That’s not the worst part. The worst part is that, as is so often true of our friends on the left, they’re much more in sync with European thinking than we are.

Why would Democrats want to add new members to NATO, especially a new member that’s already in a hot war with Moscow, if they have no intention of using military force to defend that ally? What do they think the purpose of NATO is, exactly? It’s not a talking shop for international grievances a la the UN, or at least it’s not supposed to be.

But so what, you say. The fact that so many Republicans support honoring America’s Article 5 commitments means that a clear majority of the U.S. electorate continues to support the alliance. Democrats will need to get a whole lot squishier before this becomes anything like a 50/50 issue.

Fair enough. How about this table, though? Is this a “so what” too?

Canada, alone among major NATO allies, still supports the idea of a mutual defense pact against Russia. Even in the UK, even in Poland(!), support has shriveled to plurality levels. And in Germany it’s underwater entirely — 38/58 opposed to standing up to Putin. Germans do heavily support sending economic aid to Ukraine but otherwise they’re dovish on Moscow across the board. Just 38 percent see Russia as a “major threat,” the lowest level of any country polled, while 57 percent oppose letting Ukraine join NATO, the only country where there’s majority opposition to the idea. Fifty-four percent of Germans oppose letting Ukraine join the EU, the highest level of disapproval among the European nations surveyed, and fully 77 percent oppose sending arms to Ukraine to fight Russia. No other nation polled was within 10 points of that. What’s interesting about all this is that Russia isn’t viewed significantly more favorably in Germany than it is anywhere else — just 27 percent there compared to 23 percent here in the U.S. So why the skittishness about confronting Putin? Does Germany fear it’ll lose its preeminence in Europe by getting sucked into a war on Russia’s borders, even if their military contingent is small? Do they worry about energy supplies from Russia getting cut off and sinking their economy? Or is it precisely because they’re enjoying their current preeminence that they have less use for NATO now than they used to? It’s worth noting that as recently as 2009, 73 percent of Germans viewed NATO favorably. Six years later, that’s down to 55 percent.

Some more good news:

Putin’s nationalist campaign against the west, with Ukraine as its centerpiece, has worked like a charm in tamping down domestic unrest if Pew’s numbers are accurate. Seventy-three percent of Russians describe the state of their economy as bad — yet when asked how Putin’s doing in managing the economy, his approval splits 70/23. He oversees a notorious kleptocracy, the extent of which got lots of attention abroad before the Sochi Olympics, and yet his approval on fighting corruption is 62/29. When asked if the government respects their personal freedoms, 63 percent of Russians say yes versus 29 percent who say no. And when asked whether they trust Putin to do the right thing in world affairs, 88 percent — 88 percent — say yes. That’s a lot of incentive for further confrontation. No wonder the Germans are nervous. Exit question via Tom Maguire: Why do we insist on maintaining the NATO charade when, Canada aside, we’re allied with a bunch of free riders? Surely the PR pretense of an “international coalition” isn’t worth so much that we should go on enabling the free-riding.