Ignore the vetoes, and forget about Coalitions of the Willing: How the U.S. can achieve higher levels of foreign public support for its military operations

In the early 2000s, the US gained a great deal of foreign criticism over its military operations in Iraq, and later, Afghanistan. But what determines whether the foreign public will support such interventions? In new research which uses survey research based in Japan, Atsushi Tago finds that the use of force in the Middle East by the US is most likely to be supported by foreigners when it also has the approval of the United Nations Security Council, and that much of that support continues even if the UN resolution is vetoed by Russia and China. Significantly, they also find that when the US forms a friendly ‘Coalition of the Willing’, this does little to increase foreign support for military actions.