{"id":2578,"date":"2026-07-26T04:53:50","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T04:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cnnglobalnews.com\/2026\/07\/26\/70-of-germans-dont-believe-army-can-protect-the-country-yougov-poll\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T04:53:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T04:53:50","slug":"70-of-germans-dont-believe-army-can-protect-the-country-yougov-poll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cnnglobalnews.com\/?p=2578","title":{"rendered":"70% of Germans don\u2019t believe army can protect the country \u2013 YouGov poll"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most oppose higher taxes or spending cuts to fund military expansion, a survey finds<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The majority of Germans do not believe their armed forces are capable of protecting the country, a recent YouGov survey has found.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

According to the International Flagship Survey published on Friday, 70% of respondents in Germany said they were not confident their armed forces were strong enough to fend off a potential attack. YouGov surveyed 2,079 adults across Germany between June 17 and July 1.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Although 40% of respondents said Germany spends too little on defense, 77% opposed higher taxes to fund defense spending, while 62% rejected cuts to public services and 59% opposed increased government borrowing.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Germany recorded the lowest level of confidence among the seven countries covered by the poll. Some 57% of respondents in Poland, 53% in both Britain and Australia, and 48% in Canada also doubted their armed forces\u2019 ability to protect the country. By comparison, 52% of French respondents and 77% of Americans expressed confidence in their militaries.<\/p>\n

\n Read more<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n \"A
Is Germany working on a secret nuclear weapons program?<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The poll comes as US President Donald Trump has renewed threats to withdraw from NATO after its members declined to join the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran. Trump has often accused European NATO members of not spending enough on defense and described the military bloc as \u201ca paper tiger.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

Germany has adopted a plan to increase defense spending, expand the active-duty military from around 183,000 personnel to 260,000, and grow the reserve force to 200,000, citing the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The government reintroduced a military registration and monitoring system in January, sparking debate and protests. Deutsche Welle also reported a sharp rise in the number of young people opting out of military service as conscientious objectors.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Germany\u2019s economy is reeling from the cost-of-living crisis and high energy prices, exacerbated by the phaseout of Russian energy supplies and the ongoing war in the Middle East.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Moscow has condemned what it calls the \u201cmilitarization\u201d<\/em> of Germany and other European countries. President Vladimir Putin has said Russia would not attack a NATO member unless it were attacked first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most oppose higher taxes or spending cuts to fund military expansion, a survey finds The majority of Germans do not believe their armed forces are capable of protecting the country, … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnnglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnnglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnnglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnnglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnnglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2578\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cnnglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnnglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cnnglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}