The Pew Research Center has just released a monster piece of research on public attitudes toward NATO, Ukraine, and Russia.

Fears of Russian expansion have been making daily headlines for more than a year, since the beginning of Moscow's annexation of eastern Ukraine. But those concerns don't seem to be translating into support for action to help the countries bordering Russia.

A significant cohort of Americans and a majority of the public in several European countries are firmly against intervening to support a NATO ally in the result that it's attacked.

Just over half of Americans, 56%, agree that the "US should use military force to defend a NATO ally against Russia" if the situation arises. That may not be much comfort to the nine NATO nations that were once Warsaw Pact countries.

But there's a big political split on the issue — 69% of Republicans support the statement, but just 47% of people identifying as Democrats agreed.

On net, Poland is one of the nations least confident that assistance would come if they were attacked: 49% think it would, and 31% disagree.

Based on some figures, they should be even more skeptical.

In Italy, Germany, and France, three of the European Union's four biggest countries, more people think their country should not come to the defense of a NATO ally than think it should. Spain is pretty evenly divided, while Poland and the UK are more supportive.

When weighted for their populations, that suggests 52% of Europeans would be against military support in the event of a Russian attack.

Germany is particularly lukewarm about doing anything to support the Ukrainian government. Nearly one out of three Germans think sanctions against Russia should be relaxed, and less than one-fifth of the German public thinks NATO should send arms to Ukraine. But Germans seem marginally more supportive of sending economic aid to Kiev than Americans are.

Here's how Pew sums up the attitudes:

NATO publics support economic aid, but do not favor arming Ukraine. Most people in the eight NATO countries surveyed (a median of 70%) are happy to see Western countries send economic aid to Ukraine. Many also support Ukraine joining NATO and, in half the EU countries surveyed, favor Ukraine joining the European Union. But people in these NATO countries made it clear that they did not support sending arms to Ukraine — a median of just 41% supported doing so.