For proponents of U.S. global leadership and, in particular, advocates of leading by the example of the American democratic model, the state of national domestic politics, the health of American democracy, and a growing social divide should be humbling. These domestic factors are substantially affecting the way the U.S. engages international affairs and will carry long term implications for the face of American power, values, alliances, and grand strategy abroad.

In tangible terms, volatility in politics at the national level may lead to a world where countries do their utmost to decrease dependence on the U.S. in any way they can. In less concrete terms, the ways partisanship has hampered good governance in the U.S. hinders what has been a longstanding ability of the U.S. to link its hard power in the military and economic arenas with the soft power gained by the example of American democratic governance.

Nonetheless, the very fact that the United States’ domestic and international challenges are tightly interwoven should also lead us to ask an important question: to what extent can we look to cities, states, and other actors to ameliorate the growing dysfunction at the national level of American politics?

Democratic Decline, A Volatile Washington, and America Abroad
Though the country’s commitment and adherence to the liberal international order over the last 75 years has been far from perfect, never before has the political and societal landscape within the United States represented a major geopolitical risk in and of itself. Crippling partisanship, a divisive president with a predilection for authoritarianism and self-aggrandizement, and imperiled institutions which are proving less resilient than previously thought are all important driving factors of what is arguably a more fraught home life than the country has seen in decades.

“While bipartisan consensus is by no means a guarantor of good policy, the polar opposite — hyperpolarization — inhibits the development and sustainability of strategy altogether.”

Policies and foreign policy objectives that previously sustained bipartisan consensus have become volatile subjects of division. While bipartisan consensus is by no means a guarantor of good policy, the polar opposite — hyperpolarization — inhibits the development and sustainability of strategy altogether. Not only does hyperpolarization hamper the U.S.’ ability to agree and follow through on long-term foreign policy objectives, but Washington’s flip-flopping undermines the U.S.’ ability to credibly provide long-term assurance for allies and would-be partners, and reliably communicate its values and intentions to the wider world. German Chancellor Angela Merkel's statements suggesting that Europe reduce its dependence on the United States stems not just from the antagonistic posture of the current administration toward European allies, but also from an awareness of the broader trajectory of American domestic politics.

This volatility even subverts American negotiating power with adversaries. Should a future U.S. administration seek to credibly negotiate a new agreement with the Iranian government — regardless of the quality and rigor of the policy — they will be met with heavy Iranian skepticism over the sustainability of any deal, given the United States’ previous withdrawal from the JCPOA and the likelihood of a party-line counter-reaction in four to eight years by the opposing American political party.

As put forth in a recent Foreign Affairs article by Daniel Drezner, Ronald Krebs, and Randall Schweller, the hyperpolarization now evident in American political life also raises serious questions about the ability of the U.S. to follow expert consensus (where it exists), and learn from its policy failures. Congress, meanwhile, abdicated much of its ability to provide substantive checks on executive branch foreign policymaking long ago. Apart from its role in ratifying treaties — a responsibility Congress has reliably failed to execute due to domestic politicking — and a small band of bipartisan leaders who have worked to reassert Congress’ war-making authority and exert enduring bipartisan foreign policy principles (several of whom, such as Bob Corker and John McCain, are no longer in Congress), Congress’ substantive role in steering U.S. foreign policy is limited.

The deterioration in the health of American politics and institutions not only signals the need for nations around the world to adopt a hedging position, but it also erodes the soft power that rests in part with the allure of the American model of democracy. In 2013, for example, a 16-day federal government shutdown over a partisanship-driven fiscal crisis provided ammunition to the United States’ competitors to argue for building a less U.S.-driven global order. Even European leaders accused the United States of hypocrisy in its criticism of the Eurozone’s management of the European debt crisis while failing to keep the federal government open in the U.S. It is no coincidence that as democracies are under fire all over the world — which I will address in my next piece — the U.S. is itself deeply divided and its own democracy is showing cracks in its foundation.

Surveying the U.S. political landscape for ways to restore the foundations of American democracy is as important for the future of U.S. foreign policy as analyzing the global system within which the country operates. That imperative is also particularly evident when examining the sharpening social and economic divide in the U.S., which has changed and will continue to shape the face of American engagement abroad.

The Social Divide and U.S. Foreign Policy
Economic inequality and the dislocations brought forth by globalization have already changed the domestic political discourse on trade. President Trump ran a successful campaign, in part by championing protectionist policies, which he has since pursued in office through enacting tariffs on competitors and allies alike. And although the Democratic Party continues to put forward pro-free trade candidates, there are sentiments on the political left, too, that amount to a different kind of protectionist posture.

In a report on “U.S. Foreign Policy for a Middle Class,” the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace argued that, “U.S. foreign policy ambitions of past decades now appear to be in tension with economic realities at home, in stark contrast to their convergence in the aftermath of the Second World War.” The report presents a compelling case study focused on foreign policy views in Ohio, a state whose manufacturing industry has transformed as much as any over the years. Having lost nearly 750,000 manufacturing jobs between 1969 and 2009, old and new trade agreements have become a lightning-rod issue. Although they are not the interviewees’ only source of economic blame and outrage in the report (many also cited automation and domestic competition as contributing to the decline in manufacturing jobs), the emergence of ingrained anti-trade sentiments across the political spectrum complicates the drivers of U.S. foreign economic policy, for better or worse.

While recent polling shows a resurgence of highly positive perceptions of free trade by the wider American public, it isn’t immediately clear how much these numbers come from genuine, principled sentiments as opposed to counter-reactions to an unpopular president’s policies. It is likely a mix of these factors. What is clear is that the perceived failures of globalization — correctly attributed or not — have changed the discourse on free trade within the U.S. in a way that sows uncertainty over the traditional role of the U.S. as a champion of free trade on the global stage.

“Surveying the U.S. political landscape for ways to restore the foundations of American democracy is as important for the future of U.S. foreign policy as analyzing the global system within which the country operates.”

The changing composition of the U.S. military, too, reflects the impacts of an American social divide on the direction of U.S. foreign policy. The professional American military increasingly represents a tribe of its own, fed largely by family tradition or by economic status, with everyday citizens more insulated from the human effects of war now than they have ever been. Whole-of-society conflicts that touch on everyone’s lives have historically prompted serious reflection on the role of the U.S. in the world, and even encouraged the acceleration of social changes, such as the precedent World War II set for strides in gender equality at home.

Perhaps there is a parallel here to the way in which the COVID-19 crisis may encourage Americans to reflect thoughtfully on the essential work performed by delivery workers, grocery store clerks, and warehouse operators, and the way they are treated in the economy, the healthcare system, and society. No such reckoning, however, has truly taken root when it comes to the American armed forces, which has implications for civil-military relations and how American leaders view the role of force. That U.S. military leaders misled the public throughout the course of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to such a degree, without concerted efforts by American politicians to ensure accountability, only serves to further underscore this point.

In 2015, James Fallows laid out “The Tragedy of the American Military,” a piece which covered the ways in which disconnects between the American public and the military have grown to the point where “the American public and its political leadership will do anything for the military except take it seriously.” Describing the U.S. as an increasingly “chickenhawk nation,” Fallows points to the emptiness of the American “thank you for your service” culture, given the lack of public engagement in the “strategy, weaponry, and leadership,” that send American troops into battle. In other words, the skepticism and public oversight with which Americans approach many other sources of their taxpayer dollars, is absent, and the social divide and related civil insulation from the military, seemingly are at least a partial driver of this trend.

If Not National, Local?
Though this article has presented, at times, a gloomy view of how dysfunction, discontinuity, divides, and accountability gaps at the national-level are altering the face of U.S. foreign policy, there are rays of hope from intervening factors that could moderate the effects of each of these forces.

“There are pockets of policy continuity and innovation at the local, state, and private-sector levels.”

As argued by Philip Zelikow, the growing importance of transnational issues — issues that transcend national borders and aren’t limited to a particular country — means that “foreign policies should focus on how to harmonise ‘domestic’ policies’” both within regions and globally. The most impactful work on combating transnational issues like climate change, migration, and counterterrorism happens at the domestic level, but must be coordinated across borders. This implies an important role for actors other than the federal government to collaborate, bounce ideas off each other, and coordinate transnational policy changes.

There are pockets of policy continuity and innovation at the local, state, and private-sector levels. Cities and states are, in fact, playing new roles in minimizing the impact of national-level reverberations by pushing forward U.S. foreign policy on issues ranging from climate change to the COVID-19 pandemic response and refugee integration. While cities and states are certainly no substitute for the federal government on issues that it is uniquely suited to address, they nevertheless play a meaningful role in shaping the American response.

Despite the Trump administration’s efforts to withdraw the U.S. from its Paris Climate Accord obligations, many local and state authorities remained committed to the reduction of carbon emissions and adherence to the Sustainable Development Goals. Over 400 American mayors affirmed their continued commitment to the Paris accords, while states like California with significant influence over national air pollution standards helped to ensure that automakers continue to meet stricter efficiency standards nation-wide. One study has found that collaborative climate action by U.S. cities alone could amount to 36% of the required emissions reduction for the U.S. as a whole to meet the Paris standards.

On refugee resettlement, the Trump administration issued an unprecedented executive order last fall giving state and local leaders the power, for the first time, to opt-in or out of receiving newly arriving refugees. Since the order, over 40 states (including 19 led by Republican governors) have announced they would continue to receive refugees nonetheless. It’s worth noting that this came on the heels of the Trump administration’s reduction of the refugee admissions cap to the lowest number since the U.S. created the Federal Refugee Resettlement Program in 1980. This context may have made opting-in more palatable for certain states, but it nevertheless demonstrates the ability of state and local leaders to mitigate attempts to upend pre-existing, long-running foreign policy values on which both parties had previously agreed.

This trend of local/national divergence even extends to bilateral diplomacy. Despite high-profile disputes on trade and technology between the U.S. and China over the last several years, there remains a sub-national government dimension to the relationship where there is a clear interest in continued cooperation. This has manifested in a visible way during the COVID-19 crisis as governors of hard-hit states like New York have worked to rapidly leverage relationships in China to bring medical equipment aid to their states.

This cooperation has been present in other policy areas — like technology and investment — for years. Take this conversation between Evan Feigenbaum and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder on what the U.S.-China trade war means for “Main Street”, for example. What’s more, even in the midst of considerable bilateral tensions last summer, representatives of both countries held the U.S.-China Governors Collaboration Summit, where Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin stressed, “When one side wins, the other side wins. When China is strong, it is good for America. When America is strong, it is good for China.” Similarly, Ohioans interviewed in the previously-mentioned Carnegie Endowment report demonstrated a reluctance to paint the international economic environment in zero-sum terms. Nuanced rhetoric about China’s role in global commerce is harder and harder to come by these days in Washington, which makes it all the more salient to hear it from a U.S. state where free trade is such a controversial issue.

Whether national government-level disputes crowd out this other face of cooperation, the question remains: how do these new contours of foreign policy shape the role of the U.S. in the world, especially in light of the political volatility in federal policymaking? While the initiative of cities and states is encouraging, it is no substitute for the resources, coordination, authority, and expertise the federal government can bring to bear, especially when dealing with complex international issues. Moreover, states’ increasing initiative and global import may also present a double-edged sword. The same mechanisms which enable cities and states to step up in the wake of federal inaction or dysfunction also enable them to play an outsized counterproductive role if they choose to challenge federal-level foreign policies merely for political reasons, especially in a time of crisis.

As we explore other facets of U.S. foreign policy where fresh perspectives are greatly needed, it is critical to remember that America’s domestic and international challenges are interwoven. When we ask ourselves what the U.S. should try to achieve internationally, we must consider questions of that nature in the context of domestic political, economic, and social conditions.

Any agenda for revisioning the way the United States approaches its role in the world should be paired with an agenda for democratic reform at home, or, at minimum, recognition of the constraints posed by these domestic conditions. And, finally, we should keep in mind that what the U.S. does at home has tangible and significant implications for the international system and U.S. foreign policy; in some ways, as I’ve laid out, the emergence of transnational issues creates opportunities for other actors to step up.

We have to start with this foundation.

Liam Kraft

Director, U.S. Foreign Policy Programme

- Twitter: @liamkraft_407
- LinkedIn: Liam Kraft

Research supported by:

Melissa Ballard

Research Assistant
U.S. Foreign Policy Programme

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Edited by: Cameron Vaské

All views expressed in this article are solely those of the author, and do not represent the views of The International Scholar or any other organization.

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