There was much self-congratulation at last week’s meeting of NATO allies over the effort to “Trump-proof” the alliance. The fact that the leaders of the world’s greatest defensive alliance see the once and likely future leader of the country providing the bulk of its military capacity as a mortal threat suggests a certain lack of perspective.
It is beyond negligent that Europe has not spent the two-and-a-half years since the invasion mobilizing its vast resources to defend Ukraine.
What is it exactly about Trump that threatens our European allies? Was it his warning that the Nordstream pipeline and a dependence on Russian fossil fuels endangered German security? Was it his depiction of China as a strategic competitor gaming WTO rules to seize market share and extract critical technologies from the West? (READ MORE from Karl Pfefferkorn: Failure Is for Other People)
Or perhaps it was Trump’s persistent criticism of allies who failed to meet their defense spending obligations? Can any of these points now be viewed as threats to the alliance, no matter how belligerently they were presented? No. So why the frantic effort to protect NATO from a Trump redux?
Allies Dislike Trump’s Style
Much of the European contempt for Trump derives from style rather than substance. European grandees spend their time here among America’s coastal elites, who share their center-left politics and the genteel mannerisms of the transatlantic cultural elite. John Kerry is an exemplar of the sort of American our European allies find congenial: a haughty Boston Brahmin and loyal to the green catechism as Greta Thunberg.
The fact that most of the country’s interior rejected his 2004 candidacy should suggest to the Euros that there is an America beyond their preferred social circle they might want to become acquainted with. From a VFW post in Lincoln Nebraska, NATO countries look less like loyal allies and more like Eurotrash spongers who disappear before the waiter presents the bill, leaving the American patsy searching his pockets for cash.
When Trump prods our allies to meet their spending commitments, he speaks for millions of Americans who may never darken the door of the Brookings Institute, but who pay their taxes and wish to know what we are getting for our disproportionate commitment to the defense of Europe.
Our European allies also fail to set aside their loathing for Trump’s antagonistic style and consider how he appears to the leaders of the predatory states threatening NATO and the West. Both Putin and Xi rose through communist hierarchies that inculcated a ruthless amorality and contempt for weakness.
The closest parallel to this career path in the United States may be New York City real estate development, which also rewards aggression and punishes losers, albeit with bankruptcy rather than labor camps. Which is to say, Trump is a type that Putin and Xi understand and respect. How else can we explain the rather restrained behavior of these two thugs during the Trump administration, and their subsequent predation after his replacement by the feckless Biden team?
The question for our allies is not who they find most clubbable, but who is best suited to deter NATO’s adversaries. A superannuated Biden has clearly lost his capacity for deterrence.
The specific fear among our allies is that a new Trump administration will either abandon Ukraine altogether or impose a settlement on Kiev that rewards Russian aggression. While Trump may well share our allies’ moral condemnation of Putin’s invasion, he also understands that American interests in this war are not identical to Ukraine’s. (READ MORE: Europe: With Friends Like These …)
Reclaiming all of Ukraine’s lost territory is not worth sparking a general war between Russia and NATO, much less a nuclear exchange. The U.S. military is already stretched thin, and facing down a rapidly expanding Chinese Navy practicing the isolation if not outright invasion of Taiwan. It may not be in the interests of the U.S. to pour treasure and weapons into a grinding, inconclusive ground war in Ukraine, especially if it comes at the expense of our ability to meet our obligations to other allies. Ultimately, the defense of Ukraine must be primarily a job for European nations.
The European Union has three times Russia’s population, and an aggregate economy nine times the size of Russia’s. Europe’s technological capacity and industrial base could simply overwhelm Russian suppliers now scrounging old equipment in Siberia and importing obsolete chips from China.
It is beyond negligent that Europe has not spent the two-and-a-half years since the invasion mobilizing its vast resources to defend Ukraine. As a rough comparison, recall that two-and-a-half elapsed between Pearl Harbor and the invasion of Normandy, during which time the United States transformed itself into a military superpower.
At a minimum, Europe should become Ukraine’s Arsenal of Democracy, freeing the U.S. to address the looming conflict in the western Pacific. Nothing would placate a new Trump administration more than a decisive European commitment to assume responsibility for Ukrainian security and “Putin-proofing” the NATO alliance.
