Putin's NATO Message Is Landing With Americans

As far back as 2012, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that global trends were “weakening the dominant role of the so-called historical West.” Long brewing, Moscow’s war on Ukraine from 2014 onward saw Putin’s simmering frustration with Western rivals break violently into the open.

Putin’s 2022 full-scale invasion of the country prompted a nadir in relations not seen since the end of the Cold War. The strongman is committed to an end to what he has called the “unipolar world,” unseating America and its allies from their privileged position atop the post-World War II international order.

Speaking after being inaugurated for his fifth presidential term this week, Putin told Russia’s political elite that the West can either “continue trying to restrain the development of Russia, continue the policy of aggression, incessant pressure on our country for years, or look for a path to cooperation and peace.”

New poll results suggest an expanding proportion of Americans do indeed believe that both the U.S. and NATO are weakening on the global stage, though few are interested in Putin’s offer of future cooperation.

The results, released by the Pew Research Center on Wednesday, showed that only 23 percent of Americans believe that NATO’s influence is growing stronger; a significant drop from 34 percent of respondents who believed the same in 2022.

Twenty-eight percent of the 3,600 respondents surveyed believe NATO is growing weaker, while 45 percent said the bloc’s influence remains around the same as before. Newsweek has contacted NATO by email to request comment.

Americans appear particularly concerned about the U.S. place on the world stage, at a time when autocratic powers including Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea are increasingly collaborating to undermine the U.S.-led international order, girded by organizations such as NATO.

Most Americans surveyed—54 percent—believe the U.S. is becoming weaker on the world stage, versus 14 percent who believe the country is getting stronger. Two years ago, 47 percent of Americans said U.S. influence was waning.

In contrast, 71 percent believe China is growing stronger and 48 percent believe the same for Russia. Fewer—39 percent—believe Iran is growing in influence.

Respondents were equally pessimistic about the influence of America’s most-important European allies. Just 12 percent believed that British and French influence was growing, along with only 18 percent for Germany.

Burden Sharing

Questions over U.S. participation in NATO are prominent in the 2024 presidential election foreign-policy debate, with President Joe Biden playing the role of internationalist statesman to former President Donald Trump’s “America First” transactionalism.

Trump wants NATO allies to spend more on defense, and at a minimum hit the 2 percent of GDP target agreed in 2014. The Pew poll found that a large share of Americans agree with the former president, though most in both parties still believe that U.S. membership of the alliance is a net positive.

Forty-seven percent of respondents wanted European allies to increase their national defense spending, with only 18 percent believing European military spending should remain at the same level and 8 percent suggesting it decrease.

Despite the common sentiment that allies should take more financial responsibility for collective defense, 66 percent of those surveyed said NATO membership benefits the U.S., versus 31 percent who believe it does not.

Support for alliance membership is higher among Democrats at 81 percent than among Republicans at 51 percent. The partisan divide—Democrats for NATO and Republicans against—has grown starker in recent years.

A pilot is pictured with an Apache helicopter at Wattisham Flying Station in Suffolk before heading to NATO exercise Steadfast Defender 24, on April 23, 2024 in Ipswich, U.K. Carl Court/Getty Images

NATO’s current prime issue is Ukraine, where Kyiv is trying to weather grinding Russian offensives in the east of the country amid a slowdown in Western military aid and deepening concern over the prospects of Ukrainian victory.

Pew’s latest poll found Americans divided on the issue, with an equal share of 36 percent each saying supporting Ukraine either helps or hurts U.S. national security. Twenty-four percent said this has no impact on national security.

A large minority of Americans—44 percent—say they are extremely or very concerned about a Russian victory. The sentiment is more common among Democrats at 55 percent than among Republicans at 35 percent. A similar overall proportion—48 percent—fear that the Russian threat to other regional nations has increased, up from 41 percent in September 2022.

Regardless of political affiliation, though, there seems to be little love for Putin or Russia among American voters. Eighty-eight percent of respondents to the Pew poll say they do not have confidence in the Russian president to do the right thing regarding world affairs, with two-thirds saying they have zero confidence in him.

Sixty-one percent of Americans class Russia as an enemy of the U.S., with 32 percent considering the country a competitor and only 4 percent as a partner.

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