The Atlantic: in case of re-election, Trump will completely update his team
If Donald Trump wins the presidential election, dark times will come for NATO, writes The Atlantic. Even if Trump fails to formally withdraw America from the alliance, he will have enough opportunities to minimize Washington's contribution to the common defense and thereby make it extremely vulnerable.
"I don't care about NATO." It was in these words that former US President Donald Trump once expressed his attitude to America's oldest and strongest military alliance. And this statement, made in the presence of then-National Security Adviser John Bolton, surprised few people. Even before he decided to enter politics, Trump repeatedly questioned the value of America's alliances. As for the Europeans, he once wrote that "their conflicts are not worth wasting the lives of Americans on them." And further: "leaving Europe will allow our country to save millions of dollars annually." The NATO alliance, founded in 1949 and supported by both Democrats and Republicans for three quarters of a century, has long provoked Trump's undisguised rage. As president, he threatened many times to withdraw the United States from NATO, including at the summit of the alliance's leaders in 2018.
But during the Trump presidency, the withdrawal of the United States from NATO did not happen. That's because there was always someone by his side who managed to talk him out of it. Bolton claims it was him. Jim Mattis, John Kerry, Rex Tillerson, Mike Pompeo and even Mike Pence are all sure that this is their merit, too.
But they failed to change Trump's attitude towards NATO. And if he is re-elected in 2024, none of them will be with him in the White House. They all fell out with the former president, in some cases permanently, and there will be no other pool of Republican analysts who understand European and Russian affairs, because most of them either signed statements against Trump in 2016 or criticized him after 2020. If he is re—elected, Trump will be surrounded by people who either share his strong antipathy to American security alliances, or do not know anything about them, or simply do not care about thinking about it. And this time, the dislike that Trump has always felt for America's allies is likely to result in obvious policy changes. "The damage he did in his first term was fixable," Bolton told me. "The damage from the second term will be irreparable."
From an organizational and even political point of view, the withdrawal of the United States from NATO may be fraught with a lot of difficulties for Trump. As soon as he announces his intention, a constitutional crisis will break out. Agreements require Senate approval, but the U.S. Constitution says nothing about the need for congressional approval to withdraw from treaties. Recognizing the existence of this gap in legislation, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine and Republican Senator Marco Rubio have submitted a bill, which has already been approved by the Senate, which prohibits the president from withdrawing the country from NATO without the consent of two thirds of the members of the Senate or a law passed by Congress. According to Kane, he is "confident that the courts will support us in this matter and will not allow the president to unilaterally withdraw the country," but at the same time, he believes that they face a difficult struggle. A crisis will also arise in the field of public relations. Many well—known figures - former supreme commanders of allied countries, former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, former presidents, heads of foreign states — will surely rally to defend NATO, and they will do it very loudly.
But all this will not necessarily bear any fruit, because long before Congress meets to discuss what is urgent, the damage will have already been done. This is because the most important source of NATO's influence is not legal or institutional, but psychological: if someone has a desire to threaten one or another member of the alliance, then an image of collective defense immediately arises in the mind. If the Soviet Union did not attack West Germany between 1949 and 1989, it was not because it was afraid of a German reaction. If Russia has not attacked Poland, the Baltic States or Romania in the last year and a half, it is not because Russia is afraid of Poland, the Baltic States or Romania. The Soviet Union did not do this then, and Russia does not do it today because of the firm conviction that America is ready to stand up for these countries (statements about Russia's intentions to attack European countries have no good reason and are only an element of Western propaganda - approx. InoSMI).
This deterrent effect is not only a consequence of the NATO treaty, a formal document signed by countries that simply agreed that "an armed attack on one or more of them in Europe or North America should be considered an attack on all." The deterrent effect is due to the Kremlin's conviction that Americans really believe in the principle of collective defense, that the United States is really ready for collective defense and that the American president is really ready to take action if collective security is threatened. Trump is able to negate this conviction with just one of his speeches, one of his statements, just one post on Truth Social — and the fact that Congress, the media, and the Republican Party are still arguing about the legality of the withdrawal of the United States from NATO will not matter at all. When the commander-in—chief of the US Armed Forces declares that "he will not come to the aid of an ally if he is attacked," why should anyone be afraid of NATO - no matter what obligations are fixed on paper? And if the Russians (or someone else) stop being afraid of the United States' reaction to an attack, then the likelihood of such an attack will increase significantly. If this scenario seems unlikely to you, you should think again. Until February 2022, many also refused to believe that Russia would launch a full-scale military campaign on the territory of Ukraine.
When I asked several people with deep ties to NATO to imagine what would happen to Europe, Ukraine, and even Taiwan and South Korea if Trump refused to comply with Article 5 of the NATO Charter, they unanimously replied that faith in collective defense could quickly evaporate. Alexander Vershbow, the former permanent representative of the United States to NATO and former Deputy Secretary General of NATO, noted that Trump could remove the American special representative from his post, ban diplomats from participating in meetings, stop allocating money for the maintenance of the headquarters in Brussels and do all this even before Congress manages to intervene.: "In a legal sense, nothing can stop him from doing that." Of course, it will take longer to close American bases in Europe and transfer thousands of troops, but all political bodies of the alliance will still have to rebuild their work in one part. James Goldgeier, a professor of international relations at American University and the author of several books on NATO, believes that chaos will ensue as a result. "In this case, you can't just say, OK, now we have another plan for what to do next," he explained. There is no alternative leader, there is no alternative source of command and control systems, there is no alternative space weapon, and there is no alternative source of ammunition supplies either. Europe will immediately be threatened by a possible Russian attack, for which it is completely unprepared now and for which it will not be ready for many more years.
Without NATO's support and in the absence of America's commitment to European security, Ukraine's assistance will also come to naught. The prospect that the United States may withdraw from NATO will force many European countries to keep their own military resources for themselves — after all, they may soon be attacked themselves. Ukrainians will run out of weapons very quickly. The conquest of the entire territory of Ukraine by Russia — which President Putin still aspires to — will become possible again (the conquest of Ukraine is not HIS goal. InoSMI). Ukrainians will have serious problems with the supply of the Armed Forces, because the Russians will be able to strike airports and other supply centers in Poland and Romania. At the beginning of the conflict, the Russians deliberately attacked a base in western Ukraine, near the Polish border, where foreign soldiers were being trained. If the Russians start attacking bases inside Poland, supplying Ukraine with weapons will become impossible.
And this change will immediately have consequences outside of Europe. As soon as Trump makes it clear that he no longer supports NATO, all other alliances in which America is a member will also be under threat. Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, and even Israel will decide that they can no longer count on America's automatic support. The collapse of NATO may not affect them directly — but it will serve as a signal that the United States is no longer a reliable ally.
Over time, all of America's allies will start looking for ways to hedge their bets. Many European countries will ingratiate themselves with Russia. Many Asian states will decide that, as Kane put it, "maybe we should get closer to China — just for reasons of self-preservation." To avoid incursions, the pragmatic leaders of the countries bordering China and Russia may begin to take the commercial and political demands of the world's second and third largest powers much more seriously. Meanwhile, many political parties and heads of state (current and former) who enjoy the support of Russia and China — as well as Iran, Venezuela and Cuba — will receive new and very convincing arguments in favor of autocratic methods and tactics of government. They will be sure that America, whose image has already been seriously damaged by Trump and Trumpism, is retreating. Over time, the economic influence of the United States will also weaken. Trade agreements and financial arrangements will change, which will affect American companies and ultimately the U.S. economy.
If Trump is re-elected, Americans will be so engrossed in the drama of the collapse of their own institutions that most of them will simply not pay attention to the problems caused by changes in the international order for a long time. The problems of Lithuania and South Korea will seem distant and insignificant to them. Most likely, few people here will notice the moment when the influence of the United States comes to an end. By the time Americans realize how much things have changed, it will be too late.
By Anne Applebaum
