For the first time, most Americans are ready to deploy troops to defend South Korea

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 7 August 2017

Americans are increasingly willing to put U.S. boots on the ground to fight for South Korea in the event of a North Korean invasion, new poll results released Monday by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs reveal. In fact, for the first time since the organization began polling on this question in 1990, a majority of Americans — 62 percent — are ready to go to war for South Korea.

Pre-emptive military action against North Korea to stop its development of nuclear weapons is significantly less popular: Only 28 percent of Americans support sending U.S. forces into North Korea to destroy its weapons development facilities, though 4 in 10 would back airstrikes to take them out. On both options, Republicans are more enthusiastic about military action than Democrats, with a majority (54 percent) supporting airstrikes.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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