Bush and Gore's foreign affairs views do matter, Government professor says

Posted 10/31/00

Commentary on the presidential election by a member of the Dartmouth faculty

This is a particularly interesting election for someone interested in foreign affairs. It's rare that the two candidates and their respective advisors differ so sharply on the terms and conditions under which they envision the overseas employment of the US Military. While Ralph Nader and others would like to portray the major party candidates as being two peas from the same pod, they in fact, hold widely divergent world views. A future Gore administration would likely be more proactive, intervening more frequently with smaller scale uses of force to try and forestall larger future conflicts. A Bush administration would likely deploy troops less frequently in a reactionary fashion, but on a more massive scale when they did so.