NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg launched his annual report for 2023 on Thursday (14 March 2024), which covers all aspects of the Alliance’s work over the past year.
The Secretary General announced the results of NATO’s annual polling, which also surveyed participants from Finland and Sweden for the first time. Mr Stoltenberg said “the data is clear. Public support for NATO is extremely strong on both sides of the Atlantic. If a vote were held today, an overwhelming majority of citizens across Allied countries would vote in favour of NATO.” He added “in the United States, only 13 percent would vote against,” underlining that “over 80% of our citizens believe that North America and Europe must continue to work together for our shared security.” He underlined that these results indicate that “across the Alliance, support for NATO remains rock-solid.”
In 2023, Allies continued to provide unprecedented levels of support to Ukraine. Mr Stoltenberg said, “for the first time, a number of Allies also sent long-range systems, UK Storm Shadow and French SCALP missiles and Allies agreed to send F-16 aircraft.” He added that several Allies have now signed bilateral security agreements with Ukraine. “The Ukrainians are not running out of courage. They are running out of ammunition… This is a critical moment and it would be a grave, historic mistake to allow Putin to prevail. We cannot allow authoritarian leaders to get their way by using force.”
Related
Allied perceptions on security, defence and NATO in 2023
NATO Annual Tracking Research 2023
Enquête annuelle 2023 de l’OTAN. Suivi des opinions