Three quarters of Americans fear a major war: NBC survey

KEY POINTS

• 76 percent of Americans fear a major war in the next four years, an NBC News poll found.
• "Very worried" or "somewhat worried" respondents are up 10 percent from a February survey.
• Both Democrat- and GOP-affiliated Americans rank North Korea as the most immediate concern to national security.

This undated picture released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on May 5, 2017 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un inspecting the defence detachment on Jangjae Islet and the Hero Defence Detachment on Mu Islet.

STR | AFP | Getty Images

Even as health care dominates the political discussion in Washington, national security remains at the forefront of Americans' minds.

More than three quarters of Americans fear that the United States will enter into a major war sometime within the next four years, an NBC News national security poll found.

When asked how worried they are that the United States will become engaged in a major war in the next four years, 76 percent of an early July national sample of 5,347 adults polled responded that they were "very worried" or "somewhat worried," NBC News reported. That number represents a 10 percent shift from February, when more one third of respondents told NBC News they were "not too worried" or "not at all worried."

Further results from the survey found Americans concerned primarily with the national security threat posed by North Korea, with 41 percent calling the communist dictatorship the greatest immediate danger to the U.S. Comparatively, ISIS and Russia were the top concern for only 28 percent and 18 percent of Americans, respectively.

The threat from North Korea also rated as a bipartisan concern, which 45 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning respondents, and 42 percent of Democrat and Democrat-leaning respondents pointing to Kim Jong-Un's regime as the most immediate threat to the U.S.