Most Britons suspect that the US would not be willing to live up to its NATO collective defence obligations
Today marks the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Prompted by the attacks, NATO has since expanded to include two new members – Finland and Sweden – and some have called for Ukraine to be admitted as well, including Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
A new YouGov survey shows that the British public would back such a move, with 62% giving their support to Ukrainian membership. This figure is effectively the same as YouGov found in a poll in the summer of 2022, only a few months into the current conflict.
Meanwhile, two thirds of Britons (68%) say they support the UK’s own membership of NATO. This question had a slightly different format, with a “neither support nor oppose” option which 13% of people ticked – only 5% are opposed to British NATO membership.
These latest figures largely match those from a year ago (67% support), although they have fallen back from the high watermark of 71% in June 2022. At that point 48% had “strongly” supported NATO membership – more recent polls have put that ‘strong’ figure at closer to a third (35%).
Britons doubt that America will keep its NATO commitments
Donald Trump has cast doubt on his commitment to the NATO alliance, and this has been picked up by Britons. While a YouGov poll in December found that only a third (34%) thought Trump would withdraw the US from NATO, many are doubtful that America would fulfil its Article 5 commitments to collective defence.
In the event that Russia invaded one of the Baltic states, 58% think the US would be unlikely to honour its NATO obligation to defend those countries – a mere 18% see it as likely that the US would keep its word.
Likewise, when it comes to Poland, 51% again think the US would leave the Eastern European country to fend for itself, with 26% expecting it to come to its defence.
The public are more divided when it comes to the UK: 44% expect that America would come to Britain’s aid as it has before, but 35% are still doubtful.
It should be noted, however, that some Britons would not be willing to see the UK honour its own NATO obligations to aid the US in the event of an attack. While 68% of Britons say that the UK should maintain its commitment to defend NATO allies, when asked specifically about defending the United States this figure falls to 42%.
This represents a 16pt drop in willingness to defend the US since this time last year, and is doubtless connected to the change in the occupant of the White House, with fully 77% of Britons having a negative opinion of Donald Trump.
By contrast, willingness to defend the other countries on the list remains effectively unchanged, with 65% of Britons are willing to defend France, 62% for Germany and Sweden, 61% for Finland and 60% for Poland.
Indeed, more Britons say they are willing to defend Ukraine than the US (although at 49%, this figure is noticeably below the number who are happy to admit Ukraine to NATO), and the only NATO country from our list that Britons are less committed to defending than the US is Turkey (37%).
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Photo: Getty
