site.btaGallup International Poll: 42% of Bulgarians Wouldn't Fight for Their Country If There Was War

A Gallup International poll shows that 42% of Bulgarians would not fight for their country if there was a war. A total of 30% would fight, while the rest are hesitant, the polling agency said.

The data are from a new survey by Gallup International, held in 45 countries around the world and representative of more than half of the world's population.

A total of 46,138 people were interviewed globally. In each country approximately 1,000 people were interviewed face-to-face, by telephone or online between October and December 2023.

Data shows that today, compared to 10 years ago, fewer people in the world are willing to fight for their country.  

In 2014, in this country, 25% of those interviewed said they would fight if Bulgaria were involved in a war, while 47% said they would not. Bulgarians seem to be closer in their attitudes to Western European countries than to Eastern ones - again, as ten years ago, according to the survey.

Readiness to fight for your own country has decreased after the outbreak of conflicts in recent years in different parts of the globe. In 2014, for example, following the annexation of Crimea by Russia, attitudes showed that 61% of the global population surveyed were willing to fight for their country, with 27% expressing the opposite view.

Globally, there is now a clear divide between the global South/East and the global North/West. While 32% of EU citizens say they would fight, the US at 41% and Canada at 34% are much less willing to join the fight if their country is at war, people in West Asia (77%), the Middle East (73%), where tensions are also high at the moment, and India (76%) are much more willing to fight for their country.

The exceptions in Europe, where people say they are more willing to fight for their country in a war, are in countries outside the EU - about 60 % in these countries are willing to fight. Countries where people are most willing to fight for their country include Armenia at 96 per cent, Saudi Arabia at 94 per cent, Azerbaijan at 88%, Pakistan at 86 per cent and Georgia at 83 per cent.  At the other extreme were Italy with 78 per cent saying no, Austria with 62 per cent, Germany with 57 per cent, Nigeria with 54 per cent and Spain with 53 per cent.