28 September 2004
Survey Finds Americans Are Still Troubled by Terrorism
Protecting American jobs is most common foreign policy goal
Washington -- Terrorism and other security threats are still concerns of most Americans, but the sense of threat overall is not as great as in 2002, according to a biennial survey of American attitudes about foreign affairs.
"The domestic concern of protecting American jobs is now the most commonly cited goal of U.S. foreign policy," according to "Global Views 2004," published by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. "Support for foreign policy goals overall is down, as are the numbers of Americans who want to increase spending on homeland security and defense."
There is lower support than in 2002 among Americans for stationing U.S. troops abroad, particularly in the Middle East and in predominantly Islamic countries, the study said. Even though Americans are still committed to playing a role in the world and support action when threatened, they do not want a dominant role and support diplomatic and multilateral approaches to international problems in greater numbers than in 2002, the report said.
"Americans strongly believe that the United States should work together with other nations to solve international problems," the report said. "Additionally, large majorities ... reject the idea that the United States has the responsibility to play the role of world policeman and think the most important lesson of September 11 is that the United States needs to work more closely with other countries to fight terrorism."
Those surveyed also indicated a readiness to give wide-ranging powers to states acting collectively through the United Nations in addressing potential threats, the study said.
The study also found that:
-- Americans do not support nation states taking unilateral action to prevent other nation states from acquiring weapons of mass destruction, but do support action if the U.N. Security Council approves it;
-- Americans also reject preventive unilateral war, but endorse a country's right to go to war on its own if there is strong evidence of an imminent threat;
-- Americans favor using U.S. troops against cases of genocide, either alone or in conjunction with the United Nations; and
-- Americans reject the use of nuclear weapons except in case of a nuclear attack, and reject using torture to extract information from suspected terrorists.
The "Global Views 2004" report from the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations may be found on the Internet at: http://www.ccfr.org/globalviews2004/index.htm.
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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