Memo: Americans Want a Progressive Overhaul of American Foreign Policy
By Elizabeth Beavers, Senior Fellow for Data For Progress;
Alexander McCoy, Political Director for Common Defense;
Sean McElwee, co-founder, Data for Progress
In the nearly two decades since the attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States has dramatically increased its global military footprint in the name of national security. This has included large-scale ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, targeted air strikes, covert operations across the Middle East and North Africa, hundreds of military bases across the world, and a heavy pipeline of arms sales. This “War on Terror” posture has carried a massive price tag, both in terms of dollars spent and lives lost.
Here we test how registered voters think about security, and how they respond to proposals to change US national security and foreign policy. We found that the public rejects the predominant, fear-based framing and policies; instead, they want to see a revamped, demilitarized American foreign policy focused on international cooperation, human rights, and peacebuilding. These findings were consistent across the public at large, though they were particularly pronounced among Democratic voters and younger, diverse voters.
Executive Summary
Voters think about their own security and the security of the country primarily in terms of nonmilitary challenges and solutions.
When it comes to the role of the US in the world, voters reject Trump-esque “America First” isolationism, but they also reject the “American exceptionalism” framing that demands a blank check for maintaining global military supremacy and whitewashes harm that some US foreign policy has done in the world.
Voters want to see an end to endless wars as well as to the practice of arming authoritarian regimes that commit human rights abuses in the name of security and counterterrorism.
Voters want to see US funding go to domestic needs such as health care, or to other national security tools like diplomacy, instead of to the Pentagon and more endless war.
Progressive national-security proposals that reject military interventionism in favor of peace and human rights are popular.
