This is John Bachelors speaking with Professor Daniel Dresner of the Fletcher School Foreign Policy at Tufts University.

Asking the question, do Americans care about foreign policy?

The old saw is that Americans vote their pocketbooks, but what about foreign wars?

The professor has a two-part answer.

I think to be honest, no, they don't want to understand foreign policy all that much.

And to be fair, they have valid reasons for this.

I describe American voters and political scientists use this term.

They are what we call rationally ignorant.

And I want to be very clear here.

When I say rationally ignorant, that doesn't mean stupid, doesn't mean dumb.

It means that Americans are busy people.

They don't have a lot of time to pay attention to the news.

And when they do pay attention to the news, they're going to care about issues that affect

them personally.

And the truth is, is that most foreign policy issues don't affect most Americans.

The R, as you say, blessed by two oceans, were blessed by two neighbors that were on reasonably

good terms with.

So the question of what happens in a place like Ukraine, at least in the immediate term,

doesn't seem to have much of a direct connection to Americans daily lives.

So the truth is, is that by and large, they don't want to care about foreign policy.

But that said, if you ask Americans, should the U.S. continued exercise leadership in

the world, they're aware that the U.S. has a role to play.

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