Introduction
At the dawn of the Cold War in 1947, Republican senator Arthur Vandenberg,
who also served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, delivered
a famous speech in which he argued that Americans needed to leave “partisan
politics at the water’s edge.” In other words, whatever political tensions might be at
work in the United States, America should speak with a united voice to the rest of
the world. From the beginning of the Cold War until the escalation of the Vietnam
War in the mid-1960s, U.S. foreign policy did enjoy a certain amount of bipartisan
consensus, especially on issues related to preventing the spread of Communism
and the Soviet Union. The post–Cold War period, however, has been marked by
partisan rancor on some issues, though the two parties have continued to find
common ground on others.
Generally speaking, Republicans have favored a more muscular approach to
foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. From defending higher defense bud-
gets, and protecting those budgets from cuts to other programs, to criticizing the
president for not taking a more proactive role in responding to terrorist threats
and cybersecurity vulnerabilities, Republicans have made it clear that they desire
the continued assertion of hard power. Democrats, by contrast, are more willing
to make at least limited defense cuts, were more prepared to end the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan, and are more likely to favor multilateral approaches to defus-
ing conflict. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) designed to limit
Iran’s nuclear ambitions, is an example of the type of multilateralism supported by
Democrats.
At the same time, differences in rhetoric are not always matched by differences
in policy. Republican and Democrats, for example, describe the threat of terrorist
organizations like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in different terms, with
Republicans favoring the idea of a global war on terror to defeat radical Islam and
Democrats focusing either on individual organizations like ISIS or Al Qaeda or
speaking of the struggle against terrorism in general. Republicans and Democrats
also criticize each other for the relative strength and coherence of their response to
the threat of terrorism. It is unclear, however, that Democratic strategies for defeat-
ing ISIS, including air strikes, Special Forces troops, coalition-building, training
and equipping the Iraqi military, and training and equipping anti-ISIS forces in
Iraq, Libya, and Syria, is significantly different from the Republican variant. Again
on the issue of military spending, Democrats and Republicans have both proposed
budgets that would maintain spending levels in excess of $550 billion per year.
