Source: The New Republic
In the 2000 presidential campaign, Al Gore put forth an expansive vision of America taking leadership in an interdependent world. "The world's coming together," he declared in an October debate. "They're looking to us." George W. Bush, by contrast, espoused a narrow nationalism except on trade and immigration. "We should not send our troops to stop ethnic cleansing and genocide in nations outside our strategic interest," he asserted in January 2000.
Five years later, Bush is advocating an expansive American role in spreading freedom and democracy around the world; but much of the country and even segments of the foreign policy elite have reverted to the more constricted views that Bush promoted during the 2000 campaign. That's the provocative finding of an extensive poll of Americans' foreign policy views conducted in October by the Pew Research Center and released last week.
Under the impact of the administration's failure in Iraq, the public has become wary of American involvement overseas. It increasingly rejects both a liberal internationalist and a neoconservative approach to foreign affairs. Instead, its attitude is similar to the prevailing outlook of the 1920s and '30s and to the worldview held by many Americans in the '90s. Voters, in short, are becoming more isolationist. This change in mood will likely affect the elections of 2006 and 2008; and more important, it could affect how future American administrations conduct themselves in the world.
To parse these findings, one needs to distinguish among four rival foreign policy outlooks:
Liberal internationalism, which originated with Woodrow Wilson, emphasizes American leadership through alliances and international organizations in an interdependent world. It aims to spread democracy. It favors free trade and relatively open borders.
Neoconservatism, which emerged in the '90s as a distinct foreign policy, shares the aims of liberal internationalism, including global democracy promotion and the removal of barriers to trade and immigration, but aims to accomplish these ends unilaterally or through ad hoc alliances. It seeks a unipolar democratic world under American hegemony.
Business isolationism, which dates from the '20s, and was espoused by House Republicans in the '90s and Bush in 2000, professes a lack of concern with what kind of governments other nations have, and what they do to one another militarily, except insofar as they threaten the United States directly. Economics, though, is the exception. Business isolationists support free trade and open borders and worry about access to raw materials and oil.
Populist isolationism, which also goes back to the '20s and found spokesmen recently in Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan, disdains foreign alliances and concerns except when the United States is directly threatened--but, unlike business isolationism, opposes free trade and liberal immigration policies.
In the '20s and '30s, isolationism prevailed both among foreign policy elites and the general public. From 1940 to the end of the Cold War, liberal internationalism was favored by elites and, to a great extent, the general public. But since the '90s, there has been a clash among all four views. After September 11, liberal internationalism and neoconservatism enjoyed a resurgence, but as the Pew poll shows, isolationism has made a vigorous comeback, especially among the general public.
Since 1964, polls--first Gallup, then Pew--have been asking Americans whether the "United States should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own." An affirmative answer is a good indication of isolationist sentiment and hostility to both liberal internationalism and neoconservatism. In 1964, for instance, Gallup found only 18 percent of Americans agreed, while 70 percent disagreed, with this statement. The number began to rise soon afterwards; by June 1995, with the end of Cold War and the Republican capture of Congress, it had risen to 41 percent.
In September 2001, as Americans learned the hard way of our connection to the rest of the world, the number fell to 30 percent. Americans once more saw themselves as having global responsibilities. But according to the current Pew poll, it has now risen to an all-time high of 42 percent. That represents a sharp shift, and according to the Pew numbers, most of it took place in the last year, as Americans have become thoroughly disillusioned with the Iraq war.
As might be expected, the public is also increasingly hostile to international institutions. Since 2002 the percentage of Americans believing that the United States "should cooperate fully with the United Nations" has fallen from 67 to 54 percent, and the proportion wanting the United States to go its "own way in international matters ... whether countries agree or not" has risen from 25 to 32 percent. But while the public increasingly favors the neoconservatives' unilateralism, it does not want to use American power to advance liberal or neoconservative objectives. In September 2001, 29 percent thought "promoting democracy in other nations" should be a "top priority." Today that number has fallen to 24 percent.
Pew also conducted 520 interviews with opinion leaders from the news media, foreign policy and defense organizations, state and local governments, universities, churches, think tanks, and the military. The survey found general support for the preferred methods of liberal internationalists, revealing that by about eight-to-one elites favor the United States playing a "shared leadership role" rather than being the "single world leader." But in the wake of the disaster in Iraq, there has been a decline of support for the actual goals of liberal internationalism, as well as neoconservatism. In 2001, for instance, 44 percent of foreign policy specialists thought "promoting democracy in other nations" should be a "top priority." Today, only 18 percent do. That may be because Bush's intervention has temporarily given democracy promotion a bad name, but it may also reflect a withdrawal from historic American objectives.
The clearest difference between elites and the public shows up over trade and immigration. According to the Pew poll, about 80 percent of elites think NAFTA was a "good thing" compared to 44 percent of the public. Only 12 percent of foreign policy experts would make "reducing illegal immigration" a "top priority." But 51 percent of the general public thinks it should be, up from 42 percent in September 1997. These figures don't mean that the public wants to repeal NAFTA or shut the border with Mexico, but they do suggest the public has become, if anything, more leery of the benefits of free trade and immigration. That, along with the public's growing hostility to international alliances and overseas intervention, suggests Perot-style populist isolationism is on the rise again--perhaps winning support among 30 to 40 percent of the public.
Baring a dramatic change in America's fortunes abroad, these sentiments could have repercussions in the coming elections. Insofar as growing isolationism suggests public disenchantment with foreign policy itself, that favors Democrats, who do better when elections are fought over domestic concerns. Bill Clinton defeated George H.W. Bush in 1992 partly by suggesting that Bush was too concerned with America's role overseas. Republican candidates could, of course, try to repudiate Bush's preoccupation with creating global democracy, but that might only divide their own base.
The presidential candidate who is probably most out of step with these trends in public opinion is John McCain, who favors sending additional troops to Iraq and granting a generous amnesty for illegal immigrants. In the Pew survey, only 10 percent of the public favored sending more troops to Iraq; 56 percent favored withdrawing troops. McCain will have to hope that by election time, the United States is out of Iraq and voters are looking, as they did in 2000, for character and leadership rather than specific policies. Some Democrats, like Joseph Biden, who has made his name as the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, might find the political climate equally inhospitable.
The growth of isolationist sentiment can cast a pall over the formulation of foreign policy. During Clinton's first term, he suffered not only from inexperience in foreign relations, but also from a public and a Republican Congress that disdained foreign involvement. Voter support for America minding its own business reached its prior peak in June 1995 just as French President Jacques Chirac was complaining that the post of world leader was "vacant." Bush's foreign-policy stumbling during his first nine months in office was also partly attributable to public attitudes. The next administration could face a similar trial--and in a world that over the last ten years has grown more dangerous and more interdependent.
John B. Judis is a senior editor at TNR and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Reprinted by permission of THE NEW REPUBLIC, 2005, The New Republic, LLC.