Poll: U.S. Public & Elite Views on Foreign Policy

Pew Research and the Council on Foreign Relations have released a wide-ranging study of public opinion measuring both general public and "elite" (i.e. members of the Council on Foreign Relations) views on foreign policy. It's interesting to see which issues provoke a divergence of elite and public opinion and where they converge.

Here's one convergence:

The new survey finds that 41% of the public says the United States plays a less important and powerful role as a world leader today than it did 10 years ago -- the highest percentage ever in a Pew Research survey. And while the foreign policy opinion leaders differ with the public about many issues -- including President Obama's foreign policy, the war in Afghanistan and China -- a growing proportion of Council on Foreign Relations members agree that the United States is a less important world leader. Fully 44% of the CFR members say the U.S. is a less important global leader, up from 25% in early September 2001, just before the 9/11 attacks.

There's an interesting divergence when it comes to the threat Pakistan poses - which more CFR members worry about than the public - and the threat posed to the U.S. by the Taliban, which the general public appears to be more worried about.