US on the world stage: Americans’ views have diverged in 25 years since 9/11

For Joshua Kendall, who once worked as a messenger on Wall Street and often made deliveries to the World Trade Center, it was surreal in the days after Sept. 11 to see how buildings he knew had simply “evaporated.”Sitting on a bench in Boston’s Public Garden 25 years later, Mr. Kendall placed the stack of newspapers he was reading on his lap, and considered America’s global role then and now.From World War II through 2001, “America was just the inspiration for countries all over the world,” he says. Sept. 11 “was a horrible attack and the world was on our side.” But after protracted wars in Afghanistan and Iraq “where we had no clear vision of what we wanted,” he says, and now a deadlocked conflict with Iran, America has squandered that goodwill. Why We Wrote This Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Americans still see their country as an important player on the world stage. But their views on how the U.S. should engage globally have been shifting, driven in part by partisan politics. A quarter century after 9/11, polls show most Americans would still prefer to engage with the international community rather than withdraw. But they’re far less assured of America’s role in the world – and divided over what that role should look like. Victoria Hoffmann /The Christian Science Monitor Joshua Kendall, a journalist and author, sits on a bench in the Boston Public Garden reading a newspaper, Sept. 9, 2026. “The big change is that [Americans] see foreign policy in strong partisan terms, the same way they see domestic policies,” says Bob Shapiro, a professor of political science and international public affairs at Columbia University.Professor Shapiro says 2006 was a turning point. The U.S. war in Afghanistan was in its fifth year and the war in Iraq heading into year three when President George W. Bush addressed Congress in January.“The United States will not retreat from the world,” he declared in his State of the Union address. “America rejects the false comfort of isolationism.”Americans had certainly seemed to reject isolationism after Sept. 11, with a near-record eight in 10 saying the U.S. should take an active role in world affairs. But by 2006 those sentiments were fading fast. As casualties mounted and the administration’s stated reason for attacking Iraq – to find weapons of mass destruction – was proving unfounded, public unity gave way to cynicism and political sparring. SOURCE: Gallup, Chicago Council Surveys | Jacob Turcotte/Staff Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress in that year’s midterms in a “blue wave.” And seeds of a foreign policy revolt were planted in the Republican Party base. Ten years later, an isolationist Donald Trump would declare the Iraq war a “big, fat mistake” and win both his party’s nomination and the White House.Today, those divides are still playing out in global issues from the Iran war to foreign aid to international trade.War-weary AmericansAhead of the 25th anniversary of the attacks in New York, Washington, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, The Christian Science Monitor spoke with a diverse group of Americans about how they feel about their country’s role in the world today.Mr. Kendall says the faith he once had in America as a global force for good has been shaken by the wars in the Middle East.“Instead of being the good guys in the world, America, we’re often the aggressor,” he says. “Now we have another war in the Middle East that has no justification. ... I feel really embarrassed.” Courtesy of Karla Estrada Sanchez Karla Estrada Sanchez, a longtime immigrant rights activist, is a paralegal in Los Angeles. Karla Estrada Sanchez has experienced a similar disillusionment. As a middle schooler when the U.S. invaded Iraq, she felt that the conflicts there and in Afghanistan were justified: “It was a time of national revenge,” she says.Now a paralegal, Ms. Estrada says she has come to believe the U.S. should not play a significant role on the world stage.“We are an agent of chaos,” she says. “We have destabilized nations, toppled governments, infiltrated movements, and assisted genocides all in the name of power, finite resources, and a false sense of freedom.”Americans’ views on foreign policy tend to correlate with whether their party is in control of the White House. Republicans have supported Trump administration actions like the military operation to capture Venezuela’s president, saying it was decisive and projected strength. Most criticized America’s role under former Democratic President Joe Biden as weak and emboldening adversaries. Democrats have been equally harsh about President Trump’s war in Iran, calling it an unmitigated disaster.During the period from the Cold War through the late 1990s, Americans’ views of foreign policy were largely exempt from a lot of the partisan conflicts that marked domestic policy. That’s in contrast to 2026, when a Gallup poll showed 80% of Republicans expressed satisfaction with America’s global standing under a Republican administration, compared to only 7% of Democrats.The Iraq war “really bifurcated foreign policy,” says Dr. Shapiro. Republicans tended to favor unilateral actions such as the war in Iraq, he says, while Democrats generally favor diplomacy.Today, trust in government “is at its lowest levels,” says Dina Smeltz, who oversees The Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ annual survey of American attitudes toward foreign policy. “I think a lot of it can be traced back to some of the dissatisfaction with government actions and words during the post-9/11 period.”Divides over how to engageMs. Smeltz’s organization has asked Americans every year dating back to 1974 whether they think it would be best for the future of the U.S. if it takes an active part in world affairs or not. Most Americans today still prefer engagement over isolationism.But there are partisan differences over what that engagement should look like. For example, Elon Musk’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development last year highlighted a sense among many Republicans that foreign aid was being wasted on causes with a political agenda. Democrats tend to see foreign aid as a relatively inexpensive way of promoting international goodwill that benefits America.For some, 9/11 remains a stark reminder that unilateral military intervention can be necessary and justified. Courtesy of Mike Gayzagian Mike Gayzagian works as a TSA officer at Boston Logan International Airport and is president of AFGE Local 2617, the New England branch of the TSA officers union. “America has to defend its interests,” says Mike Gayzagian, a TSA officer at Boston Logan International Airport who identifies politically as independent. “If the folks in charge feel ... [America’s] interests are in jeopardy, then they have an obligation to go in and do something about it.”He also believes the United States has a vital role to play in maintaining global security.By contrast, Marisa Cianciarulo, a law professor at Chapman University’s Dale E. Fowler School of Law, thinks the post-9/11 conflicts taught a different lesson: The U.S. shouldn’t try to be the world’s police officer.“It was unforgivably naive ... for U.S. leaders to promote the deeply flawed idea that the power vacuums created in Iraq and ultimately Syria would be filled with American-like democracies,” she says. Courtesy of Marisa Cianciarulo Marisa Cianciarulo is a law professor at Chapman University in Orange, California, who specialized in immigration law. There’s a stark generational divide when it comes to America’s role after Sept. 11. Millennials, who tend to lean left politically, are much more skeptical than older generations about the use of force, and much less likely to believe their country is exceptional.“Millennials and Gen Z have grown up in a period where the U.S. has been in the continuous era of post-9/11 conflicts,” says Ms. Smeltz. “They prefer much more cooperative, multilateral policies, and they really oppose military interventions.”Jesse Dupuis, a technician for a pharmaceutical company in Madison, Wisconsin, was born the year after the attacks. He thinks the country’s military interventions in recent decades have largely resulted in failure.“When it comes to trying to reform or take over a place ... or do a remodeling of the system in a country that is not our ally – that has mostly failed,” he says. Patrik Jonsson/The Christian Science Monitor Allen Brown talks in his Hinesville, Georgia, office about the role of neighboring Fort Stewart on the post-9/11 world, Sept. 9, 2026. Ms. Smeltz notes that as younger generations start to filter into positions of power, they will bring these views with them. “That will be something that we will see in foreign policymakers in the future,” she says.Allen Brown, a former mayor of Hinesville, Georgia, vividly remembers the sense of patriotism and unity in his hometown at the start of the Iraq war. Fort Stewart, home of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, is just outside Hinesville, and its soldiers led the incursion into Iraq in 2003.Today Mr. Brown, a Republican and Trump voter, says people in his hometown seem more conflicted about the Iran war. It’s hard to square the incursion with an America First, hands-off approach to foreign affairs, he notes. Still, he misses the cultural cohesion of the post-9/11 period.Sept. 11 “brought us together – and somehow or another we’re more divided than we once were in this country,” he says.Audrey Thibert contributed reporting to this story.