Nearly half of all the current US military troops on active duty believe they will be fighting a major war with Russia or China soon, an alarming increase in war anxiety among American soldiers, a new poll has found.
The Military Times poll of active-duty troops, released Wednesday, showed that 46 percent of US soldiers expected a war within the next year.
That’s a huge increase from September 2017, when only about 5 percent held the same view in a similar poll.
This is while 50 percent of participants in the survey thought a major conflict in 2019 was unlikely. That number is falling as last year over two-thirds of the soldiers said a war was not going to take place.
The anxious anticipation of war comes amid President Donald Trump’s repeated calls for improving military readiness in the face of growing threats from foreign adversaries, such as terrorist groups and traditional major power rivals like Russia and China.
The Pentagon has…