Trump’s lack of a strategic vision, contempt of the need for allies and dollar-focused transactional view of the world was on full display with his recent remarks about how he would let Russia do whatever the hell they want in Europe if the members of NATO did not pay the amount he thought they should. One of the foundational tenets of the NATO alliance is Article 5 which says that an attack upon any member is an attack upon all members. Trump’s statement that he would not come to the aid of a NATO member state if they were not ‘paid up,’ completely undermines the United States credibility on the world stage and is a huge gift to Russia and China.
There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that one of the reasons Putin tried so hard to influence the 2020 election to get Trump re-elected was so that he would have a clear path to take over Ukraine. He knew that if Trump were in the White House, Trump would do very little, if anything, to help Ukraine and Putin could just swallow it up like he did Crimea. When Biden was elected instead of Trump, Putin realized the window was closing on this opportunity, so he chose to go to war. He gravely underestimated Biden’s and NATO’s resolve and that resulted in this ridiculous war that has cost tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars in damage.
As I have pointed out before in these posts, I believe Trump actually wants Ukraine to fall for no other reason than Trump harbors a personal vendetta against President Zelensky. As you recall, it was the phone call with Zelensky that led to Trump’s first impeachment. In Trump world, Zelensky committed the cardinal sin and because of that, Trump is willing to sacrifice an entire country and the security of Europe to satisfy a personal grudge. It’s just that simple. There is no need to try to understand Trump’s strategic vision for Europe and NATO because there is none.
A lot of Trump supporters and even some of his detractors, often brush off Trumps’ remarks as ‘Trump being Trump.’ This is a huge mistake and people should take his remarks at face value. History has shown that he will do, or try to do, exactly what he says. In his first term, he threatened to withdraw from NATO and probably the only reason that didn’t happen is because he was still a newcomer and using the levers of government and there were people around him who could successfully keep him between the guardrails. In a second Trump term, he will no longer be a rookie and he will surround himself will sycophants who will not push back against his worst impulses.
If Trump is re-elected, I predict Ukraine will fall to Putin because the US will withdraw most of its aid. The real question will be, what will be Putin’s next target and how will the US respond? Will the U.S. under Trump just stand by while Putin tries to swallow up Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania which were all once part of the Soviet Union but are now members of NATO? The United States stood on the sidelines for a long time as Hitler swallowed up most of Europe. If we had joined the fight early on, it would likely have been a much shorter war. It seems like we have been here before. Have we learned anything? Trump and those who support his position to not support Ukraine clearly have not.
