Only 44 percent of adult Americans are willing to tell pollsters they’d fight for their country.

The percentage is even less for some U.S. allies, such as Canada (30%), France (29%), the United Kingdom (27%), Italy (30%), Germany (18%) and Japan (11%).

In contrast, 71 percent of Chinese and 59 percent of Russians say they’d fight for their countries.

This is the result of a public opinion poll of more than 1,000 people in each of 64 countries in late 2014 by WIN / Gallup International. The complete results are below.

I’m not sure what to make of this. I think it partly depends on people mean by “fight for country”.

I think almost all Americans would be willing to fight to defend our nation from an invader. I think only a minority are willing to go to some foreign country to fight to increase U.S. geopolitical power.

The problem for us Americans is that someday U.S. power will begin to slip, and countries that now fear to go against the United States will become our enemies.

When that backlash comes, our nation will need the patriotism that our leaders now exploit and abuse.





Note that the coverage of North Africa and the Middle East, and of the majority-Muslim countries does not include the current war zones.

Note also that the surveys included women as well as men. Some women who answered may have meant that they personally were not willing to serve in the military because they that was the role of men.

LINKS

WIN / Gallup International’s global survey shows three in five willing to fight for their country. Note that this is different from Gallup Inc. in New York City, which is what I usually think of as the Gallup Poll.

Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War For Their Country by Brilliant Maps.

Would You Fight? Some Notes on Recent Opinion Poll Evidence by Adam Tooze. [Added 11/19/2018]

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Tags: Patriotism, Public opinion polls, Willingness to Fight