The Public about the Defence Strategy of the CZ and on NATO Enlargement

Most respondents (60 %) ruled out the idea that our country was in a danger of a military attack, about one fifth (22 %) is not certain on this issue. The remaining 18 % could define a specific danger, most often this being international terrorism (10 %). There is a frequent opinion (62 %) that if “something happened” we could not defend ourselves anyway, and also that world powers would be deciding about our little country (61 %). According to respondents costs of the army unnecessarily burden the state budget (57 % have this opinion and 37 % do not agree). However, apart from this there is the belief that it is necessary to defend the sovereignty of the state at any cost (agreed with by 87 % and disagreed with by 9 %) and our army has to reach the level of developed western countries (agreed with by 70 % and disagreed with by 21 %). From the countries invited into NATO the largest support is shown for Slovakia (72 %). Approximately, one half welcomes Lithuania (52 %), Estonia (51 %) and Latvia (49 %). Agreement with the Bulgarian membership is slightly smaller (47 % YES, 29 % NO). As to Romania, negative votes are a little more prevalent (NO 39 %, YES 36 %).