Follow us on social

Shutterstock_1088720663-scaled

Can Millennials save U.S. foreign policy?

A new survey finds that those Americans who have lived most of their lives with the U.S. at war are looking for something new.

Analysis | Washington Politics

In mainstream media outlets, Millennials (a generation with shockingly little wealth) have spent the last decade on a multi-industry killing spree. Now Millennials, along with neighboring Gen X and Gen Z, are coming for your politics.

In both the 2016 and 2018 elections, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z have combined to cast more votes than Boomers and older generations. In the 2018 midterm elections, Millennial turnout nearly doubled from the prior 2014 midterm election. Still, Millennials haven’t taken over: while 42 percent of eligible Millennials voted, that still lags behind the 64 percent of Boomers who trekked to the polls.

But as Millennials and younger generations of Americans claim a larger share of the electoral pie, the issues on which they differ from older Americans become more salient. And there are many. As Pew says in their 2018 report, “The Generation Gap in American Politics”:

From immigration and race to foreign policy and the scope of government, two younger generations, Millennials and Gen Xers, stand apart from the two older cohorts, Baby Boomers and Silents. And on many issues, Millennials continue to have a distinct – and increasingly liberal – outlook.

It should be no surprise that Millennials think about U.S. foreign policy differently than older generations. Unlike older generations, Millennials have little to no experience of the Cold War. The oldest Millennials, born in 1981, were in elementary school when the Berlin Wall fell, while the youngest Millennials, born in 1996, have only read about the Soviet Union in textbooks.

Instead of a superpower standoff, Millennials’ life experience of U.S. foreign policy has been defined by the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent decades of war in the Middle East. The U.S. has been at war for more than half their lifetime. These different patterns of life experience have produced some notably different views among Millennials on foreign policy issues. So, alongside starter homes and chain restaurants, what foreign policies are Millennials killing?

For one, belief in American exceptionalism. When asked whether the United States is the greatest country in the world or whether it is no greater than other countries, a majority of Millennials (57 percent) say the U.S. is no greater than other country — a minority viewpoint among older generations. Millennials are also the least likely to say they are “extremely proud” to be Americans (32 percent, compared to 54 percent of Boomers).

Drone strikes may also be on the chopping block. The January assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani via U.S. drone strike was not greeted with the same sort of jubilation as the death of Osama bin Laden. Instead, the attack was met with skepticism from many corners. Vice President Joe Biden, a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, called it “a hugely escalatory move,” while Sen. Elizabeth Warren, another leading presidential candidate, argued that “our priority must be to avoid another costly war.” As longtime former State Department official Nabeel Khoury put it, “The first casualty of the assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani is diplomacy…it only raises the temperature and the stakes of US-Iran confrontations.”

Polling released in January from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs shows that Millennials are among the most skeptical of Soleimani’s assassination. Six in ten Millennials (59 percent) said the strike would make the U.S. less safe; only 16 percent thought it would make the country safer. By contrast, Boomers were divided, with similar proportions saying it would make the U.S. more safe (39 percent) or less safe (41 percent).

Millennials’ skepticism of the effects of Soleimani’s assassination matches their general skepticism of drone strikes as a way to keep the country safe. In a 2019 Chicago Council survey, a majority of Boomers (58 percent) said that conducting drone strikes against suspected terrorists in other countries makes the U.S. safer. Only 36 percent of Millennials agreed. Instead, four in ten (42 percent) said they make the United States less safe.

Could this simply reflect Millennials’ partisan preferences? As others have pointed out, Millennials as a generation are more likely to be Democrats or Democratic-leaning, particularly compared to older generations. And Democrats as a group are less likely to see drone strikes as making the U.S. safer. But the pattern — Millennials being more likely than older generations to see drone strikes against suspected terrorists abroad as making the U.S. less safe — persists across partisan preferences.

To be clear, Millennials haven’t rejected the U.S. drone program entirely. Two-thirds still see drone strikes against suspected terrorists in other countries as an effective approach to achieving U.S. foreign policy goals. But Millennials are notably less likely to see drone strikes as a very effective approach (26 percent, vs. 44 percent of Boomers). And it’s hardly their preferred approach to achieving U.S. foreign policy goals.

Instead of drone strikes, Millennials’ most favored approach to making the United States safe are alliances with other countries. Seven in ten Millennials say that U.S. alliances make the US safer (72 percent), far and away the most popular policy option. Additionally, a majority of Millennials (53 percent) say that maintaining existing alliances is a very effective means of achieving U.S. foreign policy goals; no other policy has such high support. On the other end of the spectrum, half of Millennials (50 percent) say intervening militarily in other countries to solve conflicts makes the U.S. less safe, and three in four (74 percent) say the same about selling weapons to other countries.

It’s possible that Millennials’ attitudes will shift as they continue to age. Perhaps the intra-generational cultural split between older and younger Millennials will cohere into different sets of policy preferences. But Millennials aren’t young impressionable kids anymore — they are the largest adult generation in the U.S. Half of households are headed by a Millennial with children and there are 26 millennials in Congress. There’s a good chance their views on drones — and more broadly on U.S. foreign policy — are be here to stay.


Analysis | Washington Politics
US military border
U.S. Army Strykers from 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, assigned to Joint Task Force - Southern Border (JTF-SB) in May 2025. (Army Spc. Michael Graf)

Military seizing massive swaths of public lands at the border

North America

The Trump administration has transferred thousands of acres of federal land along the U.S.-Mexico border to be controlled by the Department of Defense (DoD). The transfer is part of an ongoing expansion of the military’s presence along the border which the administration claims is necessary to “control” illegal immigration.

Critics of the land transfer, including some who live near the affected areas, have raised concerns about the environmental impact of military operations on these large swathes of land. Additionally, much of the land now under the jurisdiction of the military encompasses national parks and other federal lands which the public is losing access to.

keep readingShow less
Warfare movie A24
Top photo credit: (official trailer for Warfare/A24)
'Warfare': Rare Iraq film that doesn't preach but packs truth

'Warfare': Rare Iraq War film that doesn't preach but packs punch

Media

Unlike Alex Garland’s Civil War, his Warfare, co-directed with war vet Ray Mendoza, is not just another attempt at a realistic portrayal of war, in all its blood and gore. Warfare, based on a true story, is really a parable about the overweening ambition and crushing failure of empire, a microcosm of America’s disastrous adventure in Iraq.

A Navy Seal mission reconnoiters a neighborhood in Ramadi. “I like this house,” says the team commander, reflecting the overconfidence of the empire at its unipolar moment. But it soon becomes clear that the mission has underestimated the enemy, that the whole neighborhood has, in fact, been tracking the Seals’ movements. Surprised and scared, the mission requests to be extricated. But extrication becomes a bloody, hellish experience despite the Seals’ technological edge in weapons, IT, and logistics, and it barely succeeds.

keep readingShow less
vietnam war memorial washington DC
Top photo credit: Washington, DC, May 24, 2024: A visitor reads the names of the fallen soldiers at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial at the National Mall ahead of Memorial Day. (A_Kiphayet/Shutterstock)

Veterans: What we would say to Trump on this Memorial Day

Military Industrial Complex

This Memorial Day comes a month after the 50th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon, which was largely used to recall the collapse of the entire American project in Vietnam. In short, the failure of the war is now viewed as both a rebuke of the American Exceptionalism myth and the rigid Cold War mentality that had Washington in a vice grip for much of the 20th Century.

“The leaders who mismanaged this debacle were never held accountable and remained leading players in the establishment for the rest of their lives,” noted author and professor Stephen Walt in a RS symposium on the war. “The country learned little from this bitter experience, and repeated these same errors in Iraq, Afghanistan, and several other places.”

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.