British people back their country's NATO commitment in principle, and most also support the use of military force if the United States is attacked
The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has called on NATO to deploy weapons to eastern Europe to counterbalance a newly assertive Russia. His comments come in a week when US and EU leaders announced the strongest sanctions yet, aimed against Russia’s energy, defence and banking sectors in response to the Kremlin's support of rebels in Ukraine.
New YouGov research reveals the majority of British people support in principle the United Kingdom’s commitment to defend its NATO allies. Article 5 of the NATO treaty requires partners to treat an attack on one NATO ally as an attack on all.
57% of the public say Britain should keep the core NATO commitment, while only 18% take the view it is “no longer necessary”.
This closely resembles the views of Americans when they were asked about Article 5 in late March, and 60% said the United States should maintain the military pact.
However, when asked whether Britain should actually use military force to defend certain named NATO allies from a theoretical Russian attack, British people are conflicted. Most do favor defending the United States (52%-23%) and France (51%-22%).
Support drops to 43% in the case of Poland and to just a third (32%) for Latvia. People narrowly oppose (35%) rather than support (29%) taking military action to defend Turkey, a NATO member, and oppose more widely backing Ukraine in the same way (Ukraine is not a NATO member). Respondents were not told which countries are NATO partners and which are not.
When asked the same question last March, most Americans supported defending the United Kingdom, but were similarly hesitant about backing countries like Latvia, Turkey and Ukraine.
David Cameron's remarks on NATO come days after British lawmakers warned that NATO was 'unprepared' for a Russian attack on one of its members. The survey also finds that 57% of British people see Russia's military as a threat to Britain, but only 11% see the threat as "critical". By contrast, 46% say Islamic terrorism poses a critical threat.
Image: Getty
A version of this article appeared on YouGov.co.uk
