The next administration would do well to take advice from an American electorate that is becoming increasingly more realist on foreign affairs.
As President-elect Trump prepares take the reigns of government as the next commander in chief, he is receiving no shortage of advice about which issues should be his top priorities, which nations his administration should keep an eye on, and what kinds of policies he should enact in order to promote United States interests around the world. The president-elect would be wise to listen to the American people when he forms those policies, 52 percent of whom believe U.S. foreign policy over the past 15 years has made them less safe.
A new national survey from the Charles Koch Institute and the Center for the National Interest, conducted this month, reveals a belief that is as widespread among the electorate as it is prudent foreign policy advice: The U.S. should ask a lot of questions before deploying the awesome power of its military or spending billions of taxpayer dollars on problem areas around the world.
When more than half of Americans polled agree with the notion that American foreign policy has made the international community less safe (51 percent) as opposed to more safe (11 percent), it doesn’t take a foreign service officer with three decades of globetrotting experience to understand that the American people desire a more restrained, pragmatic approach.
The CKI/CNI survey is full of examples that illustrate how unsatisfied Americans are with the foreign policy and national security elites that have converted Washington into their permanent home base.
The American people are smart. They recognize that the U.S., however powerful it is and will continue to be, wouldn’t be able to perform a lot of functions around the world without treaty allies, friends and partners. But they also realize that, because the U.S. is so strong economically, militarily and diplomatically relative to other nations, even allies and friends have a natural tendency to piggyback on U.S. shoulders when a Russian bear pops out of the woods or a dictator starts arresting his political opponents.
This is likely why a 36 percent plurality in the survey want the incoming administration to “encourage European allies in NATO to increase their spending on national defense,” a change that U.S. policymakers have pushed for but European nations have been slow to do. Only four of NATO’s 27 members (excluding the U.S.) meet the 2 percent GDP requirement on defense spending. To say it undiplomatically, Americans are tired of the Europeans not fulfilling their NATO commitments.
The next commander in chief will undoubtedly confront crises both big and small, some of which will impact core U.S. national security interests and others that will be so unrelated to U.S. national security that it would be rash and foolish to plunge our military into the problem. But if the survey is indeed representative of the entire population at large, then the American people are crystal clear about what they want from their new government: More diplomacy rather than military force, with policymakers relying less on military solutions to disputes that are political at their core.
Despite a near-universal concern in Washington that Russian President Vladimir Putin is an increasingly belligerent despot who is a stone’s throw away from invading the Baltics, Americans aren’t necessarily convinced that the threat is looming or that the U.S. military should be responsible for taking the lead in defending the European continent.
Only 12 percent of Americans surveyed argued for an increase in U.S. troops in Europe and more than a quarter (28 percent) actually want U.S. troop numbers in Europe to decrease. On the question of whether the U.S. should consider Russia an adversary or an ally, a plurality of 38 percent chose both titles at the same time. That finding that could plausibly be interpreted as Americans wanting the next administration to see shades of gray rather than embracing a black-and-white paradigm on Russia. Washington should work with Moscow when they can, but push back when they must.
The bottom-line of the survey can’t be clearer: For Americans who aren’t part of the foreign policy establishment, but nevertheless pay for the country’s defense budget, foreign assistance programs, and State Department accounts, foreign policy is best served with a heavy portion of cold, hard realism.
Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
