Survey: NATO countries see America as shield to Russian threat

Some of the United States' closest NATO partners in Europe are reluctant to come to the aid of a neighboring ally attacked by Russia — possibly because they think the United States will come to the rescue, according to a survey published Wednesday.

More than 50% of respondents in the Pew Research Center poll from Italy, France and Germany said their countries should refrain from aiding an ally.

Across eight key NATO countries surveyed, fewer than half — 48% — said their nation should intervene militarily if Russia gets in a serious conflict with a neighboring ally. That compares with 42% who oppose intervening.

More than two-thirds — 68% — of those surveyed said the United States would come to an ally's defense, according to results released Wednesday.

"Many allied countries are reluctant to uphold Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which requires NATO members to defend an ally with armed force if necessary," the survey found.

The two countries most in favor of aiding an ally attacked by Russia were the USA, 56%, and Canada, 53%.

The survey comes as Europe keeps a wary eye on the nearby conflict in Ukraine between national forces and Russian-backed separatists, though Russia continues to deny involvement.

Despite concerns about Russian aggression, former NATO Commander Gen. Wesley Clark said the memories of two world wars in the last century that devastated the continent are still fresh in the minds of Europeans.

Europeans "know how serious a conflict with Russia could be. They want their leaders to avoid it," he said. "It's up to the leaders to pick the right course of action."

The survey involved more than 11,000 face-to-face and telephone interviews in the United States, Canada, Britain, Spain, France, Germany, Poland and Italy, as well as Russia and Ukraine.

The results depict the difficulty Europeans have adjusting to a new phase of conflict with Russia, said Hans Binnendijk, a former White House adviser on Europe and NATO policy.

For 25 years since the collapse of Communism, "Europe was whole and free and at peace and they thought that would last," he said. "It's just in the last year or two we've seen challenges to that."

Russian opinion of the United States and the European Union has declined sharply since the conflict with Ukraine began 16 months ago, the study found. That's a clear sign of worsening relations, said Katie Simmons, associate director for research at Pew.

Today, just 31% of Russians have a favorable opinion of the European Union, down from 63% in 2013. For the USA, that number is down to 15% from 51%.

Half of Russians say NATO is a major military threat to their nation, and they overwhelmingly oppose Ukraine becoming a member of either NATO (83%) or the EU (68%).

In Ukraine, which replaced a pro-Russian government with a pro-Western one in February 2014, two-thirds of the public supported joining the EU and 53% supported joining NATO. Pew said it could not survey Ukrainians in separatist-held areas, and that security hampered the survey in other parts of the country.

While Western attitudes toward Russia "were always low," the change in Russian attitudes show "the West is a scapegoat for Russia in Ukraine," Simmons said.

NATO countries' willingness to help Ukraine is limited, the study found. Seventy percent said they supported providing economic aid to Ukraine, 57% supported Ukraine joining the EU and 50% supported it joining NATO. However, only 41% supported NATO sending arms as urged by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

Those results reflect national policies. Even the U.S. government is split on the issue of arming Ukraine, Binnendijk said. Last month, the U.S. began a training mission for the Ukrainian border patrol, but it has yet to provide the shoulder-fired, anti-tank weapons Poroshenko has requested.

Part of the reason for that reluctance, he said, is that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande helped negotiate a cease-fire agreement between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatist forces in February.

That makes it "hard to challenge them on what to do next in Ukraine," he said.