Surprise: Members of the Political Parties Have Different Ideas About Foreign Policy

There’s an interesting article on the results of a survey on foreign affairs commissioned by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The results aren’t particularly surprising. Americans, regardless of party affiliation, tend to be interventionist in their views. Americans are concerned about the rise of Islamist fundamentalism, increasingly so. Republicans are more hawkish than Democrats. Democrats are pro-amnesty for illegal immigrants; Republicans favor expulsion but not as greatly as you might think. A majority of Democrats believe that climate change is a serious, immediate problem. A majority of Republicans do, too, although more Republicans think a measured solution is adequate than believe that immediate, strenuous action is called for.

Americans regardless of party overwhelmingly believe in maintaining U. S. military dominance, international treaties, strengthening the United Nations, and “free trade” agreements.

Would you have believed that 53% of Republicans and 44% of Democrats (44% of Americans overall) support sending troops into Iran if Iran violates the deal that the Obama Administration has negotiated? I find it distressing that so many Americans believe in preventive war (it’s self defense if you go to war because another country attacks you; it’s “preemptive war” if you go to war because another country is about to attack you; it’s “preventive war” if you go to war because another country could go to war against you).

I recommend you dig into the more detailed report on results. It’s actually more revealing than the executive summary. For example, see this graphic illustrating how Americans “prefer the United States fight terrorism”:

How American Prefer to Fight Terrorism

Pretty bellicose, no?

The real surprises in these results might be how much consensus there is among Americans on issues that haven’t been as highly publicized and how the leaders of the political parties struggle to reconcile their own actions with what their voters believe about foreign policy.

19 comments… add one
  • steve Link

    Yup. We like going to war, and we love bombing (now droning) people. Once you acknowledge that is who we are, I think you can see it is seldom possible to eliminate or completely avoid military activity overseas. The best you can do is minimize it.

    Steve

  • ... Link

    I find it distressing that so many Americans believe in preventive war (it’s self defense if you go to war because another country attacks you; it’s “preemptive war” if you go to war because another country is about to attack you; it’s “preventive war” if you go to war because another country could go to war against you).

    Why do you find it distressing? It’s the great lesson of WWII, or so we’re told*, which was the greatest foreign war in which we’ve been involved. Couple that with a world in which Mohammedans with box cutters can kill thousands, bring down the biggest buildings in the country, wound our economy grievously, AND get us to fundamentally change the way we run our country, and THEN add the idea of Mohammedans with nukes? All of that BEFORE the media-political-industrial complex puts out endless amounts of pro-intervention propaganda.

    That’s not distressing; that’s expected.

    * See The Godfather for a pop culture view of the matter.

  • TastyBits Link

    Claiming to support invading Iran, and supporting an actual invasion of Iran are two different things. In the abstract, Americans support a lot of things. The support various gun control laws on paper, and they are against a lot of the things they actually do.

    There is no large support to send troops into Syria to fight ISIS which is supposed to be the biggest threat to civilization. There is no call to send troops back into Iraq now or before ISIS got going, and there is no call to send additional troops into Afghanistan. There is support for leaving some number of troops, but they are already in place.

    Americans will “rally around the flag” once troops are sent into a dangerous situation, and knowing this, politicians will often ignore public opinion knowing they will get support after the fact. Americans will tolerate bombing campaigns, also, and they would support special ops missions for specific purposes. The drone war is being done out of sight because the public support would soon dwindle.

    Starting military action is difficult. Were it not, it would occur more often. Afghanistan would have permanent bases. A secure land route through Pakistan would have been established. A secure port in Pakistan would have been established. Iraq would have permanent bases. Libya would have been invaded, and permanent bases, ports, and airfields would have been established by now. The Panama Canal would still be under US control. Cuba would have been invaded with US troops. The bases in the Philippines would still exist. The military would never have been cut. The draft would still exist.

  • Why do you find it distressing?

    The emphasis in the sentence is on “preventive”. If we had attacked Japan in November of 1941, it would have been preemptive. If we had attacked Japan in 1931, it would have been preventive.

    How in the world do you limit your targets in preventive war? Why not just bomb everybody?

  • Afghanistan would have permanent bases. A secure land route through Pakistan would have been established. A secure port in Pakistan would have been established. Iraq would have permanent bases. Libya would have been invaded, and permanent bases, ports, and airfields would have been established by now. The Panama Canal would still be under US control. Cuba would have been invaded with US troops. The bases in the Philippines would still exist. The military would never have been cut. The draft would still exist.

    I think you’re highlighting the difference between what Americans think and what their leaders think.

  • TastyBits Link

    There are also differences between what a politician says and what he/she does. President Obama was going to be the anti-Bush president, but he has kept a lot of the Bush programs in place. I suspect that the world looks a lot different from the other side of the desk in the Oval Office.

    When it comes time for President McCain to invade Syria, he might have a lot more information, and he will definitely have more responsibility. President Trump will learn that being president is not a reality show where you can just tell world leaders, “you’re fired.”

    I view them as if they were my dogs. My dogs can bark at the cat all they want. They think they would rip the cat to shreds if they could get at it. Now, the cat is twice their size, and were the sliding glass door to suddenly open, they would learn that making a lot of noise from a safe house is not the same as actually having to implement the “ripping the cat to shreds” plan.

    Occasionally, the stars align, and we get an Iraq.

  • Ken Hoop Link

    I suspect the fact Americans are susceptible to warmongering propaganda of a grotesque nature is related to the comparatively recent frontier-conquering history and to the relative ignorance shown about the world of its citizens, dumbed down by American mass culture.
    Thankfully the world is resisting this globalist neoliberalism, led by Russia. Another military loss or two should lead to a multipolar world.

  • Ken:

    Of your several explanations I don’t believe this one:

    the comparatively recent frontier-conquering history

    but I do believe this

    the relative ignorance shown about the world of its citizens, dumbed down by American mass culture.

    I think that the “frontier, etc.” explanation is largely just propaganda that we’ve been fed. Very few Americans have actual experience with frontier-conquering or family history of it. What they know they know because it’s what they’ve been told.

    As to this:

    Another military loss or two should lead to a multipolar world.

    we haven’t had any military losses. What we’ve had are military victories or, at worst, stalemates and political defeats. We are strong militarily and weak politically. Our stalemates have largely been due to political weakness.

  • sam Link

    “Starting military action is difficult.”

    I dunno. I’ve always liked Elizabeth I’s observation that “wars are easily started, but not soon ended.”

    “Were it not, it would occur more often. ”

    Well, I’m 75 and in every decade of my life, my country has been engaged in military conflict somewhere in the world.

  • sam Link

    Hmm. My last is in moderation. Really?

  • Really?

    In that one you used a different phony email address than the one you’ve been using (typo).

  • TastyBits Link

    @sam

    Let us review direct US military action:

    Afghanistan & Iraq – US started
    Kuwait liberation – Saddam started
    Granada – US started
    Vietnam – French started
    Korea – UN action
    WW2 – Japan started, Germany followed
    WW1 – Europe started, Wilson dragged US into it
    Banana Wars – US actions for US corporations
    Spanish American War – US started for Pacific coaling stations

    The Banana Wars were done mostly out-of-sight, and Granada was over before it got going. Other than WW2, there was a vocal opposition to the remaining military actions, and some of it was substantial.

    Apparently, I am the only one who remembers that there were quite a few people opposed to the Iraq war, and I am one of the few who actually can point out the vast majority of supposedly blood thirsty Americans who somehow have no desire to fulfill their desires in Syria.

    If the people who want to drag the US into Syria had their way, it would not stop there. There are countless places around the world that need fixing, and every time you destroy the bad guy’s hideout, they are going to move somewhere else. The do-gooders will never stop doing good, and the worry-warts will never stop worrying.

    Starting a war means moving troops, equipment, armaments, and munitions to the staging areas, and this takes time. Wars are not soon ended because it takes time for the winner to convince the loser that they are beaten. For some reason, humans never anticipate the resilience of their fellow humans.

  • sam Link

    TB, I’ll amend the list a bit:

    Afghanistan & Iraq – US started
    Kuwait liberation – Saddam grabs Kuwait. So what? USA: What! We form a coalition, go to war.
    Granada – US started
    Vietnam – French kicked out of IndoChina. Civil war commences. So what? USA: What! Bullshit Gulf of Tonkin “incident” — we invade South Vietnam.
    Korea – Another civil war. So what? USA: What! etc.
    I’ll give you WWII.
    WWI – So what? USA: What! “Lafayette we are here”, etc.

  • TastyBits Link

    @sam

    Again, the US rarely starts wars, and it will be a long time until it starts another one. Your modifications did nothing to alter that statement.

    If it were easy, there would have been no Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Bay of Pigs would never have happened. The US would have invaded with US forces overthrowing Castro and replacing Batista.

    If it were easy, President Carter would have been impeached for not invading Iran after the Iran Hostage Crisis. If it were easy, President Reagan would have invaded Nicaragua and overthrown the Sandinistas, and as with President Carter, he would have been impeached for not invading and occupying Lebanon over the Marine Barracks Bombing. If it were easy, either President Clinton or President Bush would have been held accountable for a proper military response to the USS Cole incident.

    In order to get Americans behind any military action beforehand, the politicians usually must spend months using various public relations (propaganda) tricks to convince enough Americans they are or may be right. “It is easier to obtain forgiveness than permission.” This is their mindset, and it usually works.

  • I absolutely cannot believe what I’m reading here.

    It seems a lot of you have a very selective view of history.

    We entered WWI because of American public outrage over Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare, German behavior in places like Belgium and the Zimmerman telegram…that’s what forced Wilson’s hand.

    WW II is obvious. And note, both were properly declared wars with the president making the case to congress.

    Vietnam and Korea? Both caused, along with the enslavement of eastern Europe by Harry Truman’s administration being riddled with commie sympathizers and actual Soviet agents. Had Truman in 1945 simply insisted that Russians and their client stooges pull back to the Soviet borders they would have had no choice but to do so and there would have been no North Korea or North Vietnam.

    Remember, we had the bomb, they didn’t and their armies were extremely dependent on US $$ and supplies back then. Not only that, but it was Truman’s stubborn refusal to listen to General MacArthur and supply our troops in South Korea with artillery and anti-tank weapons simply because he hated MacArthur and Sygman Rhee that led to the Soviets to risk arming the Norks and having them attack. in hopes of a quick victory.

    As for Vietnam, just because it was executed poorly doesn’t mean it was the wrong thing to do. Imagine how things would have been if we had formally declared war against NV and conducted it as such…which is how Nixon finally got them to end it.

    Cuba? My, we’ve certainly had no worries since we allowed the Soviets to violate the Monroe doctrine, now have we? I bet a lot of the Cubans now living in totalitarian slavery on $20 a month wish we’d invaded back in the1960’s.

    Iran? If we had reacted in 1979 by telling the Iranians they had 24 hours to release our diplomats or else and followed up on their failure to do so by heavily bombing their ports, oil and gas fields, Qom and their infrastructure just for starters, do any of you think we’d be having the problems with them we’re having now? They’ve been allowed to get away with murder because there have never been any consequences..except during the 80’s when Reagan punished them severely for trying to close down the Persian Gulf.

    The lesson here is that great powers preserve their respect in part by establishing the fact that crossing them carries major consequences. That’s especially true when you’re dealing with totalitarian regimes. Sometimes that takes simply leaving a bloody mess to drive that lesson home as an example to others rather than indulging in the farce of nation building .

    When you lose the national will to do that, when you engage in fuzzy exercises that cost blood and treasure with no concrete objectives, guess what? Other nations realize that screwing with you carries no consequences and you’re no longer respected. That’s exactly where we are now. I don’t see any point in applauding it.

    And ultimately, it costs a lot less in blood and treasure simply because bad actors see the consequences.

  • I agree with some of your analyses above, Rob, but not all. For example, I think that we were the aggressors in WWI, not Germany. It’s been conclusively proven that the Lusitania (among others) was carrying munitions and the Germans were completely within their rights to sink it.

    The issue in Viet Nam was that the United States did not have the political will to win it and, consequently, should have let it go in 1962.

    I agree with your assessment of Carter’s reaction to the Iranian crisis but I wouldn’t have gone about things in quite that way. I would have rallied our European allies (maybe the Soviets, too) to assist us in intervening on the grounds of maintaining the sanctity of embassies. Said another way, either they were willing to defend our embassy or we shouldn’t be willing to defend theirs.

    Soviet Russia was a genuine threat. It was evangelizing and millennialist in its ideology. Putin’s Russia isn’t. It’s simply irredentist. Our notional European allies should be re-arming themselves and we should be encouraging that. We shouldn’t be their proxies.

    Right now our issue resembles Viet Nam in the sense that we have the will to wage war without the will to win wars. My preferred solution to that is that we should pick our battles much more carefully than we have been.

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