NEW YORK, Oct. 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- New research presents evidence that the public doubts U.S. foreign policy is working and is increasingly skeptical about whether anything can turn the situation around. In a joint online release today, Public Agenda and its partner Foreign Affairs made public results from the fifth edition of the Confidence in U.S. Foreign Policy Index.
The CFPI -- which tracks attitudes on more than 110 items covering nearly all major aspects of foreign policy, along with its Anxiety Indicator based on five key "leading indicators" -- presents insights into the public's exceptionally low confidence in the nation's foreign policy and increasing pessimism about a range of strategies to improve the United States ' standing. Analysis and data for questions asked in all four editions of the CFPI are available at: http://www.publicagenda.org/CFPI5
The loss in faith in many strategies to improve national security applies across the spectrum to strategies generally considered "hawkish" or "dovish," exercising "hard" or "soft" power. On some strategies, confidence has declined slowly over two years, while on others it has dropped sharply in the past six months.
"The Petraeaus report may have slowed the get-out-of-Iraq momentum but overall confidence in our foreign policy is eroding across a wide spectrum of issues," said Public Agenda Chairman Daniel Yankelovich . "The administration and Congress seem isolated from the public."
"The public sees no silver bullets for current problems, and they're correct," said Gideon Rose, Managing Editor of Foreign Affairs. "But whether that is cause for despair, of course, depends on just how desperate one thinks those problems actually are."
Since the CFPI's inception, the public has favored just a few strategies to make the Unites States more secure -- better intelligence gathering, energy independence and controlling illegal immigration. But since June 2005 , even these areas have fallen in the public's confidence.
The intensity of the public's negativity about progress in Iraq seems to have declined very slightly, but the public is just as doubtful about the ultimate outcome. The "Petraeus effect" on public attitudes seems to be mostly a shift in how intensely the public disapproves of how the war is being waged.
SOURCE Public Agenda
