SRRS has conducted a new poll, showing that Americans have become increasingly concerned that North Korea poses a very serious threat to the United States, CNN reports.
Almost two-thirds of those surveyed, 62 percent, say Kim Jong Un’s isolated dictatorship poses a deep threat to the U.S., up from 48 percent who said the same in March and the highest that figure has been in surveys dating back to 2000.
Some 77 percent have said that they believe North Korea has the capability of launching a missile that could hit the United States.
The poll was carried out after news reports of North Korean missile tests that included intercontinental ballistic missiles with the potential to hit the U.S. under the right conditions.
Interviewing for the poll wrapped up on Monday, before an eventful Tuesday when news emerged that U.S. intelligence believes North Korea has miniaturized a nuclear warhead and President Donald Trump threatened to respond to Pyongyang with “fire and fury” should they threaten the U.S.
The survey showed that before those comments, Trump merited more negative than positive reviews for his handling of the situation with North Korea. Half (50 percent) say they disapprove of Donald Trump’s handling of it, 37 percent say they approve and another 13 percent say they aren’t sure about his handling of the issue.
With six in 10 people polled calling North Korea a very serious threat, the country is now viewed as a more serious threat than Iran (33 percent) or China (20 percent), and is about on par with the perceived threat posed by ISIS (64 percent). Fewer, however, said they saw the country’s military and weapons capabilities as a crisis for the United States (32 percent saw it that way). That figure is higher now than it was in 2003, not long after the completion of the first round of six-party talks aimed at curtailing Pyongyang’s efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. Back then, 22 percent considered the country’s weapons and military capability to be a crisis.
Concerns about North Korea and views on its ability to hit the United States are similar across party lines, according to the poll. Among Republicans, 68 percent consider North Korea a very serious threat, that view is shared by a near identical 67 percent of Democrats. A matching 32 percent in each party call Pyongyang’s military capabilities a crisis.
And about eight in 10 in each party say the country is capable of launching a missile that would hit the U.S.
The concern that North Korea is capable of launching a missile that could hit the United States has grown since 2009. Then, in a survey conducted not long after North Korea’s underground detonation of what it said was a nuclear warhead, 72 percent said they thought the country was capable of hitting the United States with a missile.
Despite the 2009 polling, U.S. intelligence assessments indicate that if North Korea does in fact have the capability of hitting the U.S. with a missile under the right conditions, they obtained it recently.
On Tuesday, CNN reported that U.S. intelligence analysts have assessed that North Korea has produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead, according to multiple sources, but it is not believed that the technology has been tested or that North Korea has the capability to deploy it with an intercontinental ballistic missile.
The public is split on whether the U.S. should take military action in response to the country’s recent weapons testing and development, and partisan divisions emerge on questions about how the U.S. should respond. Overall, 50 percent say they favor taking military action in response to testing of weapons that could reach the U.S., 43 percent oppose it. Three-quarters of Republicans favor a military response (74 percent) but that dips to 47 percent among independents and 34 percent among Democrats.
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