The accountability of a nation’s governors to their electorate is an essential part of a democratic political system. If a government acts on its own there is a straight line of accountability from the electorate to government policymakers with feedback that can affect the government’s electoral success. Alternatively, it can leverage its national resources by joining an alliance that collectively increases resources. It thus trades electoral accountability for greater effectiveness. Even if allies share a common goal, there will be national differences about how this goal can best be achieved and how costs are shared. Threats to the economy, the climate and war affect the lives of ordinary individuals as well as their government. Public knowledge of foreign policy is similar to public knowledge of domestic politics and can provide principles sufficient to justify popular judgements about going it alone or acting through an alliance to deal with big threats to security. The extent to which individuals divide in their views on security by personal characteristics or national context is shown by the eight-country European Security Survey of 12,685 respondents to interviews conducted after Russia’s attack on Ukraine.