What Americans actually believe
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You can hardly turn on the television without hearing a politician claiming that Americans believe this or that we want that. It seems a favorite pastime of leaders in Washington is telling us what Americans believe and what we want. Such assertions by politicians are sometimes true, but they inevitably reflect the policy the politician is attempting to promulgate.

But when it comes to defense and foreign policy, what do Americans actually believe on key questions? What role should the United States play in the world? How do we view allies and adversaries? What kind of military do we need? And how do views vary based on party or age? In a representative democracy, such opinions are not academic questions alone. They are fundamental because they shape American policy.

So with President-elect Trump set to return to the White House in little more than a month, what do Americans really believe? Well, we don't have to guess. The Ronald Reagan Institute has released its annual Reagan National Defense Survey, and I think you'll find the results interesting. To discuss the survey and more, I am joined by Roger Zachheim. He serves as the Washington director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute.

Among other positions, he also serves as a commissioner on the Congressional Commission on the National Defense Strategy of the United States, which produced a report earlier this year that every American should read.

Roger previously worked as general counsel and deputy staff director of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee. I'm Bradley Bowman, senior director of FDD's Center on Military and Political Power, filling in for host Cliff May. We're so pleased you've decided to join the conversation, too, here on Foreign Podesty. Roger, welcome to Foreign Podesty.

Brad, it's great to be with you. An honor, I should say. Thank you. Well, I feel the same. I actually have it in my notes here to say this, but I actually mean it very heartfelt. I consider you a friend and honestly one of the most capable and informed voices on foreign policy and just a genuine class act and a nice guy. So it's a real pleasure to sit down with you and talk about all the amazing work you've been doing. We could just wrap it up there. We could. Yeah, yeah. It's just going to get worse from here.

It seems like just yesterday that you, me, and Jim Carafano published our piece in The Hill in 2019, going trip down memory lane, arguing why our nation needed a confirmed secretary of defense. Remember that? Remember that? And then, as I mentioned earlier, you graciously had me on your Reaganism podcast in September 2021. I really enjoyed that. And so I was overdue to return the favor. So I'm glad you're here. Well, thank you for that and love having your expertise. We got to know each other when we were both on The Hill and then afterwards. And

You've been a leader of national defense policy, national security policy, and a great supporter and advisor on the Reagan National Defense Survey, which I'm excited to chat about. But for those who are going to check it out, you'll see the great Brad Bowman as one of our advisors. Yeah, gosh, I'm honored to be on that august list. And I was going to do a full disclosure on that later, but you beat me to it. So that's great. So, Brad.

You've been busy. You're always busy. That's not new. But you serve as the Washington director of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation Institute. You've served as a commissioner on the bipartisan congressionally mandated commission on the national defense strategy. I think I mentioned that thing about every third day here in my analysis because I think you guys did such great work and timely work.

And you also convened the Reagan Defense Forum last weekend, and you published this major new survey, and we have hard copies here. And so we have so much to talk to. I'd love to just jump right in. Let's go. Okay, here we go. So for any listeners not familiar with the organization you lead, tell us about, if you would, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation Institute and your role there.

Absolutely. And we're in Washington, D.C. People love talking about themselves. So I appreciate the opportunity. The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation Institute is a 501c3, the nonprofit side. Just like the of the of the Reagan Library. And so people may be familiar presidential libraries. They're generally an amalgamation between a nonprofit and NARA National Archives. I had the honor of leading the Reagan Institute. That's our shorthand for the Washington office of the Foundation Institute Institute.

And what we do in DC is really where the public policy entity of the Reagan foundation, where we seek to advance president Reagan's values, policies, ideals, principles, uh, in the halls of, of Congress and our agencies and among our thought leaders like you, uh,

Fantastic opportunity. Obviously, national defense and foreign policy are a key element of President Reagan's legacy. And it really counters some in Washington who accuse those who advance President Reagan's legacy as zombie Reaganism. Hmm.

I'm very much alive. You seem alive. I am alive. And I feel like American people are very alive as well. And there's nothing zombie about it. Not at all. I'm sure we'll get into those details. No, that's great. So you have this survey. This is an annual survey you've done for what? Six, seven, eight years now? Or several years now? Yeah, it goes back to 2018. Yeah, that's amazing. And you publish this. So just...

For the political science geeks in the audience, what do they need to know about this survey in terms of timing, number of people served a margin of error, that sort of thing? Absolutely. Glad you asked. And as we make waves with some of the findings, which I'm sure we'll talk about, we're increasingly getting scrutinized about just the survey, the instrument. So here we go. The full sample, there were 2,510 respondents, and the estimated margin of error is two percentage points. Okay.

Half of the questions went to half of the respondents. And so that was on average roughly about 1,250 or so. And in those questions, it's about 2.8 points in terms of margin of error. I would note, I'm told, but I don't have the example in front of me, that most surveys that are referenced in whatever –

journalistic authority you rely on have a, a smaller pool of respondents. Um, and that's good to know because we spend a lot of money in terms of getting our, our, our help, you know, the, the professionals go out and conduct a survey and that is beacon research and shot and company, uh, which, uh, Fox news, uh,

As one of their clients and often the Fox News polls are carried out by by those two companies. That's great. And this and this I think it's important to foot stop that this was conducted after the presidential election. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for highlighting that. We it was compressed timeline. Yeah. It had to be post the presidential election because we want to tell people what the voters who voted for President Trump or Vice President Harris voted.

what their views were. Uh, and we want to get it out. As you know, we just had a Reagan national defense forum, so it puts some pressure on friends of ours like, uh, Rachel Hoff, our policy director and others. They did a great job. Yes, but it was post the election. Okay. The, um, one of the, uh, uh,

many really interesting and I think impactful top lines is what the survey found related to American views on the role of the United States in terms of leading internationally and engaging in international relations. What did the survey find on that topic? So,

This is a question we've been asking for a few rounds now. It addresses whether Americans believe that the U.S. should lead in the world. And as you note, it came out higher than it has in the past. So that was 57% of Americans believe the U.S. should take a lead role in international events and 32%

or say, you know, advance less engagement. Yeah. Uh, and notable there, uh, what I want to highlight. Yeah. And this is why we did a post election. We were quite interested in where Trump voters land on that and Harris voters land on that. And I, to our surprise, uh, because it's certainly not the way I think most in Washington think of a Trump voter. 61% of Trump voters actually take that point of view. They want to see, uh, America leading in the world, uh,

59% of Harris voters, those who didn't identify as a Harris or Trump voter, obviously make up the difference of why it came out on average to 57%. Yeah, so 57% believe the U.S. should be more engaged and take a lead in international events. And as the survey notes, that's a 15-point increase from last year. And then, as you said, 61% of Trump voters feel that way.

And there was really something interesting that happened with young, young Americans. Do you want to talk about that at all? Well, the number that is just eyeopening for me, I guess it struck you the same way is there is plus 32 points for under 30 and plus 19 points between 30 and 44. And I think our assumption is, is that those under 30 would generally, you

be less focused on events overseas. Yeah. Under 30 population, they're thinking about opportunities for themselves, finishing school, getting their first job and the like. Yeah.

here they're clearly seeing what's going on in the world things that you uh write about and talk about a lot uh and it's impacting their thinking they know they seem to know that america leading the world leads to their advantage at least that's the way i i piece it together and i just know that we have been asking this question as far back as 2021 overall um and the numbers have consistently gone up and just for for viewers and listeners if you go back to 2020 or 2021 it was um

42%. So, you know, I think over the course of these few years where perhaps you and I who focus on this day to day would say, hey, we really need to be more focused on what's going on in Ukraine and in Europe or more focused on what's going on in the Middle East with respect to Gaza and Lebanon and obviously recent events, Syria.

Well, the American people certainly have shared that. And you see this huge jump from that timeframe. Yeah. I mean, to me, anyone who might want to fall prey to the mischaracterization that there are large swaths of Americans that believe in isolationism, I would say that this would be a rebuttal to that. And any of our listeners who are as old as we are or older who want to say, ah, kids these days, they don't understand. I mean, I've spent a good portion of my life as you

you have arguing you did this well no i mean no i'm good i mean but you've done more on it than i have but just arguing that what happens over there matters here yeah uh and because what happens over there matters here we better take an interest and we we would be better will be willing to exercise our influence to protect our interests abroad and it's looking like according to survey that young people get that well young people get it um they're increasingly concerned now we can't confuse someone's

whether they're over 30, under 30 view of what that engagement should look like, what the nature of that us leadership, that question doesn't go there. We have other questions that give some direction, which is the fun part of stitching all this together. But to your point about the neo isolationists in the United States, in our political system, I think you and I would probably agree. They, they reside on the margins of each party, but they have an outsized voice. Certainly they seem to be getting a lot more attention and,

They are there. Yeah. And that's definitely the case, but they are a minority. Yeah. They're hovering in this, you know, less than one third realm. Yeah. And the rest of the country takes over.

takes an entirely different view. And that kind of goes back to my point about zombie Reaganism. It's very much alive and youthful. Yeah. And youthful. You need a new metaphor. Zombie implies negative. I think we need a metaphor that's positive. Well, I'm not a fan of it. I just know that we get critiqued for being zombie Reaganites, you know, and we're just kind of follow whatever was done in the 1980s. For sure. And that's, you know,

I've had a couple of sarcastic people respond to my points and say, hey, Brad, 1980s call and they want their foreign policy back. That always kind of annoys me because I think there are some principles there that maybe are – The only thing that's not true about the 1980s wanting their foreign policy back and defense policy is that the reality is it's the 1990s that are getting their defense budgets back. And we'll talk about that.

I can't wait to talk about that. I know you go deep on that. I mean, it's very, not enough of what happens and what we're doing is 1980s.

We'll talk about it, but President Trump, of course, ran on a peace through strength campaign. So if anybody's pushing people back to 1980s, it's DJT. Yeah. And your point, the nuance you just brought there was great that, okay, yes, significant majorities want to engage and lead abroad, but engage and lead to what end, to what effect? That's such great nuance. And you kind of previewed where I was going to go next. Yeah.

This poll was conducted almost immediately adjacent to the presidential election where Trump, I would say by both popular vote measure and electoral vote measure, had a pretty significant resounding victory, whether one likes it or not. And some might just listen to what we just said and feel like this is a little in tension or conflict with that election result, depending how you read it.

it. How would you, I don't necessarily think this way, but I'm interested in your response. Do you see any tension between these findings, the survey's findings on the role, on a desire for American leadership and engagement in the election of President Trump? Great question. The more I think about it, the answer is absolutely not. And actually, it's entirely consistent with what I think Trump voters heard from the man. President Trump has consistently spoken for strength.

He's consistently advanced that we need to go ahead and bring back American leadership, get these conflicts that are weakening us and our allies addressed. And we can talk about what that means. And the survey does that. So.

It really goes to turns on what does that leadership in the world look like? But to me, it's very much what President Trump ran on. And that's why you're seeing it. And he was, as I mentioned a moment ago, nearly everything he said about foreign policy and certainly national security.

He ended the post, that social media post with hashtag peace through strength. So he clearly was talking about engagement of a certain kind. And we could talk about it. Now, one nuance that I love, and I figure you're of the same mind here, that hasn't changed really in any significant fashion since we've been asked this question going back to 2019 is do you support U.S. military presence overseas? Yes.

And of course, you know better than most that U.S. military presence overseas is to maintain the peace, is to ensure the prosperity, is not to engage in armed conflict. It's quite the opposite, is the deterrent force. And consistently, year over year, we have...

Nearly two thirds of Americans, some cases we've had it, but just shy of that supporting U.S. military presence overseas. This time it was 62 percent with Trump voters calling for 62 percent. And I think what we're seeing from this and I'll wrap up this point with just one more or two more sentences is that.

Americans don't want endless wars. We have enough presidents telling us we don't want endless wars, but that doesn't mean they want fortress America. Exactly. And the best explication, best evidence of that to me is that question on force presence. I'm so glad you highlight that. Yeah. 62% support this Ford, a Ford deployed military presence. And of course I'm proud of the 20 December, 2020 defending Ford monograph. We did where we essentially argued that that was in our interest. And we looked at Indo-Pacific air,

We look at CENTCOM, the Middle East, and we looked at European Command and tried to make the case. I hope persuasively that this is not charity. It's a wise investment. And if you don't want endless wars, then you do want forward posture because forward posture sends a signal that America cares about what happens in that place.

It builds partner capacity. It strengthens deterrence. And if deterrence fails, allows us to deal with the aggression more effectively and more quickly at a lower cost. And so these things are not intention. If you don't want endless wars, you should want forward posture. That's my view. And that work you did was...

highly persuasive to me but oftentimes brad as you know yeah critics will simply say hey this is the military industrial complex speaking it's a neoconservative saying this and it's not right and and and and it just expansionists and not representative of what everyday americans want and and that goes to the heart of this survey it sure does because you and i just finished this point yeah please we have we both are are grew up on capitol hill at least we you grew up in military but then moved over to capitol hill i grew up professionally on capitol hill and they're

so many elected officials who will present their particular point of view in the name of the American people. Let's say the American believe X, Y, or Z. Yeah. And this survey is positioned to say, Hey, here's actually what the American people believe on the subject. You're entitled to your point of view. Yeah. And it works both ways. If you and I were to propound a policy, uh,

That we thought was right. Yeah. But the American people didn't agree. We should know that. Yeah. And then we got some work to do. Yeah. But certainly to this point that you did on, on, on that monograph on explaining the rationale for Ford presence, you should know that the American people are squarely behind you year over year after

Well, good to know. Good to know. I'm happy to hear it. And I'm proud of the fact, and this isn't a partisan point at all, and you're not saying it is. I'm proud of the fact that former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta wrote the foreword for that because he understands that this is a sane, centrist policy that enjoys support on both sides of the aisle.

Let's move to adversaries, if that's all right. I really appreciated this section of the survey on adversaries. So when you guys, when the pollsters asked Americans who is the number one, two, three, four threat, what did you hear? So-

It's no surprise here, but again, it's good to have the data that the adversary that the U.S. respondents, Americans are most concerned about is China. Yeah. It was 49% in our latest survey. That pretty much tracks where we were last time with the margin error last time we did it. It was about 51%. Also important, and this is kind of the...

Yeah. Yeah.

Iran and North Korea or even Russia as a lesser of an adversary, meaning we could have four adversaries that Americans view as an enemy. But in terms of the greatest threat is China. And I think on this one, it's pretty interesting. We saw this shift. I mean, back in 2019, it was pretty much even between China and Russia. And in 2018, it was Russia ahead of China. Yeah. But as you look towards what President Trump did in office. Yeah. By highlighting.

in a very public fashion that China was our competitor. Regardless of the economic dependency and the economic relationship, we've seen this huge shift. It's an example of where I think leaders really drive public opinion.

on these issues. And I think we're seeing that with China. No doubt China's behavior contributes to it. And you see that with the variety of concerns American peoples have about China. But I attribute the fact that our survey is showing this year over year since 2018, 2019 because of what President Trump did by pointing to China as our greatest challenge. Your comment that leaders help shape public opinion is such an important one. I used to get frustrated when I would hear...

Really, presidents from both parties saying, well, you know, the American people want this or that on Afghanistan with respect for your knowledge on that issue in your previous service. Well, it's like, right, right. You have to ask how often did they use the presidential bully pit to explain to bully pulpit, not pit. You know what I mean?

to explain to Americans why we should care about the outcome in Afghanistan. So as a president or as an administration, you're never explaining, as H.R. McMaster says, that there's interest here worth sacrificing for. Then why would you expect Americans paying the mortgage and raising the kids to be able to say that it is? I completely agree with you. You have to go back to George W. Bush to find a president of the United States that was

actively engaging the American people on a national security, foreign policy and defense matter. And I think we suffer as a result. They demagogue our armed conflicts as endless wars, but they never actually did the hard political work of engaging American people to allow for decisive victory. And now that I'm opening up

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, yeah. But I couldn't resist your comment about the role of – I'd say the responsibility of leaders to explain. So there's a partisan breakdown on – so China number one, Russia number two, and then North Korea and Iran. There's a little bit of a partisan breakdown about who kind of nominates as the number one threat. Do you want to talk about that at all?

Yeah, well, I think it's Trump voters see China 61% as the adversary with Russia as a greatest threat, Russia at 15%, Harris voters see Russia 40% and China 37%. And, you know, you can make some hay out of that. You understand that. Yeah, yeah.

President Biden has certainly been supportive of Ukraine from day one. The policy as it relates to U.S. military support for Ukraine is on Biden. It's obviously been something that Republicans have critiqued. And so it doesn't

surprised me that you see that pars and difference i'm sure we'll have a moment to talk about the questions we had specifically about ukraine i wouldn't note and this is the uh point i was making before yeah and when you ask um yeah our respondents when you ask the question about hey who was an ally who was an adversary so separate apart from who's the greatest adversary um ukraine

75%. Israel, 73%. That means the respondent believes they are somewhat of an ally or a strong ally. Japan, for context, which is a treaty ally, right? 73%. So Ukraine and Israel score higher in terms of in the minds of our respondents of who is an ally than Japan. Flip that. Russia, 80%.

see Russia as an adversary. And the number is pretty similar as it relates to China. So, you know, some context of how we talk about the questions, irrespective of what you think we should do vis-a-vis Ukraine or who is the greatest adversary. Key point, I'll make this again, I'm sure when we talk about Ukraine. Yeah.

Americans know who our friends are and who our adversaries are. It lines up exactly where the national security establishment would have it. Maybe Ukraine and Israel score so well because those are two partners who are actually engaged in real-world combat right now against common adversaries that we have. Maybe Americans admire partners who are willing to put their own skin on the line to defend themselves and our common interests. Maybe that's part of it.

I think that's absolutely right. And maybe it's more fundamental, Brad, than that. At the end of the day, they know who is being attacked, who's the aggressor, who's the victim, who is free, right? And who's an autocrat. And they know where America stands on that.

That's right. That's right. You know, we'll get to the Middle East and Israel in a minute. But since you started down Ukraine road, let's maybe let's continue with that. So I was really excited to see what the survey found on support for providing weapons to Ukraine. And so the...

Correct me if I'm wrong. You have overall 55% of Americans support the U.S. continuing to send weapons to Ukraine, 68% Democrats, 44% Republicans. Both of those numbers are a tad lower than in the summer of 2024, if I have that right.

Anything you want to add to that, those statistics there in terms of support for arming Ukraine? No, I mean, you gave the trend. It's down a bit. We did this in May, and our summer survey was 57%. We did it in November. So a year ago, year over year, it's 59% to 55%. The comment here is, given how this was front and center, and the foreign policy conversations tied to the presidential campaign, given that President Trump was...

I would say reluctant to be supportive of Ukraine. Although he did make clear to Speaker Johnson that he wasn't, he was not going to oppose the latest supplemental. But given all of that,

Isn't it interesting that there still was 55% overall support, including, as you note, the partisan divide with 42% of Trump voters? So here's what I expect to happen. And Anthony, you asked the question, but it's worth thinking about. What does this data tell you about what we can expect? Come January 20th, President Trump will own Ukraine. He's already appointed president.

retired general lieutenant general keith kellogg to lead those negotiations we talked about the question we asked about negotiations and what he will use right here is that 42 percent of his voters you know want to see ukraine actually get military support uh with knowing that 75 percent

of Americans, including a huge percentage of his voters, view Ukraine as an ally. And that's, I think, going to help him figure out what his policy will be. I dug deeply into the background materials on this question in the wonderful publication you put out, and I discovered this little gem here. I just want to cite it.

Opponents have an array of reasons for opposing military aid to Ukraine. And I'll just read it, including a feeling that the conflict does not concern the U.S., 33%. Aid costs too much money, 20%. Aid will escalate the conflict and provoke Russia, a personal favor there, 18%. And aid could cause the conflict to drag on definitely 13%. Here's my question for you, Roger. And given how knowledgeable you are on these issues and frankly, where you work,

How would Ronald Reagan respond to those arguments? Well, so the answer would be last, what would Reagan do? Which is effectively, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Does that mean giving arms to Ukraine in your view? Oh,

Absolutely. I would be surprised. So would I. It's too clear. It's too easy. It's slam dunk. But I was going to make a different point after I give my caveat. I can't do that. President Trump would look at this data. President Reagan would look at this data and see that there are 55% Americans support it. Look at, let's say, Republicans and say it's just hovering over 40%.

And this sort of thing happened when he was president of the United States. And it goes to a point you made just earlier. He would take it to the American people. He would make the case. And one of the critiques of President Biden was he never made the case to the American people. As you know, of those who oppose giving military aid, 33% of that group. So it's not reflective of 55% of support. But 33% of that group say that the conflict does not concern the U.S. and we should stay out.

To me, that is fundamentally a failure of leadership. As opposed to 20% that says setting aid costs too much money, that to me gives a more informed point of view. There's a lot of priorities. I've got education. I've got healthcare. You and I deal with that all the time, and that's a question of prioritization. But to me to say it doesn't concern it is fundamentally a lack of leadership because leaders should be able to make a very clear case.

that Ukraine winning is good for the United States, Russia losing is good for the United States for a whole lot of security, economic, and values kind of sorts of reasons.

I agree completely. And I would highlight again from the amazing survey reading from it, after hearing a message specifically addressing their main concerns, referring to these three or four reasons why some opposed military Ukraine, one third of those who opposed it say they were much more likely to support it, which is a long-winded, wonky way of saying when additional facts were shared with these folks,

They were not so stubborn or tribal in their positions that they weren't, at least a portion of them, weren't willing to reconsider it. There are some who are just dead set against it. You're not going to move them. But you're right. It demonstrates you can move the needle. And I think that was a significant failing of President Biden on this front. Yeah. And just real quickly, unpaid advertisement here on, you know, feeling that the concern does not concern the U.S.

I mean, just, you know, this is, listeners will have heard this a hundred times from me, but this is the largest war in Europe since World War II. This is naked, unprovoked aggression. And our adversaries around the world, we talked about adversaries earlier, I'm thinking of Tehran, Pyongyang, and Beijing are watching to see whether America has

the willingness to put its money where its mouth is, or after two and a half, three years, we lose interest, we get tired, and we stop supporting a country fighting for its right to exist against imperialistic naked aggression. And if anyone, you certainly understand deterrence, and many of the listeners do as well. Deterrence is based on part of perceptions of our political will to do tough things. And if we're not willing to spend less than 3% for comparison to what we spent on the Pentagon over the same time period,

without putting a single U.S. service member in harm's way to help Ukraine continue to exist, to deal body blows to the second leading conventional threat we confront and send a helpful deterrent message to Beijing, then what the heck do we think Xi Jinping is going to conclude about our willingness to send thousands of Americans into a fight and potentially die in the Taiwan Strait, thereby making it more likely? That's why what happens in Ukraine, in my view, matters in the Middle East and in Taiwan Strait. Well argued. And I think what we're seeing out of this survey, just to tie it back

That argument is less persuasive as time goes on because they want to see the effects of that investment. And one of the things that's interesting about the survey, I mentioned that you can kind of stitch together a Trump-esque peace through strength policy through some of the responses here. And one that I thought was quite interesting was –

whether or not respondents would support peace negotiations to end the war, including having Ukraine concede some territory. And I think what you're seeing there is they want to see the investment. They want to see it be decisive, but have an outcome. And I think President Biden hurt himself, you know, with effectively saying whatever it takes and for however long.

I agree with you. And I have multiple, you know, on one hand, I think the Biden administration implemented the second most impressive security assistance campaign in recent American history, or really the first actually with Ukraine and deserves to take credit for that. But they also kind of had this no, maybe yes dynamic where they slow rolled key provisions, thereby, Frank, you know, as as

Ukrainians were fighting, dying to defend their homes and the Russians were advancing. Well, no, no, we can't give you Patriot. Well, maybe. And yes, meanwhile, weeks or months have passed and more Ukrainians have died. And the targeting of what we gave them, I mean, it was self-defeating in many respects for the very impressive security system program. I agree with you on that. They put together, I mean, the numbers are there are pretty interesting. 59% of the respondents support peace negotiations, even it means conceding territory. Right.

63% of Trump voters took that view. So justly higher than the average, but it was telling 55% of Harris voters. It's only an eight point difference there. It just shows the...

probably exhaustion and the natural inclination that American people have is like, yeah, let's conclude this conflict. Yeah. And your point about Americans wanting, tell me what the end state is. Tell me how this ends. Tell me where we have a decisive result here. I get it, especially with kind of our microwave culture where we want everything in 30 seconds. But when you're fighting the Russian military, that can be a little hard. It might take a little time. And it's really, I would argue, not...

Our decision about whether Ukrainians continue to fight or not, that's up to them. I think our decision is whether we want to provide them the means to do it, whether we want to provide the Louisville slucker over the back fence to brutalize the home invader so Putin reconsiders his line of work and doesn't invade our home next. Well, I mean, one point,

you know i i agree with that in part but i also think that given the level of investment yeah and and our leadership in the world we're yeah you know that's why zielinski is fostering and and orienting himself to trump administration that the americans have a very important we as a country very important role here yeah i think the values are particularly right but interesting you know you're making the case a moment ago why what the u.s interest is yeah uh in terms of supporting ukraine

One that stands out to me, 79% of those polled here were concerned about a Russia attack against a NATO member. Right. And we didn't stitch that directly to the Ukraine questions, but we all know that to extent Ukraine is easy for Russia, to extent that they are able to annex and take without paying a cost next up.

That's right. That's right. I mean, every decision in some form, whether explicitly or implicitly, is an assessment of cost and benefit. And if Putin concludes that, hey, look at this, I got 20% of Ukraine, I locked in my hold on Crimea, and I did it for a reasonable cost, he's more likely to roll the dice against a member of NATO. And one of my talking points earlier was that no US service members fighting and dying in Ukraine. Well, obviously, that would be very different if it's an attack against a NATO member and Article 5 is invoked. Exactly.

I'll end with a comment here. My colleagues, Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery and John Hardy recently published a piece where they encouraged President-elect Trump to make Putin wince before you go to the negotiating table, just in the spirit of the art of the deal, if you will, right? If you want to go into the negotiations with the strongest position and don't go into those negotiations with the weak hand, go with the strong hand. And they had some specific recommendations about how to do that. I agree with that. All right. So let's go to, if I may, to the Middle East and Israel. Where do...

What is the number one issue that the pollsters found in terms of Americans thinking about the Middle East? Well, we were interested. We hadn't actually asked questions in the past about Israel, but of course with Israel,

After October 7th and Hamas' brutal attack on Israel and the war in Gaza that's ensued, we want to see how people viewed security assistance and military assistance to Israel, which of course has been essential for their military operations, both in Gaza and Lebanon. And now we're seeing in Syria as well in a more dedicated fashion.

So we asked a question. We did it in May in our summer survey, and we did it in this survey, which comes closer to your view. Israel has a right to continue military action until it has removed the threat posed by Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. That's option one. Option two is Israel's military action in Gaza has gone on long enough. It's time for ceasefire. And

There, you know, we kind of limited the ceasefire question to Gaza. We saw it was pretty much an even split. Forty five percent were favored. The first option of right to continue military action. Second question. The second option had 45 percent as well. And it pretty much was the same with margin error from last go around. And this is a very strong partisan divide there.

And the divide there is Trump voters have 64% believe that Israel has that right to continue military operations, where it's only 30% of Harris voters. And it flips 63% of Harris voters favor a ceasefire, whereas Trump voters is 28%.

pretty eye-opening to me here on the democratic side on the harris voter side we know this was an issue for president biden we know there's tremendous uh pressure from the progressive left on biden's israel policy and certainly there was critique from the right but biden was kind of dealing with quote-unquote the dearborn problem and it's a it's a big problem for the democratic party uh from my standpoint is that uh their majority of them would not uh

support continued military operations. It's a huge departure from a sort of bipartisan support we saw of Israel when you and I were working on Capitol Hill. Yeah. I'd say from my perspective, sadly, that is a major dynamic where we're seeing where you still have a large portion of Democrats being very strong in Israel, but you do have kind of an element on the far left where that has eroded

It'll be interesting to see whether that's just a fleeting function of what's been happening post-October 7th in Gaza or whether that's more durable, but definitely something worth noting. And there was also a distinction about the provision of offensive and defensive weapons versus just defensive weapons alone. Anything you want to say on that? What surprised me about this is that those who are opposed to supporting Israel

It didn't matter whether it was characterized as offensive and defensive. Yeah. That's why we teased it out. Yeah. So we asked, how much more priority do you place on providing both defensive and offensive weapons to Israel? 24% felt it was a top priority. 31% thought it was a high priority, but not top. And then 21% thought it was a lower priority. And 18%, not a priority. Fine. That's offensive and defensive.

you would expect to have the not a priority and low priority categories shift when you simply just said, Hey, provide only defensive. And the numbers are pretty much the same. So that's, and as you go, you look in the cross tabs and you look at the composition, those are Harris voters.

And it's clear they don't want any assistance, whether it's offensive, defensive, you can't move these people. It means they're highly dedicated to the position of being opposed to security assistance, Israel. Yeah. Interesting. Very surprising. Yeah. The, um, the, the, the findings related to freeing American hostages held by Hamas. Um, you know, the, the, uh, I, I, uh,

Many of us saw the statement by Trump a week or two ago where he said, you know, they better be released before I come into office. What did you guys find on freeing the hostages? That seemed to be the top priority among the things offered in the poll. It was about the only thing that moved people who were concerned or opposed to supporting Israel to a more supportive point of view. And that, of course, probably is tied to the fact that hostages are viewed as just coming as a humanitarian concern in any way tied to a pro-Hussein.

or anti-Israel point of view. So the numbers was 61% saw it as a top priority for the United States, 24% saw it as a high priority but not top. So you add that together, that's 85%. And then those who thought it was a low priority or not a priority, you're dealing with 12% there total. I guess it's not surprising to me. I would have thought maybe a top priority for the U.S. would have been a higher number than 61%.

I also attribute that to the fact that the president of the United States hasn't consistently gone public. I'm talking about President Biden with advocating for U.S. hostages, very active on a behind the scenes, not talking to American people about and certainly not talking to Hamas in the way that President Trump did with his social media posts saying they'll be effectively they'll be held to pay. Release them now. I.

I can't help but seeing some echoes from history here. Forgive me, you know where I'm going with this, where, you know, we had the 1979 Iranian revolution, the Americans taken hostage and held for a long time. And then Reagan comes in, he's making, correct me if I'm wrong, he makes some statements about how this better get fixed. And then he's elected, right? And then they're released. Where is the parallels appropriate or inappropriate here? Good question. And it's,

You know, the barrels here from someone running on peace through strength. Yeah, I know. Make America great again. There's a lot here that comes from President Reagan's time in office. But you're talking about 1980 and it was 444 days that we had the U.S. hostages held in Tehran. President Carter was very focused on this, of course. Yes. Desert One tried to rescue them. Yeah. Failed rescue attempts.

And he worked on it. That is President Carter. Yeah. The all night to realize the release of the hostages. Yeah. On the night before inauguration. Yeah. He didn't sleep. That's what the history books tell us. Yeah. And by the time President Reagan was sworn into office.

on inauguration day the hostages the in tehran were released was that because of the the radical regime's perception perception of what reagan would do was it the fear of reagan that resulted in that or what's your read of history on that uh two okay reasons one i did think there to be held to pay yeah president reagan yeah he he won uh election

On the basis of really one of his biggest political challenges where people called him a warmonger because his peace through strength platform was so strong. It was so vociferous on it.

So that's one reason. But the second reason was I think they just wanted to screw Jimmy Carter. They were not going to give Jimmy Carter a win when he was president of the United States. And perhaps both are true. Yeah. Interesting. All right. I'm watching the clock here. We got, there's so much good stuff here. We need a second hour, but I know you don't have it. So let's go to defense spending. One of my favorite topics here. What did, what did the survey find on defense spending? So defense spending is a question we ask every year.

We have to look at the different areas of fellow government spends money. Tell me if you favor or oppose increasing government spending. So important to note for transparency purposes, we're not asking people to choose between priorities. Right. We just want people to look at a spending area and say, you know, favor or

Increasing or decreasing. And in terms of the military, we had 79% either strongly or somewhat strongly support increasing defense spending. That is up from where we were before.

actually the highest we've been, uh, last go around a year, year over year was 77%. We first started with 75% in June and 23 is our lowest point of 71%. So, uh, for people like you and me, that's highly encouraging, uh, and quite telling and, and Trump voters in particular here, uh,

We're quite supportive. Eighty eight percent of voters would like to see increased defense spending. And again, that goes to me. They understand what peace for strength means. You've got to get bigger. You get stronger. That takes capital. You can't get 88 percent to say the sky is blue. So that's pretty amazing. And then highlight, if you would, that. So you ask that, hey, should we spend more on defense? Eighty eight percent of President-elect Trump supporters say.

And then you ask them, how much do you think we're spending on defense? Which makes that finding even more significant. Do you have those numbers? Yeah. The ones about where Americans actually, the first time we asked this question. Yeah.

they have a really radically different view of how much we're spending relative to what we're spending. So we're spending $850 billion a year and change on this. And they would have thought we're spending roughly more like a third of overall federal spending, which would be over a trillion dollars. And so what we're seeing here is that

the way people talk about the amount we're spending defense is actually not lined up with the levels we're spending. As you know, we're spending historic lows right now. It's, uh, roughly 2.9% of GDP going to defense. This is what kind of goes back to the beginning of our conversation. I see you're pulling up a great slide from FTD. So I won't, I won't steal your thunder, but you have to go back to the 1990s and we're taking peace dividend to get to these levels. But yeah, no, you're, this is a, a,

favorite hobby horse of mine, and frankly, leaning on the great work that you and others did there on the commission on the national defense strategy and your July, 2024 report right there in the introduction, I think was the money quote that frankly, I hope every American here is here's the quote.

The threats the United States faces are the most serious and most challenging the nation has encountered since 1945 and include the potential for near-term major war, end quote. And then later in that paragraph, you say, and we are not prepared for that major war. So you say, okay, wow, we must be spending a lot on defense. Well, by total numbers, we are if you don't take into account inflation. But as you said,

measure how you want, measure it by percent of federal spending, measure it by percentage GDP. You say 2.9%, depending on whether it's outlay or budget authority or DOD or national offense, but roughly 2.9 to 3%. The only time since 1940 that we've spent lower than that

than we have in recent years was right after the Soviet Union collapsed and before the 9-11 attacks, 1990 to 2001. So your commission that you served on said these are the most serious and most challenging threats we've confronted. And yet we're spending near post-World War II lows measured as a percentage of GDP. And yet Americans in your survey seem to see the threat so clearly. So, you know, what's going on with defense spending? Well,

First of all, I have the numbers here. Yeah, please. About 32% of respondents think that we're spending between 26% and 50% of overall federal budget. And it's about 12% to 13%. Right. Correct. And then you add in the 16% who think we're spending 51% to 75% of our budget. And the 5% who think our entire budget is that. So you add that all up and you're looking at north of half.

Half of Americans think we're spending dramatically more than we're actually spending. And I think the polling, or we don't ask questions as to why they think that is the case, but I have a hunch. And so, you know, to me, it's this, the mandatory spending

Right. Social Security. That is not something the Congress weighs in on year over year. It's it's not the discretionary spending that the appropriations process in the Congress address. It's not what members of Congress talk about because they don't touch it as politically radioactive. And it's actually not part of their appropriations work.

What does get the attention is defense because year over year, you get the appropriations bill as it should be the case. Yeah. This is, you know, article one, section eight of the constitution. That's what our elected officials will be focusing on. Spoken like someone who used to work on the house harm service. There you go. You got to know that. Yeah. And a lawyer by training. There you go. And so,

That's what they tend to focus on. Then they have this kind of disproportionate notion of how much we spend on defense.

defense spending is not the, you cannot say, I'm sorry, all respect to Senator Bernie Sanders, you cannot point to defense spending for that. And you guys actually asked your people about concerns related to how the national debt might affect defense spending. You have those numbers? Yeah. I mean, this was an important question for us this year where we wanted, because we know that with a new administration, there'll be, as there should be, renewed focus on national debt. And we asked, hey, are

Are you concerned that efforts to address a national debt will come at the expense of the military? In other words, we've had some chairman of the Joint Chiefs at one time actually advocated having reduced defense spending to reduce the national debt. To realize reductions in the debt. 69% of those surveyed in our poll are concerned about national defense will force defense cuts. 69%.

And then the kicker, 77% of Trump voters are concerned about it. So if we get to a point come May of 2025 where we get these budget caps discussions, want to reduce spending, and they want defense to pay for deficit reduction in the way that we had before, this parity, non-defense to defense, just know that 77% of Trump voters and 69% of the country overall does not want to see that happen. Right.

So the survey talked about what kind of – in addition to how it should be postured, we talked about that already. What kind of military we should have. Should it be prepared to fight two major combat operations at a time or one and a half or just defend our borders? I'm particularly eager to hear what you found. And then –

Based on your role as a commissioner on the National Defense Strategy, what kind of military do we actually have? Do we have a military, in your view, that can actually do two major combat operations at the same time? I will start with the latter and then go to the former. Okay, please.

I think the biggest contribution, or I shouldn't speak for all the commissioners, but the recommendation and finding recommendation from the Defense Strategy Commission that really spoke to me and I thought was important was we call it a force planning construct. What is the framework through which we think we need to build a force to address? And because of what you outlined before, the challenges we face across multiple theaters or regions of the world, Indo-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East,

We felt that the force planning construct of the Biden and frankly, Trump administration's national defense strategy was insufficient. Felt that we should do that.

roughly, you know, kind of broadly stating was a force planning construct that felt the military should be building up big enough to win in one theater and kind of hold others, perhaps win in a China contest and hold other theaters. And just given the nature of the geopolitical challenges we face, the, you know, axis of authoritarians as, as many would call it, and just seeing what's happening in the court coordination in Ukraine, in the middle East, uh, with

with China, North Korea, it's going to be multiple theaters. We need a four second deal. This, we said that we need to have a four second operate simultaneously in multiple theaters. And so that's what the defense strategy commission recommended. And actually we saw that those surveyed, uh,

kind of share that view when you get the question to them. Yeah, for sure. No, and it's such an important point because if we only have, and more importantly, our adversaries perceive us as only having a military, they can do one major combat operation at a time or 1.5, then obviously if we're

we're bogged down in one of those already, you increase the chances that an adversary in another region and another geographic area of responsibility might say, Hey, now's my moment to go for it. And when you combine that with what we're seeing, what you just highlighted, this growing cooperation between China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, you know, you don't have to be a secretary of defense to figure out that not having, having, uh,

units and finite assets like air and missile defense, and you simultaneously on your war plans have those allocated to something in the Baltics and the Taiwan Strait and the Middle East that either via opportunism or strategic coordination or adversaries could take advantage of problems in one area to initiate problems in another. Yeah, and that really goes to the heart of what you just said of our rationale for making that recommendation. Now, I think what we're seeing right now in Ukraine and in Syria is

reflects the weaknesses of our adversaries. The fact that the Russians are relying on North Korean cannon fodder and Iranian drones, or the fact that Bashar al-Assad is sitting in Moscow now was because Russia

Russia was unable to support him, defend against the rebel force that took Damascus recently. And the fact that Iran was so beaten up or Hezbollah was so beaten up by Israel that Iran couldn't come to the rescue of Assad as well shows that there are limitations and these adversaries are not 10 feet tall.

But the fundamental strategic point is that they will operate and work together and they will do it to disadvantage the United States. And we need to be oriented and postured to deal with our adversaries in that fashion. I completely agree. And what I think is happening, and you guys queried this,

Americans on how concerned they were about this growing collaboration between those four adversaries and eight and 10 said they were concerned with 50% expressing extreme concern. I think they're so, you know, the wisdom of the American people, they're so sound because what's happening and we see this in Ukraine is that this cooperation among the four countries is making each adversary more capable and their respective theory theater of aggression and more resilient and

And so what and it's creating IOUs. Right. We often focus on, hey, you know, this is what North Korea, Iran and China are doing to support Russia. But we often don't ask ourselves the next question. What is that country going to get in return? Like what's going to happen in North Korea? So we need another hour for that. It binds them together. The numbers are quite interesting here. 41 percent believe that the military should be large enough to win separate wars against Russia and China at the same time. And then.

For another time, because I know you're focused on this and it's an important issue, we asked a question about defense production. Yes. And 40% would like to see a lot more invested in defense production. If you combine those, I think we should have a little more and a lot more. It's 73%. There's recognition that we are limited in our industrial capacity to support our men and women in uniform. Completely agree. Well, Roger, this has been great. So last question, what are you going to be watching in the first weeks of the Trump administration?

Where are you going to be focused and what do you think the top priority should be? Well, we know what President Trump's top priority is. It's going to be on immigration and securing the border. So the deportation that he's promised, I imagine will go into effect swiftly. How that happens, the military role in that, military support, that's something to watch. And I think next to that, the

ukraine file uh is really uh critical because time is running out there um and and how president trump postures himself his team uh given the russia's vulnerabilities ukraine's vulnerabilities and uh what the u.s will do really could in terms of support for ukraine on my judgment can really determine and really have a decisive impact i'm gonna be watching for that and of course um

We'll see continuity, I expect, I'm sure you do too, on Iran policy. And given the fluidity right now in the Middle East, the vulnerability that we just referenced with respect to Tehran,

You know, you got to expect that the Trump administration is going to move on that pretty quickly. So there you have it. My top three. That's a great rundown. You did that all impromptu. Clearly not your first rodeo. Thank you. Well, I want to thank you, Roger, for your decades of service to our country. Sincerely. Thanks for being a friend. And thanks so much for coming and chatting with us here on Foreign Policy. An honor. And thank you for all the work you do here. You did great work on the Hill. That was kind of behind the scenes. And it's wonderful to see you out there publicly doing your great work and you're seeing your leadership.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Thank you for listening to Foreign Podesty. If you found the program worthwhile, we suggest you subscribe to Foreign Podesty on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you prefer to listen to your podcasts. Send us your feedback, your questions, your ideas to foreignpodesty at fdd.org. For more information about this episode and others and about our distinguished guests, visit us online at fdd.org. Until next time, I'm Cliff Maye.

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