The Limit of American Public Support for Military Intervention

Abstract

Under what conditions is the American public supportive of U.S. military intervention in foreign crises? We argue that the public assesses three key dimensions of an intervention: the motivation for an intervention, the form an intervention can take, and the tasks an intervention may be mandated to fulfill. Through a survey experiment, we test several hypotheses in the context of a potential U.S. military intervention in a civil war. Comparing different motivations, we find that the strategies (forms and mandates) matter much more for public support. Regardless of motivation, the American public is generally more supportive of multilateral forms of intervention and prefers mandates that focus on the protection of civilians and peaceful conflict resolution.

Does Public Opinion on Foreign Policy Affect Elite Preferences? Evidence from the 2022 US Sanctions against Russia

“…In contrast, we examine a more common and accessible tool. Given the renewed attention to economic statecraft since the start of the Russian war of aggression and due to the greater distaste for US military action abroad (Ashford 2021;Fang and Oestman 2022), this provides evidence on a foreign policy tool that stands to be used increasingly in coming years.…”

“…Sanctions are one of the few tools immediately available to governments in the face of foreign policy crisis and norms violations abroad, and a comparatively cheap way to signal resolve. US governments therefore often use sanctions to "play to the home crowd" and bolster their domestic approval in times of international crisis(Whang 2011).Given prevailing bipartisan skepticism towards US involvement in combat operations abroad in the wake of the Afghanistan withdrawal(Ashford 2021;Fang and Oestman 2022) and strong elite support for the Russia sanctions, 6 this popularity of sanctions can be expected to increase further.3 HypothesisConsidering previous research on how public opinion influences foreign policy elites and the relatively close attention the US public across party lines paid to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 7 we expected that public opinion would have a substantial impact on elite opinion in this setting. Therefore, we pre-registered the same exact hypothesis asChu and Recchia (2022: 1874; see alsoButler and Nickerson 2011: 66): H1: "Information about public opinion will shift policymaker opinion in the direction of what the public favors.…”