And now, at the last, it can be told.
Not that it's any surprise. A poll of troops finds that they are not fans of the President, 51.5% to 36.4%, a 15 point gap. More than 29% of troops rate him strongly unfavorably. Obama does better, exactly as Clinton did in Military Times polling before the election, with officers, the Navy, and the Air Force. He does worse, exactly as she did, with enlisted, the Army, and especially the Marine Corps.
On specific policies, they rate his handling of Iraq and Afghanistan very badly, as well as his preference for avoiding large-scale overseas missions. However, they rate his increased reliance on special forces positively, even though it is the flipside of the avoidance of large-scale overseas missions. Likewise, they rate positively his use of drones, which is another way he has chosen to project power instead of using large-scale forces.
As for his social engineering, the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell comes out slightly ahead in the poll (6% more thought it helped than that it hurt). The other social engineering programs have not fared as well. Twice as many servicemembers say that gender integration in combat units has hurt than helped. Transgender service loses by almost four-to-one.
Curiously, to me, the poll asked servicemembers to rate dangers facing America, but didn't ask about Russia. It did ask about China and Iran (strangely, perhaps, more are worried about China -- a major trading partner -- than about the revolutionary Islamic Republic that begins and ends the day with chants of "Death to America"). Neither are as big a concern as Islamic terrorism, which occupy the two top spots ("The Islamic State and al-Qaida" and "Domestic Islamic Terrorists").
3 comments:
I suspect "danger" has some relation to size in this instance. Iran is known to be fairly insane and able to inflict one-off damage in a lot of situations, or tie us up in a low-intensity conflict. China has huge vulnerabilities, but have a high-low combo of good technology and huge population that would concern anyone who is thinking "I might get sent to fight them."
That's what makes Russia's absence from the poll surprising.
China has a navy. (Or at least is getting there.) I tend to think of China as the longer-term concern, and that's much of the reason. Iran is more of a wild card.
Post a Comment