New Research Report: Elite–Public Gaps in British Perceptions of NATO’s Collective Defense Credibility

This research report investigates perceptions among the U.K. public and parliamentarians regarding NATO’s collective defense commitments amid growing global tensions and Donald Trump’s second presidential term in 2025. Unlike previous reports, this paper focuses on the fact that security and defense policy is traditionally understood as an elite domain, comparing elite opinion to public view.

The survey shows that U.K. parlamentarians were slightly more likely than the public to view members states’ commitment to NATO collective defence as credible. When asking to assess the likelihood of individual NATO member states defending the Baltics in case of a Russian invasion to e.g. Latvia, the survey found a countervailing trend between the elites and public. While parliamentarians assessed the United States as less likely than the general public to defend Latvia, they perceived other NATO member states (U.K., France, Germany, Poland, and Canada) as more likely than the public to provide military support in such a scenario.

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