In response to the attacks on September 11, 2001, the United States and its allies waged war against Afghanistan. The Gallup International Terrorism Poll 2001 showed that 88% of the American public agreed with this military action.
In the months preceding the start of the Iraq war, national support for invasion never dropped below 55%, probably reflecting the Bush administration’s framing of the Iraq war as an extension of the “war on terror.”
In contrast, the Flash Eurobarometer 151 surveyed citizens of the 15 European Union nations in 2003 and found strong opposition in some nations to the U.S. involvement in Iraq. In particular, Greeks and Spaniards viewed the U.S. as the greatest threat to peace–more threatening than Iran and North Korea.
The Group on International Perspectives on Government Aggression and Peace (GIPGAP) administered the Personal and Institutional Rights to Aggression and Peace Survey (PAIRTAPS) to ordinary people from the U.S., Greece, and Spain in 2005. We found that Americans rated a governmental right to undertake an invasion much more highly than Greeks and Spaniards.
In regard to specific arguments made by the participants in support of their ratings concerning the acceptability of invasion:
- Significantly more Greeks and Spaniards than Americans said war is outdated or there are better ways to solve conflicts.
- Significantly more Americans than Spaniards referred to “defense” in their explanations, including references to preemptive action in response to a threat.
What do you make of the findings of this study? Is war outdated? Are there better ways of solving conflicts?
Why might Americans seem to be more worried about defending themselves than Spaniards and Greeks? Why might there be national differences in views concerning preemptive strikes?
Do you think that if a new sample of Americans, Greeks, and Spaniards were to be asked today about the US involvement in Iraq, their opinions would have changed?
Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology
[Note: This post was adapted from an article by Maria Daskalopoulos, Tanvi Zaveri and Kathie Malley-Morrison, in Peace Psychology (a publication of the American Psychological Association), Winter, 2006.]