U.S.: Sep Attacks Spur Support for More Internationalism, Defence

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Oct 25 2001 (IPS) - The devastating terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon have spurred a “new internationalist sentiment” in the U.S. public, as well as much greater support for a strong military, including a national missile defence (NMD) system, according to a major poll released Wednesday by the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

The poll, carried out in late August and early September and then again five weeks after the Sep. 11 attacks, also found that a near-majority (45 percent) of the public wants Washington to act as “the single leader or first among equals” in global affairs.

This is a substantial increase from 38 percent just before Sep. 11 and an even smaller percentage a decade ago after the Gulf War.

And while the public clearly favours a more active role in world affairs, its interest in non-geopolitical issues, such as the environment, health and infectious diseases like AIDS, and world hunger has diminished sharply in the wake of the attacks, according to the poll, which was conducted by the Pew Research Centre here.

As to the conflict against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the al-Qaeda network which the administration of President George W. Bush has accused of responsibility for the Sep. 11 attacks, a strong majority of the public reject the idea that it will become a major “clash of civilisations” between the West and the Islamic world.

Only 28 percent of respondents said they see it in this light, while nearly two thirds (63 percent) describe the struggle as one against a small, radical group. The poll, which featured detailed follow-up questions, found that respondents with less education were more likely to see it as a civilisational clash than those with more.

Similarly, those respondents who are following events less closely in the mass media tend to be much more worried about the possibility of more terrorist attacks and a major conflict than those who describe themselves as more closely attuned to world affairs.

However, according to the two principal authors, Andrew Kohout of the Pew Center and Morton Halperin, a senior national-security official in the Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton administrations, the main findings are of what they call “America’s new internationalist sentiment”.

“There is much more support for a multilateral foreign policy than before Sep. 11, with roughly six-in-ten (59 percent) now saying that the interests of (U.S.) allies should be taken into account by U.S. policymakers,” they wrote.

Indeed, by a two-to-one margin (59 percent to 30 percent, respondents said Washington should “strongly take into account the interests of its allies with regard to the war on terrorism” as opposed to basing decisions “mostly on U.S. national interests,” which was a favourite theme of Bush’s presidential campaign last year.

Before the attacks, when asked about general levels of co- operation with allies, the public was more evenly divided, with 48 percent in favour of taking allies’ views into account, and 38 percent saying U.S. national interests should take priority.

The shift crossed all ideological affiliations, with even a majority of right-wing Republicans û the most unilateralist sector of public opinion û insisting that allies must be consulted.

But if unilateralists of the right have become more multilateralist, multilateralists on the left, who favoured Washington’s participation global efforts to stop the spread of infectious diseases, curb global warming, alleviate world hunger and promote democratic governance in other nations, have lost a lot of momentum as a result of the Sep. 11 attacks.

The percentage of respondents who rated the global fight against AIDS and other diseases as a “top priority” in U.S. foreign policy fell from 73 percent two months ago to 59 percent late this month. Similarly, “dealing with global warming”, considered a top priority by 44 percent of the public just before the attacks is now down to 31 percent.

Among the youngest respondents — those between 18 and 30 — support for both issues as “top priorities” has fallen by almost half.

This “reveals that the luxury’ foreign policies in vogue prior to Sep. 11 are rapidly losing ground, as public opinion slides back to more centrist positions around the new threat to U.S. security, international terrorism,” according to Kenneth Pollack, a senior CFR fellow.

“I use the term ‘luxury’ not to belittle these policies but to reflect the fact that they became popular only with the end of the Cold War, when the United States was seen as having a surfeit of security, and thus the ‘surplus’ could be used to pursue American interests that were often neglected during the Cold War because of the all-consuming priority of the U.S.-Soviet balance,” wrote Pollack in an analysis released with the poll results.

Indeed, the poll suggests that the popular reaction to the Sep. 11 attacks is quite similar to Cold War attitudes in that a new over-arching consensus on foreign policy embraced by both sides in the post-Cold War debate over unilateralism versus multilateralism has been forged around the “war” against terrorism, at least for now, according to Pollack.

“If the left has at least deferred its dreams of greater international and transnational aid, the right has had to abandon much of its determination to pursue U.S. foreign policy objectives regardless of how other nations might react,” Pollack wrote.

But the left may have lost a lot more in the wake of the terrorist attacks, the poll suggests. “Public opinion on defense policies has been transformed,” according to the two main authors.

Support for increased defense spending has risen from 32 to 50 percent, a 25-year high, over the past six weeks — with most of the rise coming from Democrats and women.

Indeed, a gender gap that had grown steadily over the past decade has almost disappeared overnight.

The change is particularly pronounced on NMD, immediate deployment of which is now favoured by 49 percent of both men and women, up 14 percent from before the Sep. 11 attacks. The percentage of women favouring immediate deployment skyrocketed from 29 to 51 percent in that time; for mothers, the increase was even more dramatic: from 27 to 59 percent.

Overall, women now support NMD more eagerly than men (47 percent) for the first time since the question was posed in a national poll.

As to the U.S. reaction to the terrorist attacks, 48 percent of all respondents gave a higher priority to “taking military action to destroy terrorist networks” than “building defenses against future attacks (37 percent)”.

African Americans, however, favoured homeland defence over military action by a two-to-one margin, according to the report.