Trans-Atlantic Trends Survey: Europeans Want NATO Focus on Territorial Defense | Defense News | defensenews.com
A big majority of Europeans (73 percent) say NATO should be engaged in the
territorial defense of Europe; by comparison, 59 percent of Americans and 57
percent of Turks wanted NATO so engaged.
These are among the results of a survey conducted by the German Marshall Fund
of the US between June 2 and June 26 covering trans-Atlantic security
cooperation and other issues.
The survey was based on questions asked to a random sample of 1,000 men and
women in 13 countries (10 EU countries: France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the
Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom plus the
United States, Russia and Turkey).
“In area or out of business. NATO should go back to basic territorial
defense. There is less enthusiasm for out of area expeditions. Article 5 [on
collective NATO defense] is back in,” was how Ian Lesser, senior director,
foreign and security policy, at the German Marshall Fund of the US, interpreted
the data at a launch event of the survey here Tuesday.
While a majority of Americans (53 percent) said that NATO should provide arms
or training to other countries to help defend themselves, a majority of
Europeans (52 percent) disagreed.
Both Europeans (61 percent) and Americans (58 percent) agreed that NATO is
still essential to their security.
