An overwhelming majority of Americans support US military action in other countries, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute has found.
The survey was carried out last month and polled 1,000 adults in the US. It says three in four respondents are in favour of using US military forces to prevent “human rights violations” and “defend freedom” overseas, whether or not there’s a direct threat to their own country. Libya much?
Likewise, 65 percent of Americans say that the US should continue to maintain bases around the world, with only 28 percent supporting the reduction of overseas military presence.
Seventy-six percent of respondents are in favour of increased military spending, with 46 percent strongly supporting. Only education and healthcare enjoy more support as the recipients of increased government funding.
Incidentally, the level of confidence in the US military is very high: 86 percent of the American public expresses such sentiment, which is incomparable to the 58 percent of confidence in the public schools, 45 percent in the presidency, 41 in the news media and 33 in Congress.
China is seen as the country posing the biggest threat (28 percent), followed by Russia (25 percent) and North Korea (14 percent). While the percentage seeing Russia as an enemy remained virtually unchanged (71 percent versus 73 in 2018), the share of those identifying Russia as an ally has increased to 28 percent from 19 percent in 2018.
“The Reagan National Defense Survey clearly shows that Americans remain steadfast in their support for a strong military that both keeps the peace and advances the values of freedom and democracy abroad,” Roger Zakheim, the Washington Director of the Reagan Institute, said in a press release.
“These are not the views of a country that would eschew global leadership but rather a nation where President Reagan’s vision of peace through strength is alive and well.”
Breaking off with the decades-long military expansionism under his predecessors, Donald Trump set the US on the path to disengagement from overseas conflicts. Rather than resort to hawkish military action, Trump has employed a mix of sanctions and negotiations, which has so far produced questionable resorts in several flashpoints, including Iran and North Korea.
