Sources of Support for Mandatory Military Service in the Context of the War on Terrorism: Survey Evidence Pre- and Post-September 11, 2001

The advent of the War on Terrorism raises the question of the short-term impacts on public opinion of terrorist attacks with respect to the idea of universal military service in the United States. Previous studies indicate that international crises tend to produce a polarizing effect on public opinion with respect to military service. Multinomial logistic regression analysis is used here to analyze an archival data set featuring survey data collected among 18,000+ citizens in 18 major U.S. metropolitan areas in 2000, 2001, and 2002. This article offers further support for previous analyses into the principal sources of support for military service. However, the analysis also indicates that the initial impact of the War on Terrorism may have been to produce a decline in support for mandatory military service and a mild unifying effect on the distribution of attitudes rather than the expected polarization. Attitudes toward military service were more polarized in 2000 and 2001 than in the post-9/11 2002 studies.