Americans Are Still Unsure How The U.S. Should Respond To The Invasion Of Ukraine
The ongoing war in Ukraine appears to have Americans in a bind: While roughly half of U.S. adults want to impose some type of punishment on or sanction against the Russian government for waging a war on Ukraine, another chunk of the country thinks it’s best for President Biden and others in power to stay out of European affairs.
My colleague Geoffrey Skelley previously documented the sort of quandary many Americans are in regarding the war. And recent polling suggests that most voters are on the fence on where to go from here. That said, certain things are clearer based on recent polling: For starters, Americans are still somewhat dissatisfied with Biden’s response to the crisis. As my colleague Nathaniel Rakich wrote the day after Russia invaded Ukraine, Biden already had low approval ratings, including on his handling of foreign policy. Unfortunately for the president, though, his numbers haven’t significantly improved on the issue since. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll fielded in late February and early March, only 40 percent said they approved of the way Biden has handled Russia, while 43 percent said the same about how he’s handled Ukraine. Moreover, per the same survey, most Americans (63 percent) are against sending the U.S. military to Ukraine to help defend them against Russian forces — a reality Biden has said is off the table. Other polls yield a similar finding: According to an early February Economist/YouGov survey, 55 percent of Americans said that sending troops to Ukraine to fight Russian soldiers was a bad idea.
Beyond that, though, public opinion is a bit murky, and the data suggests that Americans have mixed feelings on the U.S. response — whether that’s things like imposing sanctions on Russia (which experts warn could raise gas prices here), allowing Ukraine to join NATO or sending U.S. troops to NATO countries in Eastern Europe.
According to that Reuters/Ipsos survey, roughly one-third of Americans (34 percent) said Ukraine’s current problems should stay their own. And per the Economist/YouGov survey, adults were split on a number of potential courses of action. On imposing economic sanctions on Russia, a bare majority (50 percent) thought this was a good idea, while 20 percent disagreed. Meanwhile, allowing Ukraine to join NATO earned the support of 43 percent of adults, compared with 15 percent who said that was a bad idea. And 42 percent of citizens said they wanted the U.S. to send financial aid to Ukraine; 24 percent did not. What’s somewhat striking from YouGov’s survey, though, is that large shares of Americans are simply unsure how the U.S. should respond. Thirty-one percent and 42 percent of respondents, respectively, said they didn’t know whether it was a good or bad idea for the U.S. to impose economic sanctions on Russia or let Ukraine join NATO. But, to some extent, these numbers should be expected, as Americans often don’t know a lot about foreign policy and look to political elites to signal what to do.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-are-still-unsure-how-the-u-s-should-respond-to-the-invasion-of-ukraine/
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