Americans Are Turning Against Ukraine Joining NATO

Support among U.S. voters for Ukraine joining NATO has gone down in the last three months, according to polls conducted for Newsweek.

Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has strengthened calls by Kyiv for it to join the U.S-led alliance.

During its summit in Lithuania, NATO agreed to offer security guarantees and assurances to Kyiv, which included saying its future lies in the alliance—but gave no clear timetable or route map for membership.

But surveys conducted exclusively for Newsweek by pollsters Redfield and Wilton Strategies show that American voters’ enthusiasm for Ukrainian membership of NATO is cooling.

In a poll of 1,500 Americans eligible for vote in 2020 conducted on April 5 with a 2.53 percent margin of error, just over half of respondents (55 percent) said that Kyiv should join the alliance.

Among them, 30 percent “strongly” supported the idea, 26 percent were neutral, and 10 percent opposed it. Over half (56 percent) agreed that the defense of Ukraine was vital to American national interests.

However, a survey conducted on July 25 and 26 of the same size sample of voters, with the same margin of error, found that backing for Ukraine’s membership of NATO had diminished.

Support for Ukraine’s membership had gone down by eight percentage points—to 47 percent, with 23 percent “strongly” supporting the move, and 29 percent neutral.

The proportion of those opposing Ukrainian membership of NATO went up by six percent, to 16 percent—six percent of whom strongly opposed the move.

However, unlike in April, Redfield and Wilton Strategies asked Americans in the latest poll about a timetable for Ukraine’s admission to the bloc.

Over a quarter (26 percent) said Kyiv should join immediately, while 37 percent membership should only follow once the war had ended. Just over one-tenth, or 12 percent, said Ukraine should never join.

The more recent poll also asked if respondents would back U.S. armed forces being deployed on the ground in Ukraine. Nearly one-third (31 percent) supported the move, 12 percent “strongly,” while roughly the same proportion, or 34 percent opposed the move.

NATO summit in Vilnius

Ahead of NATO’s summit in Vilnius, U.S. President Joe Biden said the time was not yet right for Ukraine to join NATO and that if it was to become a member now, then “we’re in a war with Russia.” Article 5 of the NATO charter states that an attack on one member is an attack on all.

But on the sidelines of the meeting and sitting next to his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, Biden said: “I look forward to the day when we’re having the meeting celebrating your official, official membership.”

Despite NATO’s continued pledges to provide Kyiv with equipment and training, while avoiding direct involvement in the war, there was disappointment at the lack of a concrete timeline for a NATO invitation or ultimate accession. A milestone was reached with the decision to scrap the need for a Membership Action Plan (MAP).

Following the summit, former U.S. ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker said there was a “contradiction” between the bloc’s commitment to the security of the alliance and “its refusal to give Ukraine a clear pathway to membership.”

“It is hard to see how NATO can accomplish its mission of security for Europe in the future without Ukraine being part of the alliance,” he told Newsweek. “That contradiction needs to be addressed at the 2024 Washington Summit.”