Matt Buehler and Arjun Banerjee
Under what conditions would citizens trust an ally’s nuclear umbrella? This study explores that question using an original, nationally representative survey of 2,000 respondents in Morocco, a country with security partnerships with two nuclear-armed powers: the United States and France.
Neither country has offered Morocco a formal security guarantee, nuclear or otherwise. Still, the findings show that a substantial minority of Moroccans trust that the United States (39%) and France (47%) would defend Morocco with a nuclear umbrella if it were threatened.
This level of trust is notable given strong anti-Western sentiment in parts of the Middle East and North Africa. Even more unexpectedly, the study finds that nationalist respondents are more likely—not less likely—to trust these hypothetical nuclear guarantees.
Overall, the results suggest that existing scholarship may overstate the connection between nationalism and demands for nuclear sovereignty.