of our traditional allies."

"I don't want to leave anybody out," Carson said.

Donald Trump, who before the attack had said his ISIL policy would be to "bomb the s--t out of them," was unusually absent, not just from the Sunday interview circuit but the entire discussion. He had spent the weekend shouting on Twitter in all-caps: "When will President Obama issue the words RADICAL ISLAMIC TERRORISM?" "He is just so bad! CHANGE." "We need much tougher, much smarter leadership - and we need it NOW!"

The violence in France comes at a time in the cycle when numerous 2016 operatives say voters are starting to shift from not just deciding who they like, but who they want to serve as president. Even before the attacks, for instance, a super PAC supporting John Kasich held a focus group in New Hampshire last week and reported that every attendee mentioned "experience” as important to them.

It was the first time that had happened, according to Matt David, a strategist for the Kasich super PAC.

On Sunday, Kasich, who has been almost alone in touting his congressional committee experience on the campaign trail, was rushing to get out all his specific prescriptions on Fox: arming the Kurds, putting in a no-fly zone, tying in the Saudis and Jordanians, coordinating intelligence better internationally.

"There’s so many things we need to do and, frankly, we’re behind the curve,” Kasich said.

Bush, Kasich, Rubio and Sen. Lindsey Graham were among those who spoke fluently on foreign affairs on the Sunday shows.

"I have a plan. Please, for God's sake, wake up to the threats we face," Graham, whose poor polling caused him to be excluded from the most recent GOP debate, said on CNN. "Hit them before they hit us. Fight them in their backyard, not our backyard." Among the most hawkish candidates in the field, Graham has called for sending 10,000 American troops to Iraq and Syria.

Bush spoke confidently about foreign affairs on both CNN’s “State of the Union” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.” But when NBC’s Chuck Todd asked Bush whether he thought Carson or Trump were ready to be commander in chief, he replied, "I don't know. The words that I hear them speaking give me some concern."

It’s too soon to know whether voters will more closely scrutinize foreign policy credentials in the wake of the Paris attacks — or whether it will have any material effect at all. Steve Schmidt, a veteran GOP strategist and senior adviser to John McCain's 2008 campaign, predicted the current dynamic would remain unchanged so long as no one in the race — experienced or not — is leveling with the American people about the true costs of quelling the threats abroad.

"Simply asserting 'I will destroy ISIS' absent any honesty with the American people of what is required to do that is platitudes," Schmidt said. For voters, he said, "There's no difference between an experienced politician offering platitudes and an inexperienced outsider offering platitudes."

“The American people have been communicated to like children — by both parties — and with extreme dishonestly by the administration,” Schmidt said.

The Paris attacks are reverberating on the Democratic side of the aisle, as well. "This election is not only about electing a president," as Hillary Clinton said in her opening statement at Saturday's Democratic debate in Des Moines. "It's also about choosing our next commander in chief."

Throughout the weekend, Republicans trained their fire on Clinton for her refusal, along with President Obama, to label the attackers radical Islamists.

“I don’t understand it,” Rubio said on ABC’s “This Week." “That would be like saying we weren’t at war with Nazis because we were afraid to offend some Germans who may have been members of the Nazi Party but weren’t violent themselves.”