Connecting the World to Home: Explaining Why Foreign Policy Matters to Your Classroom and Community

For most Americans, foreign policy often feels distant, something that happens in faraway places, discussed in abstract terms, and disconnected from everyday life. Yet the consequences are felt much closer to home, in the prices people pay, the jobs they hold, and the security they depend on. The problem is not that Americans are indifferent to what happens in the world. It is that the connection between global events and daily life is too often unclear and inconsistently explained. The challenge that educators and leaders at all levels must tackle is not one of convincing Americans to care about foreign policy. They already do. The real challenge is showing how foreign policy directly shapes their daily lives, and doing so in a way that is clear, credible, and earns their trust.

Americans continue to support strength and leadership, yet many remain unsure what that leadership is trying to achieve, how it connects to their daily lives, and whether the voices explaining it are reliable. If foreign policy educators and leaders cannot close that gap, critical national security threats will be deprioritized by the public, and even the most well-designed policies will struggle to gain lasting support. 

Why Americans Haven’t Turned Away From the World

To understand why this gap persists, we have to look at the broader forces that have shaped public perception over time. Over the past several decades, the connection between global trade and everyday life has become more complicated. Globalization brought Americans real benefits, lower costs, new markets, and technological innovation, but those gains were not evenly shared. Some communities adapted and grew, while others experienced deep and lasting decline.  

Detroit, for example, was one of several booming metropolises that suffered the economic fallout of globalization, its population falling from 1.5 million to under 700,000, unemployment near 25 percent, and a 2013 bankruptcy that left vast areas vacant and poverty above 40%. At the same time, the post-9/11 wars cost over 7,000 American lives, left hundreds of thousands with lasting wounds, and ended with the American-supported Afghan government’s collapse, raising doubts about the effectiveness and credibility of their government’s leadership abilities.  

This did more than reshape local economies and take lives. It reshaped how many Americans think about whether engagement abroad consistently delivers benefits at home.  

Yet, despite that skepticism, Americans have not turned away from the world. In fact, data from a 2025 survey shows the opposite. A solid majority, 64%, say the U.S. should be more engaged and take the lead in international affairs. Even more striking, 87% believe it is important that the U.S. maintain the world’s most powerful military, and 71% believe peace is more likely when the U.S. is the strongest power.  The takeaway is clear. Americans still believe in global leadership. What they lack is a clear understanding of its purpose and impact. 

The Four Challenges 

That tension brings us to the first major challenge: uncertainty about America’s role in the world. Americans support the idea of leadership, but they struggle to define what is meant by leadership and what that leadership is meant to accomplish. When objectives and success are not clearly communicated, even strong baseline support becomes fragile.

Even if that clarity existed, communicating foreign policy would still face a second challenge: competition for attention in a crowded domestic environment. During the 2024 presidential election, as major global crises unfolded, one poll found that about 81% of voters said the economy was very important, while another poll found that only 40% identified foreign policy as a top concern. That tells us something important. People naturally prioritize what affects them most immediately —the cost of living, jobs, healthcare, and safety —but are unable to connect that to foreign policy.

American views toward China are an interesting case study of how foreign policy, when it intersects with clear economic concerns, can become more relevant. According to the 2025 Reagan National Defense Survey, nearly half of Americans, 48%, now identify China as the greatest threat to the U.S. Similarly, 68% support investment in homeland missile defense, and 80% are concerned about U.S. reliance on Chinese rare earth materials. The concern over China is less about a genuine interest in foreign policy and more about its connection to two issues that are top of mind for Americans: security and economic stability. The problem is not apathy; it is competition. Foreign policy messaging does not fail because people do not care. It fails because it competes for attention and often loses.

Even when foreign policy breaks through and captures attention, a third challenge quickly follows: the connection between global events and daily life is often unclear. Foreign policy still feels distant, something that happens “over there,” even though the reality is the opposite. The U.S. is deeply interconnected with the world, but those connections are rarely made visible. 

Global supply chain disruptions shape prices in local stores, instability in energy markets shows up at the gas pump, and cyber threats originating overseas can affect critical infrastructure in American communities. When these links are made explicit, public concern rises quickly. 86% of Americans are concerned about foreign cyber threats embedded in U.S. infrastructure, and 75% support removing foreign-made technology from critical systems.  These are real risks that shape everyday life. The challenge is not getting people to care but consistently making those connections visible. 

Even when foreign policy becomes visible and relevant, a final and more difficult challenge remains: trust. The U.S. is operating in a low-trust environment where confidence in government, media, and other major institutions has declined, while people increasingly rely on local, familiar voices to interpret complex issues. At the same time, the information landscape has become fragmented and saturated with competing narratives. Americans are not receiving less information; they are receiving more of it, from more sources, with fewer shared standards for credibility. Polarized media frames the same issue in different ways; social media amplifies the most emotional content, and misinformation, including from foreign actors, blurs the line between what is real and what is not. The result is not just disagreement, but uncertainty about what is true, and that uncertainty reinforces distrust. This dynamic is reflected in public attitudes. While 87% of Americans support having the most powerful military, only 54% express high confidence that it can keep the country safe, and even fewer believe it can deter aggression or win a war overseas. Americans still believe in strong institutions, but they are less confident that those institutions deliver results. 

That trust gap is reinforced by experience. Over the past two decades, Americans have watched long wars with unclear end states, economic disruption tied to globalization, and crises where outcomes did not always match expectations. These experiences have created skepticism not just toward specific policies, but toward the institutions and experts behind them. When past explanations feel incomplete or disconnected from outcomes, new messages are met with doubt. 

Compounding this challenge is how foreign policy is communicated. The language often creates distance, relying on terms that are precise for experts but inaccessible to most people. Concepts like deterrence or strategic competition may be accurate, but they do not resonate in everyday terms. At the same time, messaging can appear inconsistent, especially when objectives shift or are communicated differently across institutions. In a fragmented environment, those inconsistencies are amplified. The results are simple but critical questions: What are we actually trying to do, and can I trust the answer? When these questions are not clearly answered, skepticism fills the gap. 

Making the Connection Explicit 

Taken together, these four challenges reinforce one another. Uncertainty about purpose weakens clarity. Competition for attention limits engagement. Invisible connections reduce relevance. Low trust shapes how all of it is received. Americans are not disengaged from foreign policy. They are navigating a system where understanding requires overcoming all four challenges at once. The question is not whether people care. It is what educators and leaders must do differently to make foreign policy clear, relevant, and trusted. 

The answer begins with how foreign policy is communicated. First, leaders and foreign policy educators must start with purpose, not policy. Rather than leading with actions, they should explain why it matters. Second, educators and leaders must compete for attention by leading with what people already care about. Jobs, prices, security, and stability are not distractions; they are the entry points. The task is not to ask Americans to care about the world first, but to connect global issues to what they already prioritize. 

Third, educators and leaders must make the connection explicit and concrete. The link between global events and daily life should never be assumed. It must be stated clearly. This affects your cost of living. This affects your job. This affects your security. Finally, trust must be rebuilt through how educators and leaders communicate. That requires simplicity, consistency, and honesty. Messages should be delivered in plain language, explanations should remain consistent, and trade-offs and uncertainty should be acknowledged. Trust is not built through more information, but through credibility over time. 

Closing the Gap: A Framework for Trust 

If there is one framework to carry forward, it is this: start local, then go global, then return to the local. Their life, the world, back to their life. Foreign policy does not fail because people do not care. It fails when educators and leaders do not make it clear, relevant, and trustworthy. If that gap is not closed, critical national security threats will continue to be deprioritized, and even the most well-designed policies will struggle to gain lasting support. When clarity, relevance, and sustained credibility align, understanding deepens, and the foundation for effective U.S. foreign policy will be strengthened. Consider how you might apply this framework yourself: how would the ‘start local, go global, return local’ approach shape a policy debate in your own community or classroom? 

The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force Academy, the Air Force, the Department of War, or the U.S. Government. Approved for release, PA #: USAFA-DF-2026-0585

Lieutenant Colonel Rudy L. Novak serves as a Senior Instructor of Political Science & special assistant to the Provost of the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he specializes in national security policy. Lt Col Novak is a Council on Foreign Relations Term Member and Education Ambassador, and a member of the International Advisory Council of the Alliance for Global Security, an organization devoted to educating subnational American leaders about foreign policy and international security.  This article was derived from his remarks presented at the 2026 Alliance for Global Security Frontiers Forum in Tampa, FL.