But in a campaign likely to be dominated by a slow-burning nuclear crisis with Iran, the likelihood of a North Korean nuclear test, the kind of eruptions with China that have dominated headlines for the past two weeks and the end of the surge in Afghanistan come September, the internal struggles between the various factions within the Romney campaign are likely to become evident.

Iran may be a first test. Mr. Romney put it pretty bluntly, in another line that caused some of his advisers to cringe and others to celebrate, when he declared late in 2011: “If we re-elect Barack Obama, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. If you elect me as president, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.”

BUT when pressed on how, exactly, his strategy would differ from Mr. Obama’s, Mr. Romney had a hard time responding. The economic sanctions Mr. Obama has imposed have been far more crippling to the Iranian economy than anything President Bush did between the public revelation of Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities in 2003 and the end of Mr. Bush’s term in early 2009. Covert action has been stepped up, too. Mr. Bolton has called efforts to negotiate with Iran “delusional,” but other advisers — mostly those who dealt with the issue during the Bush administration — say they are a critical step in holding together the European allies and, if conflict looms, proving to Russia and China that every effort was made to come to a peaceful resolution. Several e-mails to the campaign asking for Mr. Romney’s position on the talks yielded no response.

“There are two very different worldviews in this campaign,” said one adviser who aligns more often with Mr. Bolton. “But as in any campaign, there are outer circles, inner circles and inner-inner circles, and I’m not sure that anyone knows if the candidate has a strong view of his own on this.” Another adviser, saying he would be “cashiered” if the campaign caught him talking to a reporter without approval, said the real answer was that “Romney doesn’t want to really engage these issues until he is in office” and for now was “just happy to leave the impression that when Obama says he’ll stop an Iranian bomb he doesn’t mean it, and Mitt does.”

On some issues, Mr. Romney clearly does have his own views: He drafted an op-ed opposing the ratification of the New Start treaty with Russia, which cut in half the two countries’ nuclear launchers but left huge stockpiles of non-deployed nuclear weapons largely untouched — without much input from his staff. In recent days, Mr. Romney’s advisers argued that the candidate’s declaration that Russia is “our No. 1 geopolitical foe” looks less out of touch now that President Vladimir V. Putin reclaimed his office with a brutal crackdown on dissent. Mr. Romney’s best line: He will “reset the reset.”

More complicated for Mr. Romney, given his business credentials, is his position on China. He argues for more arms to Taiwan and much tougher use of trade sanctions to respond to China’s currency and market manipulations.