Matt Kroenig: Hi Emma, what do you think is the best way to ingratiate ourselves to our readers? Should we say that they live on a floating island of garbage, or should I just say that I think that the only garbage I see is your fans?
Emma Ashford: We could get into an argument over whether there’s an apostrophe in the word “fan’s,” I suppose. Honestly, it’s ridiculous that the election is so close, and yet the top news stories about it are so utterly banal. Seems like Donald Trump should stop hiring comedians, and Kamala Harris should lock Joe Biden in a windowless room until after Election Day.
MK: Well, it is only a few days away, and we thoroughly debated last time about what a Trump or Harris foreign policy will mean for the future of the United States’ role in the world and how Washington will deal with global hot spots. With any luck, we will know the identity of the next U.S. commander in chief before our next exchange.
So, what should we debate this week?
EA: I want to talk about foreign policy and the election more broadly. I have three questions for you. First: Do voters really care about foreign policy? The conventional wisdom is that it doesn’t matter, but it does seem this time around that issues like Gaza or Ukraine are penetrating the election conversation. What do you think—does foreign policy matter to voters?
MK: No, not really. The United States is a big country, and most voters feel insulated from what is happening overseas. They are also going about their lives, taking kids to school, going to work, watching the World Series, etc. They don’t have the time or interest to parse plans for ending the war in Ukraine.
The economy, immigration, and other things that seem to affect their daily lives matter much more. If foreign policy matters at all in this election (and I think it is still only a No. 4 or No. 5 issue), I think it is just the sense that there is global chaos with wars in multiple regions and which candidate is better able to restore stability. In essence, the American people are electing a wartime president, but I don’t think they see it that way. Do you disagree?
EA: I’m usually pretty cynical about whether voters really care about foreign policy. It is, after all, an elite sport. But I do wonder whether it might matter at the margins. There was an interesting set of research done after Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss, looking at the demographics of the areas that swung heavily toward Trump, that concluded that opposition to the war on terror in areas with high levels of military fatalities might have helped him win that race.
This time around, we have a small but highly conflicted Middle Eastern diaspora in the swing state of Michigan, where Harris is struggling. There are a lot of Jewish voters there, too, as well as a lot of Polish Americans and even a Ukrainian diaspora in Pennsylvania. It might be that if Harris loses, we will look back and wonder if foreign policy did indeed play a role. It’s still not what most folks are voting on, though.
In fact, I tend to hear far more from foreign overseas visitors about foreign policy and the election than I do from friends and family here in the United States! My second question to you: Why are we all so comfortable with the idea that U.S. elections are treated as hugely consequential for the security of Europe, Asia, or elsewhere?
MK: Yes, I was in Bucharest last week—Romania is in the middle of its own presidential election race—and many colleagues there said they were paying more attention to the more consequential U.S. election than their own.
You ask why we are comfortable. I guess I would ask: What is the alternative? The United States is the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world and U.S. foreign-policy decisions have global ramifications in a way that Romania’s rarely do, so it makes sense that other countries are watching closely. And, thank goodness, the United States is a democracy, so our leaders change over every four or eight years.
Would it be preferable for the United States to have a dictator to provide other countries more continuity?
EA: Now you’re just trying to provoke me. Of course not! Though I worry sometimes that folks who work on foreign policy in Washington are uncomfortably close to advocating for something exactly like that with the way they talk about the problems with congressional debates or shifts between administrations.
I’m asking this question instead because since 2016, Europeans and other U.S. allies descend on Washington every four years, freaking out about the potential for the election to upend their security guarantees. And yet, at the same time, these wealthy, technologically advanced democracies have taken almost no steps to reduce their massive dependency on the United States. If U.S. elections are really so destabilizing and concerning, then why are other countries not doing anything to reduce the risk? It’s bothering me this year far more than usual; this is the third election in a row with this dynamic, and yet countries like Germany are still barely taking any steps to address the problem.
MK: All right, let me take this in pieces. First, I do think that allies often worry too much. Elections have consequences to be sure, but I would argue that on the big issues, like understanding and appreciating the value of the United States’ global network of alliances, there has been bipartisan consensus for decades. After all, Romania (it’s on my mind this week) has an alliance with the United States, not with any particular administration or politician, and that will remain true regardless of the outcome of this election.
Second, I agree that allies, like Germany, need to do much more.
Third, as we have argued before, I think it is wrong to see this as an either/or proposition. Every country on the Nordic-Baltic-eastern flank of NATO is meeting the 2 percent NATO burden-sharing requirement, but that is not a replacement for the alliance with the United States. They cannot do it on their own.
I think you present a false choice between European allies taking steps to defend themselves or reliance on the United States. Both are necessary to maintain stability in Europe.
EA: It’s not just the biggest issues about alliances or a complete homegrown European defense, though. One of the candidates has explicitly promised no more aid to Ukraine, and yet European countries have not stepped up on that front, either. And even if you think that places in Europe can’t do it all by themselves, they haven’t even started the process of looking at alternatives.
Some of this, I’m sure, is folks in Washington telling them that it will all be OK. But it still seems to me that, from the point of view of policymakers in some of these countries, they’re being almost negligent in their unwillingness to face the potential for U.S. policy shifts.
Finally, I want to ask a really big question. Are the parties realigning when it comes to U.S. foreign policy? We have Harris out on the stump with Liz Cheney, getting endorsements from Republican foreign-policy pundits like Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol, and making a case for the United States’ role in the world that sounds a heck of a lot closer to George W. Bush than it does to Barack Obama. Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign is issuing warnings about Democrats getting us into World War III and has Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as key campaign surrogates.
If you were to look at this situation from the viewpoint of someone in, say, 2012, it would feel like you’d dropped into a bizarre parallel universe where everything was reversed on foreign policy. Are Democrats now the party of neoconservatism?
MK: I don’t think so. Neoconservatives are comfortable with American military power and cowing adversaries through “escalation dominance.” Biden and Harris have been excessively cautious and accommodate Russia and Iran with “escalation avoidance.”
I think for Cheney this is personal. It is not about policy. She does not like Trump. But she also had a pained look on her face in her joint appearances with Harris. She is not for Harris or Democrats, but against Trump. If Trump hadn’t run in this election and someone like Nikki Haley—who won the second-most votes in the GOP primary—had won the nomination, Cheney would be supporting her.
Do you disagree? And maybe you can explain Tulsi Gabbard?
EA: I don’t think anyone can explain Tulsi Gabbard.
But I can quote Cheney, stumping with Harris: “If you look at where the Republican Party is today, there’s been a really dangerous embrace of isolationism, a dangerous embrace of tyrants.” And it’s not just Cheney. There’s the Lincoln Project, which claims to represent Republicans who are now supportive of Democrats, and folks like Bill Kristol or the writers at the Bulwark, all of whom are campaigning for Harris. They also campaigned for Biden and for Clinton before him. And I do think at a certain point you have to say that this is more than a tactical embrace of one candidate for most of these neoconservative thinkers. They’ve effectively moved into the Democratic Party.
More worryingly, the Harris campaign has seemed quite keen to embrace them. She has picked up Cheney’s talking points on “isolationism.” And even Democratic-leaning groups like National Security Action have come out criticizing Trump for things they would never have said even a few years ago, saying that he “retreated from the world stage … insulted our allies … [and] cozied up to dictators.”
MK: The George W. Bush years were a bit of an aberration and Trump’s foreign policy is more of a return to the Reagan “peace through strength” approach. Most of the GOP’s foreign-policy leaders, like Lindsay Graham, Marco Rubio, Tom Cotton, Mike Walz, Nikki Haley, and others have embraced Trump’s foreign policy.
EA: Well, Nikki Haley ran against Trump in the primary, in part because of his foreign policy choices. But OK.
MK: Cheney and Kristol are part of a small but vocal minority that now find themselves without a party.
Speaking of parties, do you have any fun election-night plans? A watch party at Mar-a-Lago, perhaps?
EA: My invitation must have gotten lost in the mail. I will just be home, watching the returns on TV and enjoying my superior status as a suburban wife and mother in what might still be a borderline swing state. It is rather nice—every four years—being told that the future of U.S. democracy hinges on your specific demographic! Maybe I’ll keep everyone else in suspense about my vote for a few more days.
See you on the other side?
MK: I hope your demographic makes the right choice, and I look forward to debating the outcome next week!
The post Do U.S. Voters Even Care About Foreign Policy? appeared first on Foreign Policy.
