By Alida R. Haworth , Scott D. Sagan, Benjamin A. Valentino, July 2, 2019
A thoroughgoing survey of US public opinion about war in East Asia produced some reassuring results. Most Americans, for example, do not want the United States to launch a preventive war against North Korea. But our survey also showed that a large hawkish minority lurks within the US public; over a third of respondents approve of a US preventive strike across scenarios. For many of these hawks, support for an attack, even in a preventive war, does not significantly decrease when the story says that the United States would use nuclear weapons that are expected to kill 1 million North Korean civilians.
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