By USDR.
The most recent poll from the Media and Public Opinion Research Group asks what Americans consider to be the biggest threat to world security and finds that almost one third (30%) of Americans are worried about terrorism.
As for traditional states as threats, similar number of respondents identify North Korea (10.2%), Iran (11.6%) and China (10%) as the world’s biggest threats right now. Incidentally, the United States receives a similar amount of blame from Americans (10.3%).
Younger people are the most likely to point to the US as a global security threat. 18.1% of respondents aged 20-29 choose the US, a portion that decreases as age groups increase, down to only 5.2% of those over 60.
The escalation of some conflicts are also cause for worry. Though the Syrian civil has arguably received more news coverage recently, more Americans think the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a bigger threat to world security: 6.5% compared to 2.3% choosing the war in Syria.
Obama supporters and detractors are uncharacteristically similar in opinion on this question. The only answer that receives more than a 5 percentage point discrepancy between the two groups is environmental disasters. 15.3% of respondents who approve of Obama’s job performance are most concerned about environmental disasters, compared to only 1.8% of those who disapprove of the president.
Data was collected from a survey of 501 respondents over the month of May 2013. The margin of error is 4.38%.
To view the complete data set, including this question, as well as opinion on poverty and the president, see MPO’s monthly report at http://www.mpopost.com.
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