Poll shows that majority of Americans support less military engagement abroad
ARLINGTON, Va.— Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) on Friday released a poll showing a majority of the American people still support a full withdrawal from Afghanistan and want domestic concerns to be a greater priority. The poll was conducted by YouGov from August 17th through the 19th and is representative of the American public. CVA Senior Advisor Dan Caldwell issued the following statement on behalf of the organization in response to the polling results:
“After two decades of endless war and amid a global pandemic, it is not surprising that the American people believe the United States should prioritize domestic concerns over foreign policy issues. Notably, a majority of Americans still support the overall decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, showing that most separate the decision to withdraw and the chaos around the execution of it. This polling shows that it would be a mistake to assume there is an appetite for continuing our endless wars in places like Afghanistan and for increasing military engagement around the world.”
KEY FINDINGS
- A majority of Americans (51%) believe the United States should be less militarily engaged in conflicts around the world. Only 7% think we should be more engaged.
- A strong majority of Americans (60%) support the decision to bring our troops home from Afghanistan, compared to 22% that opposes the decision.
- Opposition to re-deploying American troops to Afghanistan (47%) far outweighs the support for such a move (29%).
- Two-thirds of Americans (67%) think we should prioritize domestic policy issues over foreign policy issues.
METHODOLOGY
Data was gathered by YouGov between August 17th and August 19th. YouGov interviewed 1118 respondents of the US general population. This group was then matched down to a sample of 1000 to produce the final dataset. The respondents were matched to a sampling frame on gender, age, race, and education. The frame was constructed by stratified sampling from the full 2019 American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year sample with selection within strata by weighted sampling with replacements (using the person weights on the public use file).
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