Talk Elections

Here's Pew's latest world opinions survey:

http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/07/14/global-opposition-to-u-s-surveillance-and-drones-but-limited-harm-to-americas-image/

Some highlights: Asian countries on how they view their neighbors….and the US:

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Next, Russia, China, and most of the Islamic world like China better than the US.  But the US still does OK in most of the rest of the world:

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Favorability of the US has declined somewhat in Germany, but is otherwise doing OK among the US's closest allies.  It has taken an enormous hit in Egypt in recent years, with favorability sliding all the way down to 10% this year.  Also taken a big hit in Russia just in the past year:

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Meanwhile, China isn't hugely popular in the US or Western Europe, but does OK elsewhere.  Greece does like China better than the US though:

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Finally, there seems to be a lot of confusion about who is the world's leading economic power:

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Well, if the US wouldn't be so amateurish in spying Germany, the ratings there would probably be higher ... :P

What's up with Greece?

I'm really surprised the ratings aren't lower. It's hardly any change from 2012.

The interviews were all conducted before the latest round of accusations, embassy expulsions, etc.  (Though yes, after the news of Merkel's phone being tapped.)

So, Americans think Britain is their greatest ally? That's a bit of a snub to their biggest trading partner :(

War trumps trade on people's notions of "greatest ally".

Apparently geographic proximity means nothing either.

Oh well, if I were asked that question, I would pick the UK too, but I suspect the US would be the plurality choice in Canada.

Remember we declined following them in Irak, unlike Blair.

I don't think it's just that.  Before that, there was the UK participating in the enforcement of the Iraqi no-fly zones for 12 years and joining in stuff like Operation Desert Fox, there was the UK joining in the initial bombing of Afghanistan in October 2001 (though yes, of course Canada and other allies sent troops in shortly thereafter).  More recently, you have Libya in 2011 (which, again, yes, I know Canada participated too, but it was Cameron and Sarkozy who were agitating for action, and it was billed as a US/UK/France mission before the rest of NATO got involved).

In all of these cases, even when Canada participates, it doesn't get as much credit as the UK, both because the UK's position on the Security Council automatically gives it a higher profile, and because the UK's larger population/GDP/military capabilities means that it's coming in with more resources.

They've been down on the US and Western Europe ever since the economic meltdown, and have started giving higher ratings to traditional Western adversaries Russia and China.

This is from Pew's survey in 2012 (so before the recent issues with Russia and Ukraine, but still), showing the Greeks having a higher opinion of Putin than Obama, Merkel, or Ban Ki-Moon:

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Oh, and going back to the 2014 survey, here are the numbers for Obama:

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I'm still amused by the big spike in approval for the US in several European countries from 2008 to 2009.

Whats with the sudden 20 point spike in China's approval of the U.S.? Is the popularity of shows such as House of Cards and movies such as Transformers improving the U.S. image there?

Maybe the resources we put into trying to find that missing plane?

Tue fact that Pakistanis hate America as much as India and fear us more really shows how bad our foreign policy really is.

Are you arguing that we shouldn't have killed Bin Laden?

It makes sense though, India is more the long-term sleeping threat while the US has been conducting attacks on Pakistan territory for more than 10 years.

It's interesting to see who is pro and anti China in Asia.

France is still affected by the Obamania. :p

No, but just about everything else we've done has been horrible. The drone strikes, the interventions in the Tribal Regions, etc. And I do think that we could have handled the UBL raid better, but his death is enough for me to shove my principles under the rug.

Interesting how much Pakistanis love China, while the Chinese rate India and Pakistan the same.

Interesting how Lebanon's numbers vacillate. I'm thinking that is due to different samples.

These guys we hit in NW Frontier and tribals arent exactly playing pattycake and the Pakistani government vacillates on how serious they combat the AQ, Talib, Haqqani etc. Further, we all know the ISI plays a cynical game. Much rather hit them where they plan and contain it before it reaches here.  Do we kill innocents, of course.  Have we handled everything deftly, of course not.  I also don't think we can afford to be passive and trust the Pakistani government to keep their house in order.

That is a very naive view of the world. The Pakistanis hate us because we are actually doing something about their constant coddling of terrorists. The ISI trains terrorists and the Pakistanis celebrate them as freedom fighters. I was the biggest opponent of the Iraq war and I still strongly oppose invasions and regime changes, but surgical strikes against terrorists is one of the best innovations of US foreign policy in recent years.

The ISI supported the Pakistani Taliban as much as the CIA did. It turned out be unfortunate for both countries.

The mujahideen of the Soviet era are not synonymous with the Taliban. Some became Northern Alliance, some Taliban. The US was gone from the scene by the time the Taliban formed.

That was a long time ago, and as pointed out, they weren't the Taliban. The ISI built the Taliban so they could have control of Afghanistan. As you may know, the relationship between the non-Pashtun Afghani population and Pakistan is not great. And to this day the ISI continues to support terrorist groups, and will continue to do so.

What has Pakistan ever done for the US though? Why would they have any expectations from a relationship where they have given nothing? Even helping the mujahideen was ultimately in Pakistan's interests as they gained greater control over Afghanistan.

In addition, why do they think the US should support them in wars they unilaterally start against India for no good reason? Every single war in the history of India/Pakistan has been started by Pakistan. They have deluded themselves into thinking this is proper behavior befitting a country that is committed to a peaceful and prosperous world. And to make things worse, they have nuclear weapons.

Why is Argentina so anti-American?

In light of the MH17 shootdown, here are some more results from the poll on Russia and Putin (again, these surveys were done post-Ukraine revolution / Crime annexation, but pre-MH17:

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Putin's numbers in Venezuela are interestingly high.

Looking at the drop between 2000 and 2002, my guess would be that is that something to do with the economic crisis of 2001. Argentinian considers the IMF to be responsible of it and, like everywhere outside the Western world, IMF=US.

Which is stupid because the IMF didn't change the rules between giving Argentina a loan and then asking them to pay it back.  They spend too much, have way too much corruption and tax evasion is the national sport.  Just like a certain southern European country (or two) that is in the same boat.

Not really. While the IMF and the World bank and others aren't loved by the population, the main complaints during the crisis were against our own politicians (more specifically President De la Rua, Finance minister Cavallo and former president Menem). Sure, some (especially the far left people) protested against everything that had to do with the US, but considering that they usually got less than 5% in the elections it's likely it was more bark than bite. At least this was the feeling I got living during those times.

I believe the explanation is much simpler and it is that something else happened between 2000 and 2002 and that was the election of George Bush. During the 2000 election controversy, people already sort of turned against Bush and that went a little bit farther when the US invaded Afghanistan. Of course the US favorability went even more to hell in 2002 when there were talks about invading Iraq and it never really recovered until Obama was elected. Clinton and Obama are viewed very differently than George Bush. In fact, considering all the leaks about the spying scandal and the continued involvement in the Middle East I'm surprised the rating is still that high.


Corruption is a problem obviously, and tax evasion while still nothing to brag about, has been reduced in the past 10 or so years.

I do have to add that while the country image is that of one that doesn't pay it's debts, the fact is that for 10 years or more we have been doing nothing but paying back the external debt. In fact it went from being 153,6% to 34,7% of the GDP. As far as I know we don't really have a debt with the IMF since 2005. And in our debt restructuring 93% of the bondholders accepted Argentina's offer of the debt exchange and because the country was having an economic boom they received pretty big profits.

Today's problems are cause by just a tiny fraction of the bondholders (7%), the so called vulture funds.

You can argue if it was a good policy or not or if it was done well or not (the non Kirchnerist left here doesn't let a day go by without criticizing the government for paying the debt to the IMF, the World Bank, etc and I don't really know if the debt exchange was such a good idea as it was presented), but you can't really argue that we haven't been paying our debts for the past 10 years. In fact, I believe we got no loans to help us recover from the 2001 crisis and we have received no loans since then either (I would have to look this up tough).