Nearly three quarters of Germans would oppose NATO having permanent NATO military bases in eastern Europe as requested by Poland and the Baltic states because of a perceived threat from Russia, according to a new poll released on Wednesday.
Russia is an important trading partner for Germany and the source of more than a third of its gas - a relationship that has encouraged caution in Chancellor Angela Merkel's response.
But Germans are also have a broader distaste for overseas military actions, as demonstrated by a separate Forsa poll for Stern magazine in which 71 percent of people opposed sending German troops abroad even when diplomacy or sanctions fail.
In the Forsa poll for the Internationale Politik magazine's latest edition due on Friday, 74 percent of people surveyed were against the idea while only 18 percent supported it. Opposition to permanent NATO bases in eastern Europe was higher in former communist eastern Germany, Forsa said.
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