European Council on Foreign Relations
Europeans support increased military spending, conscription, independent nuclear deterrents, and defending Ukraine even if the US abandons it.
Revolutionary change in America signals the collapse of assumptions that have undergirded European security for decades. Reliance on American guarantees, NATO as an alliance of liberal democracies, the promotion of free trade and a taboo against aggressive nationalism—it is all falling away. The new reality is a crisis of the alliance itself, the growing threat of a global trade war and the looming prospect of American troop withdrawal from Europe. And, as ECFR’s polling shows, this in turn is transforming Europe’s political and geopolitical identity.
The EU, which was once a peace project, is becoming a war project—a process triggered by Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and that is now accelerating. Significant shares of most populations polled fear worsening conflict, and favour increased defence spending.
