By Bruce Stokes, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Bruce Stokes is director of global economic attitudes at the Pew Research Center. The views expressed are his own.
The forced budget cuts, known in Washington as sequestration, are now in force in the United States and $85 billion in spending cuts are in the process of being implemented, with about half of them coming out of Washington’s spending on international engagement. The impact on America’s capacity for global leadership will not be felt overnight. But these reductions in defense spending, anti-terrorism activities, foreign aid and the budget for the State Department will shrink the U.S. footprint around the world, with consequences for the projection of both U.S. hard and soft power.
In the wake of the sequester, the questions now heard outside the United States include “what does this say about Americans’ willingness to pay for future global commitments?” “How much of this austerity is driven by Tea Party sentiments and influence?” And, most broadly, “are American fiscal rectitude and isolationism converging?”
The answers are not clear cut – in part because it’s possible that the Obama administration and Congress will rejigger the terms of the spending cuts in the months ahead.
Another source of uncertainty is the conflicted views of the public itself, especially adherents of the Tea Party. Americans tend to support belt tightening in principle and oppose it when it comes to specifics, including some cuts relating to international engagement. Americans who identify with the Tea Party movement are more likely than all other Americans to support reductions in foreign aid and the budget of the U.S. State Department. But they are less likely to back trimming military spending and anti-terrorism efforts. This may be because Tea Party sympathizers are generally more hawkish than their fellow countrymen.
More from GPS: Cuts an indictment of Washington
So, from a foreign affairs perspective, the budget reductions unfolding in Washington in part reflect a desire for less American soft power, but not necessarily less U.S. hard power. Still, given the indiscriminate nature of the sequester, which operates more like a meat cleaver than a scalpel, what the world may experience is both.
About three-quarters of Americans believe that Washington should reduce the government’s budget deficit through a combination of spending cuts and tax increases, with the greater share coming from belt tightening, according to a mid-February Pew Research Center survey. But 57 percent of Tea Party leaning Republicans think all deficit reduction should come from spending cuts.
In particular, Tea Party sympathizers would like to see a cut back in aspects of American soft power. More than eight-in-ten would decrease aid to the world’s needy, compared with 43 percent of all other Americans who support such economizing. And 41 percent of Tea Party adherents would reduce the State Department’s budget.
But U.S. hard power continues to receive Tea Partyers’ backing. Only 15 percent want to cut the Pentagon’s budget (compared with 27 percent of all other Americans who favor such action) and just 13 percent support reducing spending on anti-terrorism defenses.
This continued support for hard power by Tea Party adherents reflects their hawkish views. Fully 86 percent want the U.S. government to take a firm stand against Iran’s ambitions to obtain nuclear weapons, compared with half of other Americans who hold such sentiments. Moreover, more than 80 percent sympathize more with Israel than with the Palestinians in their disputes. But Tea Party sympathizers draw the line on Syria. Only 29 percent favor arming anti-government groups in Syria, a position not that different from the position taken by other Americans.
The United States accounts for 41 percent of all global defense spending, according to 2011 figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and 23 percent of all foreign aid. So current American cut backs will, over time, impact both global security and development. But it is clear such austerity does not necessarily reflect growing American isolationism. Even Tea Party sympathizers, who are clearly hawks on budget cutting, remain hawks on defense.
The question now, in the United States and overseas, is where exactly the cuts will fall.
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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It's not about budget cuts, it's not about isolationism. In reference to recent happenings in North and South Korea, we report numerous American deads, not only in Koreas, but also in other areas (purposely killed from "Korean Big Capital"). We have a few questions to US politicians (White House, Defense Department, Pentagon, ...). 1. Why USA did not stop Korean imports. 2. Why are US ambassadors serving in foreign counties not well informed (mostly they not know whats going on with US businesses). 3. When will US politicians serve Americans and US businesses (and not Koreans, not Chinese, ...).
this is not an ideological battle between left vs right, GOP vs Dems, Statism vs liberty, socialism vs free markets. This is ethnic warfare against white people.
Why are hostile globalist elite supporting Israel as a Jewish ethnostate with Jewish only immigration, but turning white majority Europe, North America into a multi-ethnic multi-cultural Gulag with dystopian non-White colonization?
Why do gullible Whites kowtow to hostile Jewish elite, who maim White soldiers in bankrupting wars, infiltrate and subvert our central banks and intelligence agencies, indoctrinate us in classrooms and mass media, impose trillions in debt, and plunder our wages?
East Asia is 99% yellow. Africa is 99% Black. West Asia is 99% Brown. But 3rd world colonizers are annihilating Whites, just as Chinese colonizers are annihilating Tibet. This is the endgame.
"Native" Americans are not native. They invaded from East Asia. Whites were not the only slave owners, imperialists. Muslims, Jews, China, India, Mayans, Africans all are guilty of slavery, imperialism. Whites were victims of Arab, Jewish, Turk, African, Mongol imperialism, slavery.
Gullible Whites should reject suicidal anti-White Jewish ideologies like libertarianism, feminism, liberalism, socialism. White people should reject venomous smears of racism, collectivism, anti-semitism.
Love to all, hatred to no one, but White people must unite and organize to advance their families, their fertility, their interests.
Run out of pills ?
Will budget cuts = Isolationism? Hopefully YES! This would indeed be great news both for us and the rest of the world if it's so. Isolationism is a good idea whose time is long overdue!
I am all in for more budget cuts. Take Detroit as a prime and early example of what America is facing. We must absolutely focus our wealth as a nation upon our country. Stop giving aid of hundreds of millions of dollars to countries that don't like even like us. By the way I am not a tea party supporter I am an independent.
this is all part of Bambam's plan to reduce the US to a low class power. Kill the budget = kill the economy = kill the white folk! He hates america and wants us to fail. His millions in Malaysia will allow him to escape after the fall. Right now its take the money and destroy the rest of us. The liberals only see his skin color and will follow him off the cliff.
You people are hilarious. If he overspends he's killing the country! If he lets the cuts go into the place he's killing the country! Why don't you just go ahead and admit that nothing makes you happy?
Thank you. I concur.
We are waiting for a grand decision.. Forward or backward? Right now,very little is up to us...
With the sequestration in force, American people are stuck with harsh cuts, yet the effects of this budget butchery aren't evenly felt throughout the country. National security is still sacrosanct. As the totality of the cuts is spread out over ten years, the real impact of these cuts will only be clear in a decade's time. Perhaps the Tea Party candidates might feel it sooner: in next year's mid-term elections.
There is nothing that corrodes national security as much as domestic turmoil and disaffection. Late in the day Rome realized that with barbarians at the gates of the city they had better recall the legions from the far away remote areas they were trying to civilize.
They are not cuts....they are reduction of increases.
If soft power consists of paying people to attack us, I say no mas fools.
Isolationism – LOL – not likely – the US can't give money away fast enough to all these countries – bribery comes with a price that places like Egypt, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan etc, etc don't/won't want to pay back, LOL
The israelis have the US by the short hairs and the next 'conflict' is sure to be in Iran – that's what the people of the US deserve by letting the jews run things – the only problem is IF the Iranians already have a 'nuke' israel will be a 'parking lot' before the US can react to that, LOL
If the jews have so much power, why do they always lose money people land etc. Your antisemitism is showing. With only 5 million of them left in the world, theyr aint using all that power theyre supposed to have very well hmmm?
Another drama queen.
No isolationism, but rethinking who are United States America allies countries. USA cannot be "carrots for everyone". Allies countries are: European Union, NATO, Commonwealth, Western Union, Arabs league. But no North Korea, no South Korea, no China, ... no Asian countries.
Involvement in the domestic affairs of other countries is a losing proposition. The European powers, especially Britain and France learned their lesson over 50 years ago. Maintain trade relations but do not assume responsibility for curing their political and social ills. Doing so ends up costing more than whatever gain can be made.
How about something middle ground? We dont have to go strict isolationism. but what if we just stop trying to govern the entire world?
"Americans tend to support belt tightening in principle and oppose it when it comes to specifics"
Everyone is more than willing to gore someone else's sacred cow, but god forbid you should look askance at their's. Until we force voters to identify that which is most dear to them, and then cut THAT, we won't get anywhere.
Wow! I had no idea that the Tea Party was that influential: a president, one they didn't vote for and who came up with the idea of sequester, has acted in their interest of spending abroad. Or is this article really justs Mr Stokes way of painting the Tea Party in a bad image? I think the later rather than the former.
And I'm sure no one outside the US will question whether "Tea Party" has that much influence because most likely very few are even aware of what parties we have. How much do we know about political parties in other countries and their influence on domestic matters. The author is just making things up to get the word count for the article.
Not at all.
Obama will make Americans suffer, to continue giving away money to the rest of the world. That is his goal in life.......to give away as much of America's wealth, as he can, to bankrupt our country, and bring it to its knees.
Has anyone ever told you you are an idiot?
Rick you got it so right. He said in a chicago church with his racist preacher pal that his goal was to make white folk suffer. Too bad the leftist dems are so blind to him. They just want to be "cool" by liking the black guy. So sad
really 42 billion in a 632 billion budget. we should be retrenching and letting the other big guys step up to the plate and spend there money. cheap B's that they are.
Hey, did the politburo pass along its memo to you guys? Now that it's here the president has called off the fear mongering. It was just a bluff.
Those tea party guys are maniacs anyway. They are boarderline anarchist. Lets just take the money we spend on them away. Austerity!
I have not seen it mentioned anywhere ... in spite of these so called draconian cuts ... spending levels in 2013 is still bigger than in 2012 ... wake up folks, there are no spending cuts
It would take cutting the defense budget by a full 90% to ever mean isolationism.
.
I hope so
So we have been borrowing money so that we can take care of 23% of the world's foreign aid!! We are being controlled by complete idiots! Most of the State Department needs to go bye-bye. Close the embassies. I don't care if you want to visit another country; I just don't see why we need a building / office to help if you have a problem. Want help; spend your travel money in the states.
Why would anyone outside of the United States be asking questions about the Tea Party? They as a country, not as a bunch of parties and they expect us to act like one. So the author is just making up a question about the Tea Party. After all, how much do we know about foreign countries political parties and their overall influence in their respective countries?
It's not isolationism, it's non-interventionism.
Isolationism, at this awful stage in our history, would be a good thing. Particularly if we could shake off vampire Israel.
So true peopple. We should all get toguether and demand that all nations dependant on aid are cut off , for good, and israel should be the first. After all they are a bunch of terrorists in the region and they even think they are still superior to all races , including ours.
America is a failed pathetic country of mongrels. China is the superpower of the 21st century. China's destiny is to rule the world, and nothing the USA does will stop it.
Well we are giving Egypt $250M, so we can't be that short on cash.
"Will budget cuts = isolationism?" Really? Our current military spending is higher than the next 25 countries combined. Would it really be accurate to call us isolationist if it was only as big as the next 10? We're the least isolationist country on the planet by an enormous margin. You might as well ask if taking a cup of water out of the ocean will dry it out.
$85 Billion a month is being spent to save Wallstreet profits and things are hunky dory, $85 cut over the course of a year and it results in the lower and middle classes getting hosed. Still love your politicians?
One thing is certain and no one can dispute the FACT that the American worker was better off BEFORE G.Bush's "NEW WORLD ORDER". We need to get back to some isolation to protect US for a change,the rest of the world can fend for themselves for awhile.
They're not even reducing spending with the so called "cuts" so what the hell are you talking about?
The GOP like the “Chicken Littles” always saying that the “Sky is Falling”, like the same ones that were the “Chicken Hawks”, big talk no courage. The United States, favors creativity wherever it can be found. We’re apostles of prosperity and defenders of the free exchange of ideas and when more people in more countries are free to rise, to invent, to communicate, to dissent, it’s not the doom of United States leadership, its the triumph of the American way. Generations have worked hard and sacrificed much for the country to reach this point (individuals and our unions!), and with further hard work and sacrifice (along with our relentless self-doubt) the United States will rise again, we do not tire and we are coming back, no matter what the “Chicken Littles” keep saying about our nation. Never Bet Against the United States!