BOTH BARACK OBAMA and John McCain claim to be a new type of politician who will eschew the partisan demagoguery of the past and explain his position on important issues in a straightforward way. You would never know that, however, by the way both candidates have run their campaigns so far.

One good example is the attempt by the Obama campaign to portray Senator McCain as out of touch with the average American because he owns a number of houses and couldn’t state exactly how many when asked by a reporter. I’m certain that Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, Ted Kennedy, Jay Rockefeller, John Kerry, and other Democrats in Congress who are wealthier than John McCain have now reviewed carefully how many houses they own, but does their wealth make them equally out of touch with the general electorate? Unfortunately, such gotcha tactics are not confined just to frivolous matters.

One example involves the issue of how to deal with al-Qaida and Taliban terrorists who use the tribal areas of Pakistan where governmental control is shaky at best to rest, train, and plan attacks on civilians and coalition forces in Afghanistan.

The problem that this situation poses for our troops is obvious. The answer is not. The problem is so complex that any approach to solving it will inevitably create other, equally serious, problems. For better or worse, the support of Pakistan is vital to coalition success in Afghanistan. Any tactical gains made by attacking our enemies in the tribal areas must be carefully balanced against the political problems that such actions might cause for the government of Pakistan.

Referring to this situation in a 2007 speech on defense issues, Obama said, “There must be no safe haven for terrorists who threaten America” and then added, “If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President [Pervez] Musharraf won’t act, we will.”

In an effort to contrast Obama’s comments unfavorably with his earlier statement that he would meet with leaders such as Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions, President Bush incorrectly said that Obama would “attack Pakistan and embrace Ahmadinejad.” In a similar vein, John McCain said in an interview, “You don’t broadcast that you are going to bomb a country that is a sovereign nation and that you are dependent on . . . to help you in the war.”

Also commenting on Obama’s statement, Sen. Joe Biden noted at the time, “The last thing you want to do is telegraph to the folks in Pakistan that we’re about to violate quote ‘their sovereignty.’ ”

If Obama did not mean he would “bomb” or “attack” Pakistan, what did he mean by “we will act”? When all the charges and countercharges ended, voters still had no clear idea how either Obama or McCain would deal with the problem.

The war in Afghanistan is not the first time that U.S. forces have had to deal with an enemy that found sanctuary in a neighboring country. Unfortunately, previous examples tend to reveal more problems than solutions.

Immediately after World War II, the U.S. government confronted this problem when it supported the Greek government against a communist-led insurgency during the Greek Civil War. At the start of the war, the insurgents were given training, logistics support, and sanctuary by the communist governments of neighboring Albania, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria.

As long as that situation existed, the Greek army was unable to defeat the insurgency. The situation was reversed, however, when Yugoslavia’s leader, Josip Tito, closed its borders to the insurgents. Although U.S. protests to the Soviet Union might have had some effect, Tito’s decision appears to have been largely the result of a personal feud between him and the Soviet dictator, Josef Stalin, and a decision by the Greek communists to support Stalin.

The Greek example might suggest dealing with the problem by a combination of exercising diplomacy at the highest level and doing nothing on the battlefield, but the conditions in Greece were unique ones that are unlikely to be repeated in Afghanistan.

American forces ran into the problem again in Vietnam where Viet Cong insurgents and North Vietnamese regulars used Laos and Cambodia to train and re-supply their forces in South Vietnam and provide them sanctuary from attack.

The initial U.S. response was to employ bombing and special-operations forces to interdict North Vietnamese supply lines in Laos and Cambodia, but those attempts were doomed by the massive scale of North Vietnamese operations.

In order to buy time in which to withdraw U.S. forces from South Vietnam, President Nixon authorized the invasion of North Vietnamese-controlled areas in Cambodia. Militarily the invasion was successful in destroying massive amounts of enemy supplies and disrupting their command and control network.

Politically, however, the invasion was problematic because many Americans bought the line that the United States had “widened” the war, even though the North Vietnamese had been using Cambodian territory for years.

Similar problems will plague the next president as he deals with the issue of sanctuary in Pakistan. Between now and the election, we can only hope that members of the media will ask Obama and McCain serious questions about how they intend to deal with those issues and give them time to provide serious answers.

Col. Theodore L. Gatchel (USMC Ret.), a monthly contributor, is a military historian and an emeritus professor of operation at the Naval War College. The views here are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Naval War College, the Navy or the Department of Defense.