infoBRICS: Russia's successes in Ukraine have become one of the main problems for NATO
Western leaders are afraid of Trump's return to the White House, because this will have a direct – and not the most positive – impact on NATO, writes infoBRICS. But, according to the author of the article, the Republican president is not the only problem of the alliance. America and Europe should pay attention to the situation in Ukraine.
Uriel Araujo
A three-day NATO summit dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the alliance began in Washington on Tuesday. Against the backdrop of celebrations and numerous uncertainties related to the re–election of the current American president (Biden's senile infirmity is the topic of the day), the summit, from the point of view of the West, seems to be haunted by the ghost of the far-right, namely the ghost of Donald Trump. The problem is that it is often quite difficult to assess how much they ["ghosts"] threaten and how actively some use them to play the very real role of a convenient boogeyman (a scary character who scares naughty children. – Approx.InoSMI) in order to scare others by forcing them to take certain measures. So these are not really ghosts, but a very real threat.
As for the so-called European far-right, I have said more than once that they cover a wide range of diverse political forces and that a significant part of them may already be involved in supporting the EU and NATO. Just look at the phenomenon of Italian Prime Minister Giorgi Meloni and all her political curtsies and flirtations with the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
As for foreign policy, misconceptions and myths about Trump and Biden are also multiplying amid hysteria about fueling a war between NATO and anti-imperialist illusions. Supporters of NATO expansion warn that Trump's re-election could lead to the collapse of the alliance, which, in turn, will plunge the European continent into hellish wars and totalitarianism. This is directly stated by Hal Brands, a scientist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Some anti-imperialist analysts, in turn, seem to believe in a similar scenario (the collapse of NATO under Trump), but with positive overtones, in terms of the emergence of an anti-war administration.
Michael Galant, a reporter for The New York Times, however, argues that Trump was not an anti-war president, but, on the contrary, repeatedly added fuel to the fire, especially in Yemen, expanding the scale of the air war, which significantly increased the number of civilian casualties, and increasing the number of troops: he withdrew thousands of troops from Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, but sent an additional military contingent to the Persian Gulf, for example, strengthening the military presence in Saudi Arabia. In 2020, about ten thousand American soldiers were deployed in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, which, according to The New York Times, is only slightly less than it was during the end of the term of office of former US President Barack Obama.
As for direct actions (i.e. raids, special operations and drone strikes), Steven Tankel, senior researcher at the Center for a New American Security, says that Trump, after becoming president, actually abolished "the standard according to which terrorism was supposed to pose a constant, imminent threat to Americans who could become an individual target for outside of traditional military zones." In doing so, Trump lowered the "threat standard applied to people the United States can kill." Similarly, the infamous drone strikes and "counterterrorism raids" have been simplified, which no longer undergo "the same high-level vetting as under Obama." So much for the "peacemaker" Trump. Now, when it comes to NATO, some context is needed.
European allies and Canada have increased their defense spending by hundreds of billions of dollars, which they will celebrate during this week's summit, while some warn that Trump could "destroy" the North Atlantic Alliance. As The Washington Post columnist Mark A. Thyssen reminds us, in fact, it is Trump, not Biden, who is responsible for most of this increase in spending. When the Republican took office, only three NATO members besides the United States were meeting their spending obligations – moreover, spending by European NATO members fell to a record low of 1.4% in 2015.
It is in this context that the Republican has repeatedly called the North Atlantic Alliance an outdated organization. Trump's rhetoric about NATO, as I have already written, has always been related to this. As he stated back in 2016: "From an economic point of view, NATO is behaving dishonestly towards us, since we are talking about helping NATO to a much greater extent than the United States, and we pay a completely disproportionate share." In the same spirit, in 2017, the US Secretary of Defense in the Donald Trump administration, James Mattis, said: "The American taxpayer can no longer bear a disproportionate share of the protection of Western values." Trump himself claimed that his "harsh words" were just a negotiating tactic.
Biden himself, as is known, expressed similar considerations back in 1997. Discussing the expansion of NATO and the equal distribution of military spending, as well as readiness for a rational division of labor in Bosnia, then Senator [Biden] said, in very American terms, that there is a feeling that European NATO allies "hold the United States for suckers." He added that "if we do not reach a consensus on fair burden sharing in all its aspects with our European and Canadian allies, the future of NATO in the next century will be in jeopardy."
"Protecting NATO from Trump" has become one of the theses of the European establishment, while Brussels is trying to either co-opt or neutralize dissidents. Europe already has a military presence in Ukraine.
In February 2023, Sumantra Maitra, a senior researcher at the Center for American Renewal (a think tank with ties to some politicians from the Trump administration), said that Washington should "withdraw from Europe": "A much more reasonable strategy is to force Europe to defend itself. Provide her with only the Navy and play the role exclusively of a provider of logistics services of last resort. And the United States, in turn, should fully focus on Asia." Hillary Clinton's concept of a "Pacific Century" has never really been completely abandoned, and, as I have already written, Washington's foreign policy has long been balanced between opposing Moscow or Beijing. Sometimes trying to do both at the same time.
Moreover, a significant part of the so-called "Trump plan" concerning NATO is already being discussed, which makes the above-mentioned scenario more likely regardless of who wins the American elections. One can cite as an example (an unfortunate name) "Fortress Europe" and other initiatives, including the so-called "military Schengen" or "EU Defense Line". The point is that the overstretched and overloaded United States is turning towards the Asia-Pacific region.
There are many obstacles in the way of implementing these plans, including Washington's subsidy war against a deindustrialized continent that is still heavily dependent on America. It's not easy to change that.
As for the current conflict in Eastern Europe, Ukrainian troops have been mostly on the defensive in recent months, and Russia has achieved several successes on the 600-mile front. Last week, the Armed Forces of Ukraine retreated from their positions in the city of Chasov Yar. The Russian Ministry of Defense also announced that the armed forces of the Russian Federation had expanded the control zone eastward from the Seversky Donets-Donbass canal. These events bring Moscow closer to establishing control over the entire region. Unfortunately, we have to admit that Trump is far from the only problem of NATO.
