The FINANCIAL — The United States has given itself a very active role in the global community, which includes everything from development aid to invasion and drone killings.
The FINANCIAL — The United States has given itself a very active role in the global community, which includes everything from development aid to invasion and drone killings. This far-reaching activity has earned the US the title of the most dangerous country to world peace in 2013, with a very strong lead.While survey respondents in some places identified more proximate threats as their number-one worry, the US ranked high on the list nearly everywhere.
As the Georgian member of Gallup International, GORBI is responsible for conducting the WIN/Gallup International annual global End of the Year survey. Started in 1977 under the chairmanship of Dr. George Gallup, it has been conducted annually for nearly four decades. This last December, more than 65 thousand people were polled worldwide, including a thousand Georgians, on their general and specific attitudes on the present and future.
We asked respondents, “which country do you think is the greatest threat to peace in the world today?” In total 24% of respondents pointed to the US as a great destabilizer, followed by Pakistan (8%), China (6%), Iran (5%), and Israel (5%).
Remember that these numbers are global averages, and don’t represent an even distribution of opinion across the globe. Pakistan, for instance, is only really seen as a global threat by Indians (24%), Afghanis (23%), Bangladeshis (13%), and Malaysians (7%). No more than 3% of any other country mentioned Pakistan, but India’s population is so enormous that it brings the average up to second place.
The greatest threat to peace in the world?
Global Georgia
United States 24% Russia 33%
Pakistan 8% Iran 17%
China 6% United States 12%
Iran 5% Afghanistan 4%
Israel 5% China 1%
Likewise, there are places such as Belgium, Italy, and Japan, where the US doesn’t rank in the top 5, and while 12% of Georgians believe the US to be a danger, it came in third under Russia (33%), and Iran (17%).
Despite these exceptions, the USdoes provoke worry across the globe nearly everywhere. In all but one of our geographic divisions, the United States is the greatest threat: the Americas (22%), Western Europe (14%), Eastern Europe (32%), Asia (25%), and the Middle East/ North Africa (33%). The only region with a greater overall worry was Africa, whose people identified Somalia (22%) to be the most dangerous country in the region. Even 12% of Americans said the US poses the greatest danger to world peace, which puts the US in a third place tie with North Korea in its own peoples’ eyes.
Polls of this scale, with approximately 1000 respondents per country, have a margin of error of around 3% with 95% confidence. All aggregate results were weighted based on relative portion of the global population. Visit our website at gorbi.com for more articles.
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