Americans are showing rising confidence in the military after years of decline and supporting increased military spending as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office, according to the latest Reagan National Defense Survey results released Thursday.
Conducted just days after the 2024 election, the survey revealed that Americans’ perspective of the military is rebounding, with 51% expressing “a great deal of confidence” in the services, up 5% from last year, the survey said.
However, that number remains a far cry from the public trust in the military reported during Trump’s administration in 2018, when the national defense poll found 70% of respondents reported high confidence in the military.
The annual survey is a staple in estimating the American public’s thoughts and impressions of the US military and is produced by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, a nonprofit organization created by former President Reagan to “advance his legacy and principles,” according to the group.
The survey also found a “supermajority” of Americans actively want the government to invest more into the military — even when they overestimate how much of the federal budget goes to the Defense Department.
“Seventy-nine percent of respondents want the United States to spend more on the military, including nearly nine out of ten (89%) Trump voters,” the survey found.
That support did not change even for the 32% of survey respondents who believed the US was spending as much a one-quarter to one-half of the federal budget was already spent on defense.
Another 16% falsely believed the US spends over half its budget on the military.
In reality, the US only spends about 13% of its budget on national defense.
“Public awareness of the size of he defense budget is mixed,” according to the survey. “Support for increased spending is especially notable given this overestimation of current federal spending on the military.”
That interest in investing in the armed forces may linked to concerns about global conflicts, as just a slim majority — 52% — reported thinking the US could win a war against China, while about 64% believed the US could win against Russia.
“A majority of respondents (61%) believe the United States military should be large enough to win two simultaneous wars at once,” the survey found.
The majority of Americans also still support sending Ukraine military aid to bring about a just end to communist Russia’s invasion of the democratic country.
Fifty-five percent of respondents said they believed the United States should send weapons to Ukraine, though it represented “a slight decline from recent years,” according to the survey.
Most of the American public also stand firmly behind Israel in its war against Hamas, with 61% of survey respondents saying they want “freeing Americans held hostage by Hamas to be a top priority in the Middle East.”
“A majority (54%) also supports the United States providing military aid to Israel, including 67% of Trump voters and 46% of Harris voters,” the survey found.
“Year after year, this survey shows continued, unwavering support for ‘peace through strength,” the institute’s director Roger Zakheim said in a statement, citing the classic Reagan defense strategy often quoted by Trump.
“Trust and confidence in the military is rebounding after hitting a low in recent years, and Americans support increased defense spending to build a military able to deter and defeat adversaries in multiple theaters.”
