Threat to security

President’s antics imperil U.S.

Donald Trump, a Manhattan real estate hustler with no military or diplomatic experience, is destroying the relationships and institutions critical to American national security. In his outrageous performances recently at the G-7 in Canada and most recently at the NATO summit in Brussels, Trump has ridiculed NATO and belittled our democratic allies in Europe.

After Friday’s Justice Department indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers for interference in the 2016 U.S. election, any amiable private meeting with Vladimir Putin right after the confrontational NATO summit would make Trump look like Putin’s poodle.

For over 70 years, the United States has been the standard-bearer for democracy around the world. The international security structure put in place after World War II by the United States and European democracies provided mutual security, and deterred and contained the Soviet Union and other threats. That structure enabled the U.S. and democracies to flourish and grow in a secure environment while tyrants and thugs struggled to survive.

The international order, born from the blood of thousands of American soldiers in World War II and created by men like Harry Truman and George Marshall, featured NATO as the central element of the American-led international security system. Dwight Eisenhower was the first Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. Until Trump, democracies were our most important allies, and NATO received the full support of every U.S. president—presidents like Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Reagan stood with NATO at his back to peacefully defeat the Soviet Union.

Do the United States and European democracies have differences and disagreements? Of course, but they addressed them within the democratic family and have never threatened the very existence of organizations that provide our security. Should NATO nations spend more on defense as U.S. presidents from Clinton to Bush have argued for years? Yes, but this is not sufficient grounds to blow up the organization.

NATO is a treaty commitment to common defense with procedures, compatible equipment, and command structures in place. Coalitions of the willing are usually weak and needy and have no comparison to NATO capabilities.

Trump needs to do the math before discarding critical allies. In World War II, the United States had about 12 million personnel in uniform. During Korea and Vietnam, the size was between 3 million and 4 million in a conscript force. Today, the over-extended volunteer U.S. military is a little over 1 million. Any significant conventional conflict in Europe or Asia will almost immediately overwhelm the manpower requirement if the U.S. must operate without significant numbers of capable allied troops. Unilateral U.S. intervention in a crisis does not work unless the American people are prepared to bear a very heavy cost in blood and treasure.

Another critical issue is Trump’s contempt for democratic allies while flaunting his personal admiration for the likes of Putin and Kim Jong Un. I have visited several European countries in 2018, and the reaction to Trump from every level of European society has been the same—shock about Trump’s hostility toward them and uncertainty about the future of democracy.

“We have always looked up to America and its democracy. We never thought something like Trump could happen in the United States,” was a common statement. E verything Trump is doing internationally is playing into the hands of Putin and Xi Jinping in China—the destruction of NATO and trans-Atlantic relationships, the alleged corruption, the refusal to defend American and European elections in the face of aggressive Russian meddling, and the attacks on institutions critical to democracy in the United States. Putin’s predecessors in the Kremlin, from Stalin to Brezhnev, could not have imagined such an amazing, self-inflicted decline in American influence and security relationships.

Whether Donald Trump has been personally compromised by the Russians is publicly unknown right now. He certainly acts that way, but further judgment will have to wait for the results of the Mueller investigation.

If not compromised, he is an incompetent bully who is damaging America’s international leadership status and the future security of the nation. Only the November election gives a chance to limit his power by the ballot and begin to restore America’s international leadership critical to our future.

—––––– –––––—