America’s fragile foreign policy consensus is facing (and failing) a generational test

Despite the war in Ukraine, unrest in the Middle East, and a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a large segment of the American public wants the United States to provide leadership on the global stage. Recent data from the Reagan Institute’s 2024 Summer survey, for instance, finds that “Americans of all political stripes want our country to stand up to the tyrants in Moscow, Tehran and Beijing as well as the terrorists in the Middle East.” 

Perhaps most importantly, the findings deal a serious blow to the conventional wisdom view that the Republican Party is deeply divided between an insurgent, MAGA faction that prefers an inwardly-focused, isolationist foreign policy and an establishment, Reaganite wing that favors a pro-active and robust American engagement with the world. The results, in short, seem to point to a broad popular mandate for “countering threats from tyrants and terrorists, defending freedom and democracy, and supporting our allies.”

This consensus is narrower and more fragile than most in the foreign policy establishment would like to admit, however. Digging beneath the surface of recent polls reveals that the seeds of a potentially unbridgeable generational divide about America’s role in the world have already been sown.

On almost every imaginable foreign policy question asked on every recent survey, older Americans hold significantly more positive views of America’s allies and are far more supportive of U.S. leadership in international affairs than younger Americans. If these generational differences persist, the current foreign policy consensus has a rapidly approaching expiration date.

Consider views on Israel. A 2022 Pew Research Center survey found that while 69 percent of those over 65 had a favorable view of Israel, only 41 percent of those under 30 did. The Reagan Institute’s 2023 National Defense survey found that those under 30 were six times as likely as those over 65 to call Israel an “enemy.” In the 2024 the American National Election Study (ANES) Pilot survey, respondents were asked to rate various groups and countries on a 0 to 100 “feeling thermometer” (where score of 0 represents “cold” or negative feelings, 50 indicates neutral feelings and a score of 100 represents “warm” or positive feelings). 

Those under 30 gave Israel a slightly “cold” rating, with an average “feeling thermometer” score of 48 points. By contrast, those over 65 gave Israel a very “warm” rating of 70 points. More strikingly, those under 30 rated Hamas three times more “warmly,” on average, than those over 65 (30 points to 9 points).

These feelings shape opinions about how the U.S. should manage its relationship with Israel. In the 2024 ANES, while 55 percent of those over 65 supported “giving military assistance to Israel,” only 33 percent of those under 30 did. The same generational divisions are present in the Reagan Institute’s Summer survey data.

While a vast majority of seniors (75 percent) expressed support for “sending weapons to Israel,” less than a majority (42 percent) of young people did. The Reagan Institute Summer survey also found that those over 65 were 36 percent more likely than those under 30 to support “the US sending missile defense systems to Israel to help it defend against” the kinds of “drone and missile attacks” launched by Iran in April. In response to “Iranian aggression,” only 42 percent of young people (compared to 64 percent of older people) would support “an Israeli counterattack.”

The generational divide is not unique to Israel. The same gaps emerge on opinions towards Russia’s war with Ukraine. In the Reagan Institute’s Summer survey data, for example, older Americans were 43 percent more likely than younger Americans to want Ukraine to win (86 percent to 43 percent) and 25 percent more likely than younger people to want to send U.S. weapons to Ukraine (51 percent to 76 percent). These views are connected to the fact that those over 65 are twice as likely as those under 30 (28 percent to 14 percent) to believe that the war in Ukraine “matters” for American “security and prosperity.”

Recent data from Pew Research Center surveys confirm the Reagan Institute’s conclusions. A Pew survey from April of this year found that older Americans are much more worried about the outcome of the war in Ukraine than younger adults, with 60 percent of those over 65 but only 35 percent of those under 30 saying they are “extremely” or “very concerned” about a Ukrainian defeat. 

They also found that older Americans were 20 percent more likely than younger Americans to express concern about Russia invading other countries (61 percent vs. 41 percent). Perhaps unsurprisingly, seniors were much more likely than younger Americans (79 percent to 48 percent) in the Pew data to consider Russia an “enemy.”

What about the looming threat of China? According to a 2024 Pew survey, those over 65 were more than twice as likely as those under 30 to hold a “very unfavorable” view of China (61 percent to 27 percent) and to view China as an “enemy” of the United States (61 percent to 27 percent). 

In Reagan’s 2024 data, approximately 90 percent of those over 65 are concerned about China’s unfair trade practices, military buildup, development of artificial intelligence capabilities and isolation of Taiwan. By contrast, only two-thirds of young people say that these are important concerns. 

More worrisome for China hawks, older people are four times more likely than younger people to see a Chinese invasion of Taiwan as relevant to American interests, with a mere 9 percent of those under 30 saying it would “matter” for American “security and prosperity.”

These vast generational divisions on foreign policy issues are not reducible to generational differences in partisanship. In the Reagan Institute Summer survey, for instance, there were no differences in the distribution of partisan loyalties among those under 30 and those over 65, with approximately 30 percent of young and old people identifying with the Democratic and Republican parties.

Instead, the old-young gap is best understood as a function of Gen Z’s growing skepticism about the United States. Gen Z is significantly less likely than previous generations to express pride in being American, to feel that being American is important to their identity and to say that the United States “stands above all other countries in the world.” They are also more distrustful of the American military and more likely to say that U.S. involvement with international events is “mostly harmful” to the rest of the world.

Gen Z’s influence on American politics is growing. In the upcoming election, 41 million Zoomers will be eligible to vote (16 million more than were eligible in 2020). Unless this generation can be persuaded to see the virtues of America and her allies, the United States will soon lack the domestic political support required to effectively serve as a leader on the global stage. If generational change provokes an American retreat from international affairs, the U.S. and the rest of the world will suffer. 

Kevin Wallsten is a professor of political science at Cal State Long Beach and author of the Politics of the Pill (Oxford University Press).