If the findings of a new Pew poll are to be taken seriously, one ought to think twice about buying that second vacation home in one of the Baltic states or the Polish countryside. According to Pew, although the public in eight sampled NATO nations largely blame Russia, Putin, and the Ukrainian separatists for the security crisis in Eastern Europe, only the United States and Canada register a majority who would support responding with military force were Russia to attack a NATO ally. Despite the solemn and perfectly clear treaty commitment, less than half of those polled in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the UK, and, ironically, Poland, according to the poll, favor doing so!
However, before the US gives itself a pat on the back, it is also worth noting the partisan breakout of the poll results on this key question of defending another NATO ally. It turns out that the Democrats polled are more like Germans and Italians: only a minority (47%) agrees that an attack by Russia on a NATO ally should be met with military force. In contrast, 69% percent of Republicans polled would support living up to the treaty commitment.
Of course, to show how baffling and contradictory public opinion across the alliance has become—undoubtedly a refection in part of the lack of serious attention given NATO by national leaders over the past two decades—“a majority (57%) also supports Ukraine becoming a member of NATO,” even while less than a majority supports giving military aid to Kiev.
But perhaps another poll finding can make sense of this: by a wide margin (68%), “most [non-US] NATO publics believe the United States would use military force to defend a fellow NATO country.” Typical “free-riding” by allies one might conclude—something Americans have long complained about. However, on the flip side, it’s also a reminder of how even publics that routinely dismiss American policies and statecraft as less enlightened than theirs know in their bones that the US and its military remain, in the words of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, “the indispensable nation” when it comes global security.
Not a pretty picture for sure…either when it comes to allies abroad or Democrats at home.
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