Popular Reactions to Foreign Policy Crises

Do you believe that support of a president rises or falls in response to (any) president's foreign-policy event/decision.

A few examples to consider:
1961 - The Cuban Missile Crises.
1979 - American embassy in Teheran seized by Iranians.
1983 - US invasion of Grenada.
1999 - US troops to Kosovo.

It depends what the foreign policy decision is, and why it was made.

You would think so, I would think so.

However, the situation, outcome, and result seems to not matter at all to most.

I have no idea on this subject I have seen no polls; even then, as they could be biased, the results would be meaningless.

Aunt Spiker said:

You would think so, I would think so.

However, the situation, outcome, and result seems to not matter at all to most.

Click to expand...

I think it's important to distinguish crises from tragedies. With something like 9/11, I think George Bush's approval rating would have soared no matter what he did (unless he did something REALLY at odds with the American public, like not invading Afghanistan).

But with normal crises, I think the decision has a lot to do with it. It is easy to envision that Jimmy Carter's approval rating might not have declined if he had made a different decision regarding the Iran hostage crisis. Similarly, it is easy to envision that Bill Clinton's approval rating could have declined quite a bit if he had gotten us involved in a full-scale war in the Balkans. George Bush's approval soared during the invasion of Iraq since he was able to convince people of the legitimacy of the mission...then it declined when it became clear that there were no weapons and the insurgency was much stronger than anticipated.

I don't really see any clear pattern, other than that approval ratings improve when the President does something the American people like, and decline when the President does something the American people don't like.

I assert that the public will normally be wary of policy until they see benefit, unless of course there is the whole patriot rally, then they will be behind the president from the start. Regardless, the longer the conflict lingers the lower public support of it will sink. The public attention span is short, and once the conflict becomes everyday news they start to turn against it.

Aunt Spiker said:

You would think so, I would think so.

However, the situation, outcome, and result seems to not matter at all to most.

Click to expand...

So, what is the result?