At 75, NATO Support in US is Strong
Public support for NATO among Americans is near historic highs, according to 50 years of polling date conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
It wasn’t all that long ago that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which turns 75 today, was declared “brain dead” by one NATO leader and “obsolete” by another. Its fortunes have since been revived by Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, which to many underscored the centrality of the Alliance to the security of its members.
Even so, in Europe and elsewhere there is a growing concern that American support for NATO is waning—a belief fed in large part by the prospect that Americans will return Donald Trump to office come November. Trump, who was the one to declare NATO obsolete, has made clear he is no friend of NATO. He believes allies have played the United States for a sucker, and said that Russia can do “whatever the hell they want” to those allies who he thinks aren’t paying their fare share.
Americans Like NATO
But what about the American people? Do they share Trump’s skepticism of the Alliance?
The answer is an unambiguous no. For the past 50 years, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs has conducted extensive polling of the American public on this and other foreign policy questions.
Support for NATO in its latest annual poll (conducted last September) is near record highs. More than three-quarters of Americans (78%) believe that the US should either
increase its commitment to NATO or keep it as it is now. Only in 2022, shortly after Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, was support higher (at 81%). However, support for NATO today is a third higher than it was in 1974, in the midst of the Cold War, when a bare majority (54%) of Americans supported an increase in the US commitment or wanted to keep it the same.
While the overall level of US support for NATO has seen a steady increase over the last 50 years, there have been some notable changes in the composition of that support. Throughout the Cold War, support for NATO among Republicans was stronger than among Democrats, but that switched in the mid to late-1990s, when support for NATO among Democrats outpaced that among Republicans. The gap between the two is now a full 24 points—larger than at any time in the last 50 years (except in 2020 when the gap was 25 points).
Worrying Signs Among Republicans
The notable decline in Republican support (and its rise among Democrats) has coincided with the rise of Donald Trump, whose frequent skepticism of NATO appears to have found a home among a growing part of Republicans. Indeed, 30 percent of Republicans in the latest Chicago Council Survey favored decreasing the US commitment to NATO (19%) or withdrawing entirely (11%). Even among Republican supporters of NATO, just 8 percent favored increasing US support (compared with 22% of Democrats and 11% of Independents).
The message is clear, however. When it comes to public support for NATO, Americans remain committed to the Alliance and all it stands for. That’s worth celebrating on this April 4, 75 years since the North Atlantic Treaty entered into force.