More Than a Third of Americans Perceive Russia as an Enemy by Default

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(Newswire.net — February 7, 2017) — Since Obama’s administration impose sanctions against Russia, Western mainstream media race in explaining the reasons behind this move. 

Since the embargo, NATO’s EU allies have suffered financially while the U.S. had set its relations with Moscow a long time ago, right in the ‘good old’ Cold War era, perceiving Russians as enemies.

Americans once again have a clear idea on who the real enemy is, at least a half of them, according to a recent YouGov poll.

According to the poll results, a third of respondents said they viewed the Russian Federation as “unfriendly,” while a fifth regard it as an “enemy.”

Adults living in the United States participated in a YouGov poll “America’s Friends and Enemies,” which was executed between January 28 and February 1.

The subjects from 144 states were given a list of 15 countries and a questionnaire where they were asked to mark the country as “a friend or an enemy of the United States.”

According to the survey results, 22 percent of Americans said that they believe Russia is an enemy of the U.S. while 33 percent perceive Russia as an unfriendly state.

The poll results actually display an improvement since the Cold War during which the entire country saw Russia as the enemy of the state. However, the age of radical Islam positioned Russia down to sixth place in a scale which ranks countries from those seen as enemies to the ones considered as friends.

The countries above Russia are Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Iran. The majority of participants said North Korea is the No 1 U.S. enemy.

Interestingly, according to the survey, Americans excluded only Australia, Paraguay and Madagascar from the list of enemies, while all others possess some kind of a threat that makes them end up on the ‘unfriendly’ list.

Another survey conducted in mid-January by Reuters and a global market research group Ipsos, showed some different results. According to their survey, 82 percent of Americans described Russia as a “threat” to the United States.

The same survey conducted in March 2015 stated that 76 percent of Americans see Russia as a threat.

Similar polls were conducted in Russia. According Russia Today news agency, the Public Opinion Foundation (POF) conducted a survey in January that shows 22 percent of Russians view the U.S. as the country’s enemy while 50 percent felt “indifferent” about the country.