WASHINGTON — The Republican gains in midterm elections say a lot about how the American public wants the government to rule here at home but very little about what it should do abroad.
“I can’t think of an instance in recent times in which foreign policy was less prominent,” said Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center.
Unresolved wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are taking their toll in American lives and capital, while nuclear tensions are simmering with North Korea and Iran. Terrorism strikes from abroad are a clear and present danger, as shown by the discovery of two package bombs headed to the U.S. from Yemen.
But across the country, candidates offered little of substance on how the U.S. should respond to those threats.
There was little discussion during the campaign of a landmark arms-control deal with Russia, which the Senate must ratify to take effect. Nor was there serious debate about the wisdom of withdrawing remaining U.S. forces from Iraq or starting the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in July.
Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank, said “foreign policy hardly mattered” in the campaign and election.
“The principal reason,” he said, is “most Americans are preoccupied with their economic circumstances. People voted on the basis of butter, not guns.”
Haass said a major crisis might restore the prominence of foreign policy, but it would have to be “something big and bad,” such as a war with Iran or the collapse of Afghanistan or North Korea.
It wasn’t always like this. President Lyndon Johnson’s pursuit of the war in Vietnam turned the public against him, and he ultimately decided not to run for re-election.
Aaron David Miller of the Woodrow Wilson Center said that unlike Johnson, Obama is perceived as trying to end the conflicts he inherited.
“It can change if the president becomes risk-ready rather than risk-averse,” Miller said, though the Republicans will be looking for stumbles in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran or the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
The voters have decided, perhaps, that their vote carries little weight on national security issues, especially in a congressional election.
