January 6, 2010 6:30 PM

Poll: Most Say Military Not Ready to Face New Threat

By
Brian Montopoli
Topics
Polling
(CBS)
Asked to assess the condition of the U.S. military, two in three Americans offer an A or B grade, a new CBS News poll finds. But with wars being fought on two fronts, a majority also say the military is currently spread too thin to respond effectively to another military threat.

Twenty-eight percent of Americans offered an A grade when asked to assess the condition of the military, while 39 percent gave it a B, the largest percentage for any letter.

Twenty-two percent, meanwhile, offered a C grade. Just five percent volunteered a D grade, and even fewer – two percent – gave the condition of the military an F.

Majorities of Democrats and Republicans, as well as women and men, offered an A or B grade.

Yet after more than eight years of war, most Americans say the military is spread too thin to deal effectively with a new threat. Just one in three say the military is adequately prepared to respond to a new threat, while 56 percent say it is not.

(CBS)
They also say the U.S. is not doing enough for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Seventy-one percent of those surveyed say the government has fallen short when it comes to addressing the needs and problems of troops returning from those conflicts. Just 22 percent say the government is doing enough.

Americans have a more positive outlook when it comes to the question of whether the government is giving troops enough resources and military equipment to succeed in battle, but there is significant skepticism.

One in two Americans say the U.S. is giving troops sufficient resources and equipment, while 37 percent say it is not doing so. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say the government is providing adequate resources and equipment.

The poll also found that the vast majority of Americans oppose a return to a military draft. Just one in five say they favor a return to the draft, while 76 percent say they oppose it.

In Gallup polling from February of 1980, 59 percent favored a return to the draft. But that percentage fell to 25 percent by 1985 and stood at 18 percent in 2007.

While majorities of Americans in every category oppose a return to the draft, the groups most likely to favor a draft were men and older Americans.

The poll was taken as part of CBS News' "Where America Stands" series, an in-depth look at where the country stands today on key topics and an outlook for the future decade.

See More Stories and Videos from the Series: Where America Stands
Read the Complete Poll

This poll was conducted among a random sample of 1,048 adults nationwide, interviewed by telephone December 17-22, 2009. Phone numbers were dialed from random digit dial samples of both standard land-line and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups is higher.

This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.


Add a Comment See all 13 Comments
by liberalme January 7, 2010 1:54 PM EST
That way typed as S H O R E up our boarders--didn't know shore was a bad word.
Reply to this comment
by ajvw January 7, 2010 1:39 PM EST
cBS does it again. let's poll the american people on a subject they know little or nothing about and report the results as news. lol
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by thinkdeeply8 January 7, 2010 9:47 AM EST
Just an idea. Negotiate a peace treaty with the terror groups. I know this would be controversal, but I do think its harder for some of these groups to recruit when there is no war to fight. We can still tighten our sheild and put more money into airline security, watch lists, etc.
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by independentmoderate January 7, 2010 8:48 AM EST
Notice how few are pollled. Notice how extra parts of the poll are even MORE likely to be inaccurate.
Since the armchair investor, Wall Street jockeys, and old men are suggested as mostly in favor of the draft and war, along with the GOP, makeit simple. That group should ENLIST...then picking up their industrial military complex profits might not be considered illegal... which should be considered profiteering. If Americans would look at and think about where and for what, the military has been used and abused, for the past nine years, it would be.
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by longtree-2009 January 7, 2010 6:40 AM EST
simple really. start up the draft with no one being exempted, absolutely no one. everyone serves 3 years active duty with ready reserve until age 55. draft all high school graduates or any drop out at minimum age of 16. accept any former military regardless of age if they can pass the physical and can do a job in supply, fueling, administrative office job, and so forth.
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by babooph January 7, 2010 6:38 AM EST
If spending more than the rest of the world combined,we have weakness-LET US STOP SPENDING ON THIS LOSING MESS!!
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by toldyouso21 January 6, 2010 11:07 PM EST
Our military is not ready for asymmetrical warfare. the fact is, that while we or any other western country can spend BILLIONS to start or fight a war and occupy territory and must spend MILLIONS PER DAY to keep our military and our expensive machinery there---an asymmetrical warrior needs to only occasionally jimmy up a 30.00 cell phone bomb or maybe a 200.00 IED --plant it somewhere or find some zealot to explode it--and they don't have to fight every day--just maybe once every few weeks or months.

In the end, we gripe about the fact others don't wear "recognizable uniforms" or have a military 'hierarchy' that we agree with, and from that say the war is "unfair" or that the other side is not playing the game right and so are not POWS but 'enemy combatants'

Call them enemy combatants, rat turds, whatever--the fact is war is NOT FAIR and people do not have to "play" by our rules--after all people are DYING. If the purpose of war is to alter a society and bankrupt it--we are losing.

We are losing in Iraq (just as the French and British did) and we are losing in Afghanistan (just as the Russians did) the facts are very simple to see--we spend Billions and go into recession, and we are no further to stopping either war. The insurgents or Taliban pop up--blow up a few people, hide away again and wait--we STAY and pour BILLIONS down the drain, scrambling and killing friends (like the Pakistanis) as well as a few enemies--but they keep coming.

We will lose this war, if we cannot get Afghanis and Iraqis to help us defeat them-and they won't. The Sci Fi books "Dune" by Frank Herbert were based on the mentality and mindset of warriors in the Middle east--it is from them that he modeled the idea of the Fremen. They fight wars in a century--and they don't fight to take over territory or get our products or their oil--they fight to survive and to just--never give up. It takes us over 100 thousand to keep our war going in both regions--it takes just 5 or 6 people diligently preaching retaliation and pointing at the dead and need for blood vendetta (against the Americans who came over and killed their loved ones) and it takes just one or two nut cases to strap on the bomb or plant the IED.

the net result is the caving of our economy, a continual blood drain and Billions gone--for them--it only cost what it was costing them whether they surrendered or fight--it cost their lives.

Guess they feel if they are going to die anyway--they may as well die fighting and take some of us with them--and since they are going to die...there are no rules and they will neither honor the rules we made up about 500 years ago ..or our insistence that they be shocked, awed or humbled by our technology.

think on this--When we killed Saddams sons, they bragged that over 200K tons of bombs were dropped to kill his 2 sons. That is a lot of money wasted to kill 2 people in bunkers--at that rate, we will indeed go bankrupt--and when they start killing us--it is with items that cost less than a lap top. The difference is--we took the fight to them--both in Afghanistan and Iraq--then somehow we think they should see us as heros and cooperate in "letting us win?"

Since wars are fought for new markets and new consumers as well as exploitation of resources--making their lands parking lots is not an option either. WE want them living, and wanting our cokes, and cell phones and lap tops and Walmarts, and McDonalds etc--but it is hard to get to that when they just want us GONE.
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by Leaderless January 6, 2010 9:02 PM EST
The problem is the barack is more concerned about his image and political correctness.
He stretches our military to protect himself instead of letting them do what needs to be done.
War is dirty and bloody and until barack gets it, more of our troops will face unneccessary harm.
Reply to this comment
by toldyouso21 January 6, 2010 11:15 PM EST
The problem is YOU don't get it. When we marched in formations like the Romans and got decimated in Vietnam due to guerilla warfare tactics--we did not get it. WE do not get it now. We lose a Bradley vehicle in about 3 months of desert action due to sand destroying the vehicle. WE have to feed our armies and we have to stay in hostile territory--it is hard to bomb nothing. The tactic by the enemy is a cell phone and a homemade bomb, planted anywhere or better still, explosives strapped onto a body and a crowd--cost? About 30.00. While we spend millions a day and fly super--dee--dooper aircraft around looking for installation to bomb. The game has changed and we are now the old school army, still rightly proud of all of our new toys not realizing (like it took Rome a hard time to realize) that the catapult was out, as was the guns with bayonets--when the machine guns came in...it is apples and oranges.

The enemy will just go underground and then every now and then, Someone you never suspected, blows up a crowd and here we go again--you figure out what needs to be done--but never forget--you actually see this war with a real enemy--the main reason behind war is not to kill off the people in another country--it is to subdue them and make them consumers who will accept economic partnership in terms favorable to us. We need those Iraqis and Afghanis and Pakistanis et al ALIVE--so pray tell--HOW will we do "what needs to be done?" This is more a mental war--and is not winnable this way--just like Vietnam was not winnable this way.

Economics win over military might--every single time--especially when the advasary has no fear of dying and has no respect for either our presence or our purpose in their country.
by Leaderless January 7, 2010 1:24 PM EST
toldyouso21, apparently, you don't get it. This is nothing like Vietnam.....can't recalled any incidents when the NVA trying to blow up an airliner or attacking with suicide vests.......
Economics will definetely win everytime but there's a time and a place for everything.......cart before the horse kind of thing......
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