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Since the late 1960s, the Republican Party has established issue ownership over foreign policy. The GOP has shown a propensity to support large defense budgets and military interventionism, and to staunchly assert US sovereignty. As a result, it has appeared as the best guarantor of national security, especially in troubled times. Though radical Islamic terrorism has made national security a front-burner issue in 2016, the Republicans are seemingly unable to capitalize on their advantage due to divisions over policy. Although the party establishment still supports an interventionist foreign policy—an approach that has prevailed since the Eisenhower presidency—, the nominee advocates a muscular isolationism that laughs in the face of the moral and idealistic dimension of US foreign policy.