Dems are more likely to stir up geopolitical conflict
To the extent there’s a meaningful difference, I still think this leans Republican. We have essentially a bipartisan consensus on Ukraine and Israel, and the immediate start of those conflicts was not Biden ordering an attack on someone. On the other hand, you had Trump directly ordering acts of war on Iran what, two or three times? The U.S. also sponsored a coup in Bolivia and a Bay of Pigs-style invasion of Bolivia under him.
Historically dems are the party that tends to get involved in wars though https://thebaffler.com/latest/democrats-are-the-real-party-of-war
Indeed, all of the major U.S. wars in the 20th century—World War I, II, Korea and Vietnam—were entered by Democratic administrations.
Some of this is factually questionable (the U.S. had “advisors” in Vietnam since 1955, under Eisenhower), much is more happenstance than a political choice (would a Republican administration have kept us out of WWII after Pearl Harbor?), and I don’t think comparing WWI (or even Vietnam) to 2024 and beyond is particularly useful. The framework for modern U.S. foreign policy is the War on Terror – it’s the justification for nearly every U.S. military action since 9/11 and the current rationale for maintaining the empire.
Democrats are imperialists too, of course, but since Vietnam they’ve avoided the type of boots-on-the-ground invasion/occupation that is most damaging to the country being attacked. Meanwhile Republicans nearly started a war with Iran (a country Democrats had been working with diplomatically) just a few years ago.
I really don’t think there’s a huge amount of difference in policy because ultimately it’s all driven by the permanent bureaucracy. For example, Nuland served under Bush, Obama, then Biden. She doesn’t care which party is in charge. Meanwhile, the current admin has probably gotten US closer to a war with Iran than it’s ever been. I agree that a lot of it is happenstance, but currently neocons are gravitating towards the dem party.
That’s a really useless analysis as far as those wars because it ignores the party switch around the civil rights era. Conservatives in the us say the same thing “see! Demorcats are racist!!” based on the 1950s but the thing is the parties flipped positions around the 60s.
