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Fewer Americans willing to fight and die for other countries

Fewer Americans willing to fight and die for other countries

Recent polling paints an encouraging picture

Analysis | Media

A July poll shows that a majority of the American public does not support sending U.S. troops to defend Taiwan or Ukraine, sentiment that lines up with findings from other recent surveys on these heated subjects, which suggests that Americans appear to be warming to restraint and non-interventionism in international affairs.

Indeed, another poll, conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in February found that a majority of Americans (56%) do not believe that the United States should pick a side in Israel’s war on Gaza. And a more recent survey from Council this month found that just four in ten support the United States sending troops to defend Israel if attacked by its neighbors.

Similarly, Americans’ suspicions of foreign intervention were uncovered in a recent YouGov poll, which found that 79% said that they only support intervention if the U.S. were directly threatened (that number significantly dropped to 49% if an ally were attacked). In the same study, the only recent war that a majority of Americans viewed as justified was World War II. 

Despite these findings, Washington continues to push forward with fanning the flames of war around the world, whether being slow to work toward peace settlements in Ukraine and Gaza, stoking conflict with China, or throwing gargantuan amounts of money, unnecessarily, at the Pentagon and thus, the weapons industry.

"The general through line of the polling data is there is a disconnect between official U.S foreign policy and the preferred policies of the American people,” Tucker Kass, spokesman at Defense Priorities which conducted the July survey, told Responsible Statecraft concerning their findings. “The policy coming out of D.C. is interventionist but the American people, at least based on the answers we received, support a more judicious, more discerning policy that would frankly be wiser than current policy."

The Defense Priorities poll also found that just 22% of those surveyed support the United States defending Ukraine. Forty-six percent opposed while 32% were neutral. Thirty percent said they support America militarily defending Taiwan against China, while 37% opposed and 33% were neutral. Additionally, a plurality of Americans surveyed, 44%, agreed that avoiding war with China is more important than Taiwan’s autonomy.

Meanwhile, Americans have been increasingly less likely to support U.S. military aid being sent to Ukraine. A 2022 survey from the Chicago Council found that 79% of Americans supported sending military aid to Kyiv, but that number shrunk to 63% in the Council’s September 2023 poll. Defense Priorities’ July survey found that only 20% of Americans supported continued unconditional support for Ukraine.

Other surveys also found that Americans have opposed the U.S. militarily defending Taiwan against a Chinese attack. In addition to the previously mentioned Defense Priorities poll, a survey from November 2023 by the Chicago Council found that only 39% would support defending Taiwan, rising to 43% in 2024.

Support among Americans for defending Israel militarily has also been trending downwards. According to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, support for using U.S. troops to defend Israel has hovered just over 50 percent from 2015 through 2021, but dropped to 41% in 2024.

The American public appears to be questioning U.S. military involvement in world affairs more generally. Support for U.S. military bases in Germany, Turkey, Poland, Baltic partners, Japan, South Korea, and Australia is down across the board from 2022 to 2023.

Despite these apparent trends, there are some caveats. As seen in the Defense Priorities poll from July, Americans don’t tend to follow U.S. foreign policy closely, leading to large shares of neutral or “don’t know” responses to related polling questions. Polls also have the potential to differ widely. For example, some polls have shown support for America defending Taiwan, including one survey from the Global Taiwan Institute showing 61% in support as recently as 2022. Additionally, the public can be swayed by conflict or strong media driven narratives. For example, after the September 11th attacks, the media helped to normalize the idea of deposing Saddam Hussein. By January 2002, 73% of the American public supported the use of force in Iraq, believing what the Bush administration said about the presence of WMDs in the country. After years of hindsight, only 32% of Americans considered the Iraq War the right thing to do according to a 2024 survey.

Americans today are now able to see alternative opinions on social media and non-mainstream outlets, leading to perhaps more skepticism towards official Washington perspectives. As polling has shown, Americans have appeared to be able to see through pro- war narratives on Taiwan, Israel-Hamas, and Ukraine.

“Presidents and other interventionists often win short-term public support for military adventurism by moralizing and scaremongering,” Doug Bandow, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, told RS. “However, when the effects of these tactics begin wearing off — and Americans start coming home in body bags — public enthusiasm typically wanes. Hence eventual popular disgust with the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and more.”


U.S.Army PFC Brad Johnson hugs his wife Michelle and 14 month old daughter Alysha goodbye September 18, before leaving Fort Hood, Texas for Kuwait in 1996. Some 3,500 troops from Fort Hood are due to leave as part of the ground support deployment in the Gulf. USA IRAQ TROOPS (Reuters)
Analysis | Media
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The Bunker appears originally at the Project on Government Oversight and is republished here with permission.


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Donald Trump’s recent outburst against Vladimir Putin — accusing the Russian leader of "throwing a pile of bullsh*t at us" and threatening devastating new sanctions — might be just another Trumpian tantrum.

The president is known for abrupt reversals. Or it could be a bargaining tactic ahead of potential Ukraine peace talks. But there’s a third, more troubling possibility: establishment Republican hawks and neoconservatives, who have been maneuvering to hijack Trump’s “America First” agenda since his return to office, may be exploiting his frustration with Putin to push for a prolonged confrontation with Russia.

Trump’s irritation is understandable. Ukraine has accepted his proposed ceasefire, but Putin has refused, making him, in Trump’s eyes, the main obstacle to ending the war.

Putin’s calculus is clear. As Ted Snider notes in the American Conservative, Russia is winning on the battlefield. In June, it captured more Ukrainian territory and now threatens critical Kyiv’s supply lines. Moscow also seized a key lithium deposit critical to securing Trump’s support for Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russian missile and drone strikes have intensified.

Putin seems convinced his key demands — Ukraine’s neutrality, territorial concessions in the Donbas and Crimea, and a downsized Ukrainian military — are more achievable through war than diplomacy.

Yet his strategy empowers the transatlantic “forever war” faction: leaders in Britain, France, Germany, and the EU, along with hawks in both main U.S. parties. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz claims that diplomacy with Russia is “exhausted.” Europe’s war party, convinced a Russian victory would inevitably lead to an attack on NATO (a suicidal prospect for Moscow), is willing to fight “to the last Ukrainian.” Meanwhile, U.S. hawks, including liberal interventionist Democrats, stoke Trump’s ego, framing failure to stand up to Putin’s defiance as a sign of weakness or appeasement.

Trump long resisted this pressure. Pragmatism told him Ukraine couldn’t win, and calling it “Biden’s war” was his way of distancing himself, seeking a quick exit to refocus on China, which he has depicted as Washington’s greater foreign threat. At least as important, U.S. involvement in the war in Ukraine has been unpopular with his MAGA base.

But his June strikes on Iran may signal a hawkish shift. By touting them as a decisive blow to Iran’s nuclear program (despite Tehran’s refusal so far to abandon uranium enrichment), Trump may be embracing a new approach to dealing with recalcitrant foreign powers: offer a deal, set a deadline, then unleash overwhelming force if rejected. The optics of “success” could tempt him to try something similar with Russia.

This pivot coincides with a media campaign against restraint advocates within the administration like Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon policy chief who has prioritized China over Ukraine and also provoked the opposition of pro-Israel neoconservatives by warning against war with Iran. POLITICO quoted unnamed officials attacking Colby for wanting the U.S. to “do less in the world.” Meanwhile, the conventional Republican hawk Marco Rubio’s influence grows as he combines the jobs of both secretary of state and national security adviser.

What Can Trump Actually Do to Russia?
 

Nuclear deterrence rules out direct military action — even Biden, far more invested in Ukraine than Trump, avoided that risk. Instead, Trump ally Sen.Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), another establishment Republican hawk, is pushing a 500% tariff on nations buying Russian hydrocarbons, aiming to sever Moscow from the global economy. Trump seems supportive, although the move’s feasibility and impact are doubtful.

China and India are key buyers of Russian oil. China alone imports 12.5 million barrels daily. Russia exports seven million barrels daily. China could absorb Russia’s entire output. Beijing has bluntly stated it “cannot afford” a Russian defeat, ensuring Moscow’s economic lifeline remains open.

The U.S., meanwhile, is ill-prepared for a tariff war with China. When Trump imposed 145% tariffs, Beijing retaliated by cutting off rare earth metals exports, vital to U.S. industry and defense. Trump backed down.

At the G-7 summit in Canada last month, the EU proposed lowering price caps on Russian oil from $60 a barrel to $45 a barrel as part of its 18th sanctions package against Russia. Trump rejected the proposal at the time but may be tempted to reconsider, given his suggestion that more sanctions may be needed. Even if Washington backs the measure now, however, it is unlikely to cripple Russia’s war machine.

Another strategy may involve isolating Russia by peeling away Moscow’s traditionally friendly neighbors. Here, Western mediation between Armenia and Azerbaijan isn’t about peace — if it were, pressure would target Baku, which has stalled agreements and threatened renewed war against Armenia. The real goal is to eject Russia from the South Caucasus and create a NATO-aligned energy corridor linking Turkey to Central Asia, bypassing both Russia and Iran to their detriment.

Central Asia itself is itself emerging as a new battleground. In May 2025, the EU has celebrated its first summit with Central Asian nations in Uzbekistan, with a heavy focus on developing the Middle Corridor, a route for transportation of energy and critical raw materials that would bypass Russia. In that context, the EU has committed €10 billion in support of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route.

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On June 30, President Trump signed an executive order terminating the majority of U.S. sanctions on Syria. The move, which would have been unthinkable mere months ago, fulfilled a promise he made at an investment forum in Riyadh in May.“The sanctions were brutal and crippling,” he had declared to an audience of primarily Saudi businessmen. Lifting them, he said, will “give Syria a chance at greatness.”

The significance of this statement lies not solely in the relief that it will bring to the Syrian people. His remarks revealed an implicit but rarely admitted truth: sanctions — often presented as a peaceful alternative to war — have been harming the Syrian people all along.

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