Article: United States non-interventionism and Ukraine

Told you so!

If you read my comments at all, you have - since the beginning of the year, and before - seen a lot of this:

United States non-interventionism

I've been talking up here at OEN this growing mood sweeping the US public, and now - over the last few days - the evidence is coming in and piling up:

From antiwar.org/blog (30 April 2014) story 'WSJ/NBC Poll: Americans Want Less Interventionist Foreign Policy' by John Glaser - that begins by quoting WSJ story by Janet Hook -

Americans in large numbers want the U.S. to reduce its role in world affairs even as a showdown with Russia over Ukraine preoccupies Washington, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds.

In a marked change from past decades, nearly half of those surveyed want the U.S. to be less active on the global stage, with fewer than one-fifth calling for more active engagement--an anti-interventionist current that sweeps across party lines.

Quoting from the antiwar.org/blog -

You can tell from the way the reporter frames the poll's findings that she [WSJ's Janet Hook] is unhappy about what she calls "anti-interventionist" sentiment. She is shocked such sentiments can be so popular even as (in her words) Russia defies U.S.-EU sanctions and Ukraine continues to unravel.

But she must have missed the YouGov poll conducted last month finding that only 14 percent of Americans said the U.S. has "any responsibility" to get involved in Ukraine, and only 18 percent think the U.S. "has any responsibility to protect Ukraine if Russia were to invade."

[Quoting HuffingtonPost.com] "Americans are more likely than not to say that the United States has no responsibility to get involved in Ukraine even under extreme circumstances, the new survey shows," the Huffington Post reports. "Pluralities of Democrats, Republicans and independents agreed that the U.S. does not have a responsibility to protect Ukraine."

The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll is consistent as well with the Pew poll from back in December that found a majority of Americans -- more than ever before in Pew's 50-year history of polling this question -- think the U.S. "should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along as best they can on their own."