Flag draped transfer cases with the remains of American soldiers repatriated
from North Korea are seen during a repatriation ceremony after arriving to Joint
Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Honolulu, Hawaii, on August 1, 2018. (Photo by AFP)
Nearly half of all the current US military troops on active duty believe they
will be fighting a major war with Russia or China soon, an alarming increase in
war anxiety among American soldiers, a new poll has found.
The Military Times poll of active-duty troops, released Wednesday, showed that
46 percent of US soldiers expected a war within the next year.
That's a huge increase from September 2017, when only about 5 percent held the
same view in a similar poll.
This is while 50 percent of participants in the survey thought a major conflict
in 2019 was unlikely. That number is falling as last year over two-thirds of the
soldiers said a war was not going to take place.
The anxious anticipation of war comes amid President Donald Trump’s repeated
calls for improving military readiness in the face of growing threats from
foreign adversaries, such as terrorist groups and traditional major power rivals
like Russia and China.
The Pentagon has publicly warned about the need to stay prepared for a conflict
against a "near-peer" adversary.
That adversary could very well be Russia, as indicated in Trump’s revised
nuclear strategy earlier this year. China is also likely to be viewed as a
threat amid growing tensions between the two sides over a range of issues, from
trade to Washington’s disregard for China’s sovereignty claims over the South
China Sea.
PressTV-US may lose simultaneous war with Russia, China: RAND
The US military lacks the ability to confront its Russian and Chinese
counterparts in case a simultaneous war breaks out, a major think tank suggests.
When asked what specific countries they viewed as most serious threats, US
troops named Russia and China among their top concerns: Some 71 percent said
Russia was a significant threat, up 18 points from last year. About 69 percent
of troops said China posed a significant threat, up 24 points from 2017.
The biggest drop in this year's list of potentially threatening countries
belonged to North Korea, which was seen as a significant threat by only 46
percent. The figure stood at more than 72 percent one year ago.
Nearly 89 percent named Cyber-terrorism as the top threat while many troops said
they were worried about their country’s lack of readiness to face such threats.
Source:PressTV