Does Foreign Policy Matter in Presidential Elections? What Recent History Shows

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Oct 31

Of all the subjects at the forefront of this year’s presidential campaign, we do not hear much about foreign policy. Why is that? Certainly, it is not because there is a shortage of subjects to discuss. A quick perusal of my newsfeeds documents the unusually turbulent world we live in today, and the preponderance of global issues that have consequences, some vital, for the United States. Here is a sampling, from news outlets from across the political spectrum: the Houthis in Yemen, Turkey’s decision to join the BRICS bloc, Israel and Gaza, Brazil, Ukraine and Russia, Iran, China, Mexico and the southern border, and Artificial Intelligence. Many voters have heard of these issues, and would concede they are important, yet they often get crowded out in discussions of subjects that are sometimes less important. This disconnect goes to the heart of how American voters choose their leaders – historically as well as today.

At least since James Carville coined the phrase, “it’s the economy, stupid,” during Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, the conventional wisdom has been that U.S. foreign policy does not play a decisive role in the outcome of presidential elections. Perhaps it is true that Americans are more motivated to vote according to pocketbook or kitchen table issues. It’s easier to form an opinion about the state of the nation, not to mention one’s personal finances, by, say, weekly visits the grocery store. Seen from that vantage point, regardless of where one finds themself on the political spectrum, the state of the nation is something that probably most people have an opinion about this year, even those who do not typically share unsolicited political thoughts. These used to be called “nerve issues,” because like an electrified third rail, they shocked you when there was a sudden shift – topics like inflation, crime, and those that people find personal or moral. To these voters, it’s not primarily politics that drives their thought process.

Subjects like foreign policy and grand strategy, on the other hand, can seem more distant, complex, and abstract for the average voter. The average American is not likely to be as passionate about the future of bilateral treaty relationships, how to negotiate an end to the wars in Ukraine or Gaza, or whether we are now in a Cold War 2.0 situation, as some have suggested, than they are about the price of child care, formula, and heating oil. The unwritten rule of politics in 2024 might be to say as little as possible about foreign policy – unless a serious crisis emerges that becomes an unavoidable test of leadership. Perhaps that strategy has not changed much over recent history. I suppose LBJ said it best when he said – and I paraphrase, since I suspect many things attributed to him are actually apocryphal – “you know, foreigners, they’re not like us.” At the same time, foreign policy obviously plays some kind of role in every campaign and sometimes a big role in some campaigns. It’s worth exploring whether there are examples to the contrary – of elections in which U.S. foreign policy played a bigger role than usual, or could have played a decisive role.

If you were to ask me for an example of a recent presidential election in which foreign policy figured largely, I would say there are a few prominent examples. In 1952, the Korean War was a major issue. General Dwight Eisenhower campaigned on a pledge that he would go to Korea, implying that he would solve the crisis on the Korean Peninsula that had been stalemated since late 1950, following Chinese entry. Eisenhower indeed went to Korea, and an armistice was achieved in July 1953 – only six months into his presidency. More recently, in 2004, I remember how 9/11 still loomed large. The Bush 43 administration made the case that it was better to take the fight to Afghanistan, and Iraq, rather than have another attack on U.S. soil. I remember the fear that many Americans had that it was a question of when and not if another attack would occur. It took many years for that concern to gradually fade away. Even so, during the 2004 presidential election, it proved difficult to drive an enthusiastic turnout around the subject of foreign policy. So, Karl Rove took a gamble that actually domestic issues such as the Defense of Marriage Amendment, or DOMA, and character issues – Bush 43 was seen to be someone more Americans wanted to have a beer with, as opposed to the supposedly elitist windsurfing Senator John Kerry – would drive a more favorable mix of turnout in swing states like Ohio, back when the once-purple Buckeye State was a must-win swing state for Republicans.

That leads me to 1968, a year in which foreign policy played a bigger than usual role during that presidential election, one that has been a point of comparison with 2024 in many ways, and was the subject of my last book, The Year That Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968 (Yale University Press, 2023). The year as a whole has been an exceptionally good guide to 2024: a surprise presidential withdrawal, vice presidential succession, an unpopular war that mobilized the youth and the left, a Republican candidate eager for redemption after losing his previous bid for the presidency, political violence, stronger than usual third-party challengers, the return to Chicago for another lively convention, and a historic loss of faith among the electorate in American institutions.

The year was also one in which foreign policy was a factor from January to December. According to Gallup polls, Americans consistently ranked it high in their political thinking throughout the year. It started with the North Korean seizure of the crew of the USS Pueblo. Then there was the Tet Offensive, a simultaneous coordinated attack on American and allied military forces in cities throughout South Vietnam. Coming at a time when Americans had been told the war was going better, how could that be true in light of that attack? The national media raised troubling questions, right as the presidential primaries were beginning, and the issue framed an important part of the campaign and the rest of the year. The Tet Offensive led directly to the Paris peace talks, which began in May, and to Senator Eugene McCarthy’s near defeat of Lyndon Johnson in the New Hampshire primary. McCarthy was the first to challenge LBJ from within his own party. He wasn’t some minor politician few had heard of, but a prominent U.S. Senator – soon to be joined in the race by another, Senator Robert Kennedy. The popular view post-New Hampshire was that LBJ was vulnerable and could be defeated.

The Vietnam peace talks that began in May in Paris, which expanded into parallel private talks that summer, drug on over the summer without a breakthrough. The negotiators, led by U.S. delegation leaders Averell Harriman and Cyrus Vance, were eager to announce a breakthrough, and ultimately to work in the next administration, since there was going to be a new President no matter who won in November given LBJ’s surprise withdrawal on March 31. Vice President Hubert Humphrey was inserted into what was left of Johnson’s campaign infrastructure, and prepared to go to LBJ’s convention in Chicago and defend what was largely Johnson’s platform, too. Humphrey got the nomination not because he was the strongest candidate but because he was the least disruptive substitute for Johnson. Humphrey was criticized for not entering any primaries and for refusing to debate; he claimed there were no debates because Republican candidate Richard Nixon also refused to debate, which was true, but there was no way Humphrey would have shared a debate stage with George Wallace.

Humphrey quickly realized how difficult it would be to run on both change and continuity simultaneously. If he had a new idea, a critic could ask why it wasn’t implemented during his time as Vice President? Everything Humphrey said on the campaign trail was compared to statements he made before he was a candidate, in the hope of finding some difference – and especially to find any perceived difference between him and the President he continued to depend on for support, who was very much still in charge during his remaining months of office. Some pressed Humphrey to resign the vice presidency so he could be truly independent. But he was unwilling to be disloyal, since he had gotten as far as he had in politics due to Johnson. Instead, he found a compromise. After September 30, he stopped using the vice presidential seal at campaign events as a symbolic act of independence.

In the midst of the 1968 campaign, the Soviets also invaded a neighbor, Czechoslovakia. I wonder whether American adversaries, especially in Hanoi and Moscow, took advantage of LBJ’s lame-duck status and the perception of American weakness, or at least the perception of being distracted by an unusually chaotic election cycle. Johnson desperately wanted to be known as a peacemaker in history, or at least make some strides towards that goal during his remaining months in office, or at least leave his successor in a better position than they would have been in without his help. While Americans had consistently identified the Vietnam War as their top or near top concern through the year, according to Gallup, there was a noticeable shift following the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in April and Senator Robert Kennedy in June. Following those acts of political violence, if you add up the individual domestic concerns that Gallup asked about, like violence, arson, looting, and crime, they started to overtake the biggest single concern of Vietnam. In addition, much of the concern about Vietnam had to do with its domestic component, the draft – which united far more Americans across political, social, and economic boundaries in opposition to the war than, say, the wars in Ukraine or Gaza today.

In other words, the 1968 presidential election, the best example we might have a recent presidential election that, at least according to the conventional wisdom, was decided on the basis of foreign policy, was actually decided because of domestic concerns. After the assassinations during the spring, then both party nominees agreed to wind down American military involvement in Southeast Asia, each in their own way, which lessened the war as the most important issue. It does not mean that foreign policy was not important that year. It just means it was more difficult to tease out major differences between the candidates in an area where there are fewer partisan divergences. While today we no longer have the unison that we used to have, when despite our differences over domestic policy when the election was over we used to rally together and had a bipartisan foreign policy, it’s more difficult to tease out differences in say, a candidate’s position vis-à-vis Vietnam in 1968, or China today, then it is tax policy or student loan forgiveness.

In conclusion, I would ask how many of these foreign policy issues do you think Americans are really paying attention to? How much did Americans pay attention to in 1968? The latter is an easier question for me to address. I am fond of saying that since I can barely make sense of the past, I have no chance of making sense of the present. The conventional wisdom in the first draft of history of 1968 was that the American people voted primarily according to their views on Vietnam. If you were for getting out of the war sooner, you voted for Humphrey – or not at all, since you might have been a McCarthy or Kennedy supporter unwilling to make the shift to Humphrey. If you were for ending the war, but doing so in a way more consistent with LBJ’s gradualist approach, you voted for Nixon – who made sure never to criticize Johnson’s position on Vietnam after March 31, realizing that he could do much to help the Nixon side simply by withholding support from the Humphrey side that was trying to break from LBJ’s position. If you were for winning militarily in Vietnam, reducing the involvement of politicians in Washington, and increasing the decision-making of commanders on the ground, then former (and future) Alabama Governor George Wallace was your only option. But as if often the case, how people voted was more complicated, because there were many other factors in play – and I argue that those factors – the economy, inflation, and crime – eclipsed Vietnam for most Americans in 1968 by the time they reached Election Day.