Over one-third of Americans would back a preventive attack by the U.S. on North Korea — including one using nuclear weapons — despite knowing it would kill some 1 million civilians, an innovative new survey has found.
According to the survey, published Monday by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in collaboration with U.K.-based research firm YouGov, one of the most "disconcerting" findings was that "a large hawkish minority lurks within the U.S. public; over a third of respondents approve of a U.S. preventive strike across the scenarios and appear insensitive to informational cues that most security experts would expect to reduce such levels of support."
Surprisingly, the researchers found, little changed when the scenarios were switched from a conventional to a nuclear attack. Rather, it said, "33 percent preferred a preventive nuclear first-strike."
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