Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

The 2018 National Defense Strategy notes that the United States is once again in an era of great power competition and that its allies are a significant comparative advantage. Indeed, the strengthening of alliances is so important that it is one of the Department of Defense’s three lines of effort. Interestingly, the strengthening of alliances does not include reinforcing the public’s trust in these bilateral / multilateral institutions. Even the newly established Department of State’s Global Engagement Center is not equipped for such action, as it only seeks to counter information warfare in existence. This observation is especially salient in light of recent Russian active measure campaigns in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election and the decades-long Soviet efforts to create cleavages between the United States and its allies.

This paper will first examine to what extent public opinion and American domestic politics may influence its relationship with its allies. This subject exists within the much larger and enduring political science debate concerning domestic politics and foreign policy. Contemporary and sometimes contradictory social psychology studies continue to either limit or elucidate nuances of the Almond-Lippman consensus. These studies enable this paper to consider what domestic public policy measures, if any, the United States could take to buttress its critical alliances.