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2019-09-14 Europe
Poll: In a Russia-US conflict, overwhelming number of Europeans favor neutrality over America, with 5-9% openly siding with Russia
[Stripes] STUTTGART, Germany ‐ A vast majority of Europeans would want to remain neutral in the event of a conflict between the U.S. and Russia, but two NATO members lean more toward supporting Moscow than their fellow alliance member, a new opinion poll shows.
We should get out of NATO and Europe in any event. They're no help in fighting Russians which I don't want to do anyway. And I sure don't want to fight for France again much less Latvia et al.
A survey conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations asked Europeans in 14 EU member states for their views on issues ranging from trade and climate change to military investment. When people were asked who their country should side with in the event of conflict between the U.S. and Russia, majorities in all but one country said it would be best to not pick sides.
I love when Europeans deride our military budget and how they would use that budget for social causes. It must be nice to not spend a dime on defense, knowing that the most powerful military in the history of the world is ready to defend you at a moment's notice.
Poland was the only country where a minority ‐ 45% ‐ said they would choose to remain neutral in a hypothetical conflict between the U.S. and Russia. A third of Poles said they would back the U.S. while only 6% said they would support Russia.

Greece and Slovakia strongly favored neutrality ‐ 81% and 65% respectively ‐ but, despite both countries being members of NATO, those polled also showed higher support for Russia than the U.S.

In Slovakia, 20% said they would side with Moscow in a conflict, compared to 6% for the United States. In Greece, support for Russia was only slightly higher than for the U.S. ‐ 7% compared to 5%.

In Germany, which is home to roughly 30,000 U.S. troops, 70% of those polled favored neutrality while 12% supported the U.S. and 7% Russia.

The findings were similar when it came to a potential conflict between the U.S. and China, with Europeans favoring neutrality by wide margins.
NATO should have ended when the Warsaw Pact dissolved. The USA should have demobilized after the Soviet Union collapsed also. But Eisenhower's prophecy about the military industrial complex proved to be accurate.
Posted by  Herb McCoy 2019-09-14 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11138 views ]  Top

#1 In reality... what could they do?

Most don't have a military worth speaking of. Most don't want to have a war on their soil.

In my not so humble opinion, let the EU rise and fall on its own military and economic merits, dissolve NATO and work with countries that actually have some skin in the game.
Posted by DarthVader 2019-09-14 00:28||   2019-09-14 00:28|| Front Page Top

#2 This is puerile. A US-Russia conflict, for what ? Venezuela ? Also, I think NATO costs America much more than what it delivers.

I love when Europeans deride our military budget...

Wait.. what ? What have you done with the real Herb McCoy ?

You cannot discover through polls what a State will do in a spot like that. Modern democracy doesn't work that way. Nobody in office gives an eff what the guy free enough to fill a questionnaire wants.

Posted by Dron66046 2019-09-14 01:08||   2019-09-14 01:08|| Front Page Top

#3 They will be neutral until they feel threatened.
Posted by magpie 2019-09-14 01:27||   2019-09-14 01:27|| Front Page Top

#4 Not so sure NATO matters any more. What do we get from it that we can't get from a much smaller and more effective alliance involving, say, Poland, UK, and the peripheral nations of north and south: Italy, Spain, and maybe Sweden (now that the Swedes are restoring conscription and seek to purchase Patriot defenses)?
Posted by Lex 2019-09-14 01:55||   2019-09-14 01:55|| Front Page Top

#5 (a) What I'd like to see is a pool along 2 dimensions: EU +/-, USA/Russia conflict +/-. The correlations would be interesting.
(b) Unless you Americans elects somebody like Hitlery who'll keep pushing the Russian on behest of EU, what war?
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2019-09-14 02:19||   2019-09-14 02:19|| Front Page Top

#6 Somehow I don't see the Baltic states thinking this way; too bad this 'survey' doesn't give us a decent country by country breakdown.
Posted by Raj 2019-09-14 07:12||   2019-09-14 07:12|| Front Page Top

#7 Gee Euros, you now know how we felt 1939-41.

Fine that for 40+ years afterward, you were happy that would America immolate itself in your defense.

Future (real) historians may well write that America wasted its fortune and exhausted its resources like Justinian did trying to reestablish the old Roman Empire.
Posted by Procopius2k 2019-09-14 07:49||   2019-09-14 07:49|| Front Page Top

#8 Justinian was doing fine until the plague arrived.
Posted by Rob Crawford 2019-09-14 09:45||   2019-09-14 09:45|| Front Page Top

#9 We need to create a better relationship with Russia.

Resist them where absolutely necessary - Poland, the Baltic - accommodate them in other places on their southern periphery - a neutral and demilitarized Ukraine for ex. - and partner with them to contain the Chinese and quash the Islamists.

If a partnership with Russia, to rein in the Chinese especially, requires an end to NATO, that may well be a good trade-off.
Posted by Lex 2019-09-14 11:12||   2019-09-14 11:12|| Front Page Top

#10 I wonder if 5-9% is roughly the number of American-haters in most western countries. They are all probably on Twitter.
Posted by ruprecht 2019-09-14 11:33||   2019-09-14 11:33|| Front Page Top

#11 Greece and Slovakia strongly favored neutrality ‐ 81% and 65% respectively ‐ but, despite both countries being members of NATO, those polled also showed higher support for Russia than the U.S.

These are countries whose populations have historically strong ties to Russia. The Greeks are fellow Orthodox Christians, while the Slovaks are fellow Slavs (though mostly Catholic). Given those circumstances, the feelings of the common people are understandable, even if their governments are bound by treaties.
Posted by Secret Master 2019-09-14 12:05||   2019-09-14 12:05|| Front Page Top

#12 I've said it before, we're not in Germany to keep the Russians out but to keep the Germans down.
Posted by Abu Uluque 2019-09-14 12:12||   2019-09-14 12:12|| Front Page Top

#13 Abu, embrace the power of AND.
Posted by AlanC 2019-09-14 12:18||   2019-09-14 12:18|| Front Page Top

#14 China is a mortal threat to the US.
Russia is not a mortal threat to us. A nuisance but also a otenti partner, if treated properly, of great value.

Someday our foreign policy establishment will wake up to these fundamental truths of the 21st century.
Posted by Lex 2019-09-14 12:20||   2019-09-14 12:20|| Front Page Top

#15 * also a potential partner
Posted by Lex 2019-09-14 12:20||   2019-09-14 12:20|| Front Page Top

#16 They understand the Russians would be as hard as the situation required. The US OTOH would try to do what's worked so well (sarc) in the Stan...
Posted by M. Murcek 2019-09-14 12:45||   2019-09-14 12:45|| Front Page Top

#17 Poland was the only country where a minority ‐ 45% ‐ said they would choose to remain neutral in a hypothetical conflict between the U.S. and Russia. A third of Poles said they would back the U.S. while only 6% said they would support Russia.

45+33+6=84. So what are the other 16% saying?
Posted by charger 2019-09-14 13:18||   2019-09-14 13:18|| Front Page Top

#18 ~16% of any population are either shut-ins or inmates or so completely alienated that they neither participate in society nor have any opinion on any public issue.

Another 25% of the population is either cognitively challenged or mentally / emotionally unstable or both.

For example, surveys of Germans during the aughts indicated that about one-third of younger Germans believe(d) that on 9/11 the Pentagon bombed the Pentagon. ONE-THIRD of the population in one of the most sophisticated societies on the planet.

Bottom line: only a little more than half at most of any large heterogeneous population actually have any clue as to what the hell theyre talking about when it comes to issues of national concern.
Posted by Lex 2019-09-14 13:32||   2019-09-14 13:32|| Front Page Top

#19 Old William F. Buckley saying (IIRC): "France only approves of American military action when it occurs in France to rescue France from an invading power."
Posted by Matt 2019-09-14 13:34||   2019-09-14 13:34|| Front Page Top

#20 The survey data is in a link in the middle of the article.
Posted by Herb McCoy  2019-09-14 14:17||   2019-09-14 14:17|| Front Page Top

#21 Wonder how the same poll would have turned out while Obama was President. How much is knee-jerk dislike of orange man and how much is European self-hatred and guilt.
Posted by ruprecht 2019-09-14 14:56||   2019-09-14 14:56|| Front Page Top

#22 Total BS. What Russia-US conflict? Alaska? Mutual nuclear destruction?

People don't like war and prefer to stay out of it.

And as the byline comment states: "And I sure don't want to fight for France again much less Latvia et al."

So what's different?

It won't matter what people prefer: If Russia invades Poland there will be war. The point of NATO always was to deter Russia (or the USSR) from invading the West.
Posted by European Conservative 2019-09-14 15:29||   2019-09-14 15:29|| Front Page Top

#23 It's that Europe is ruthlessly free riding on American security guarantees. And while doing so, can't even bring themselves to be on our side even when there's a conflict with the very adversary we're supposed to be protecting them from.

Trump told Europe in no uncertain terms, pay your fair share of NATO. They flat out refused. No, we're not going to do it and you can't make us.

NATO is a military alliance. To be in a military alliance, you have to have a military. If Europe refuses to defend itself and won't even side with us, why are we pledged to defend European territory to the death?
Posted by Herb McCoy  2019-09-14 15:38||   2019-09-14 15:38|| Front Page Top

#24 There may be another reason for this journalistic effort by the globalist ECFR think tank. It has probably not so much to do with America as with the most anti-Russian nation leaving the Eww. After brexit, US-UK relations should improve and the UK may show more benefit in the near future than it could all this while with the globalists.

There is an increasing chance that a void left by a United Kingdom in the Eww be filled by others and some trade will shift eastward. There is a marked thaw in German-Russian relations in the past few years. Trump refused to let McCarthyists push him into a pissing contest with Vlad and the EU took note of Vlad's resource with the US. Even if because of the idiot hoax Marine Le Pen's party had received a € 9 million loan from a russkie bank some time back, to the chagrin of all Gay Pareé. Recently Vlad concluded 2+2 talks with France. Russia is also the top oil and gas exporter to the Eww I think.

The word 'Eurasian' is increasingly being used in trade negotiations again. India and Japan have direct continental and oceanic interests with the Eww. China too has gained a more open understanding with Eww and it's regulations regime The cheques are clearing at brussels. They have become their second largest trading partner.

It's no wonder these new dynamics are being bet upon and anticipated before brexit. But to build the base for introducing hitherto unmentionable trade alliances for the average schlemiel, these articles must be presented as 'poll data reveals', and 'did you know ? Russia is not all bad' routines.

I don't think security or defence spending has anything to do with this 'study'. But that's just my twisted theory.
Posted by Dron66046 2019-09-14 15:57||   2019-09-14 15:57|| Front Page Top

#25 Not to change the subject, but there are a lot of interesting charts at the link. I've forgotten them all by now, but I did notice the U.K. was not involved.
Posted by Bobby 2019-09-14 16:07||   2019-09-14 16:07|| Front Page Top

#26 2 questions:

Polls can be pre-skewed: How accurate is this?

What would a similar poll taken in the US show?
Posted by james  2019-09-14 16:21|| https://idontknowbut.blogspot.com  2019-09-14 16:21|| Front Page Top

#27 What would a similar poll taken in the US show?

I was thinking the same thing: how many Americans when polled would want to stay neutral in a conflict between America and Russia? The response may shock (and dishearten) you.
Posted by Secret Master 2019-09-14 16:36||   2019-09-14 16:36|| Front Page Top

#28 In order to keep the Russians out and the Germans down, we only need bilateral agreements with the UK and Poland. Move all out German facilities to Poland.The Baltics could be added to feel good.
Posted by Mrs. Davis 2019-09-14 17:24||   2019-09-14 17:24|| Front Page Top

#29 The only possible US-Russia war will be because European soil is invaded. Europeans won't have the option of saying "No" but the USA will.
Posted by Omaling Jomosh2840 2019-09-14 17:53||   2019-09-14 17:53|| Front Page Top

#30 Long since, Uncle Sam has confounded
Consummation of passions unbounded:
The Kraut craves the knout,
Rote Bete wants out...
And in Poland, they'll have us surrounded!
Posted by Ulusoque Hupirt3284 2019-09-14 18:45||   2019-09-14 18:45|| Front Page Top

17:38 Lord Garth
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