Combat Experience and the Foreign Policy Positions of Veterans

Abstract

Objective: Prior work on the effect of combat on veterans typically measures combat experience as a dichotomous event. I extend work in this area by theorizing and empirically accounting for the number of unique combat experiences a veteran endures and how that associates with the veteran's outlook on foreign policy. Methods: I utilize an original survey that asks for multiple types of military combat experience, as well as foreign policy positions. Findings: Consistent with previous research, I find that veterans tend to be more hawkish than civilians. When I account for veterans’ number of unique combat experiences, however, I find that the more combat experiences that veterans endure, the less hawkish their foreign policy positions are. Moreover, consistent with literature from military psychology, this association only holds for veterans who express more regret about their time in the military. Conclusions: The results should encourage public opinion scholars to consider the effects that the number of individual combat event experiences and regret have on veterans' issue positions more broadly.