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The war in Ukraine, intensifying U.S. pressure on NATO members, and other factors are leading many European countries to pursue increased defense spending. In many European states, there is growing public support for this. National governments can leverage this moment of heightened public concern to devote more resources to defense. However, sustaining the type of long-term, consistent spending that European countries would need to develop strong and independent defense capabilities will require cutting spending elsewhere or raising tax revenues — which in turn will require maintaining public support over multiple years.We asked experts to consider why publics in five key countries currently support increasing defense spending and how leaders can shape their messages to try to maintain such support over the long term. According to a June report from The European Council on Foreign Relations, majorities in the United Kingdom (57 percent), Denmark (70 percent), and Poland (70 percent) support increasing their country’s defense spending. Strong pluralities in France (45 percent) and Germany (47 percent) do as well.Read more below.Emma Salisbury Non-Resident Senior Fellow in the National Security Program at the Foreign Policy Research InstituteThe United Kingdom pledged in June of this year that it would meet the new NATO target of spending 3.5 percent of GDP on defense by 2035. This is a significant increase from previous pledges, highlighting the impact of the increasing Russian threat and the unreliability of American support under the new Trump administration. The polling shows that 57 percent of the British public support increasing defense spending, and the major opposition parties agree on this too. The problem is how to pay for it. In another iteration of the old balancing act between guns and butter, will Britons also support tax rises or spending cuts elsewhere to pay for the defense of their nation? I