Trump’s subtle warning to allies — buy nukes

Isolationism in the United States could bring to life one of the biggest fears of its foreign and defence establishment — nuclear proliferation to many previously anti-nuclear states.

A pointed conversation about nuclear arms has commenced in Europe, largely out of fear of a second Donald Trump presidency, but also thanks to the delaying of the US$60 billion (C$80 billion) Ukrainian aid package by boneheaded Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Europe has realized that it can no longer mortgage its collective security on the whims and wanes of U.S. politics. What previously seemed unthinkable — the U.S. abandonment of its own stridently fought economic and security apparatus — is now both a likely reality under a future Trump presidency and a significant strand in U.S. popular opinion.

Trump was always a NATO skeptic. His first term was characterized by berating other NATO members for not doing and paying enough to defend themselves. With Trump now in full campaign mode, his antics have continued. Speaking in February in South Carolina, he appeared to recall an exchange he had with a president “of a big country,” who asked, “‘If we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?’”

Trump claims to have replied, “‘No, I would not protect you, in fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. … You don’t pay your bills, you get no protection, it’s very simple.’” This would undermine the NATO treaty’s Article 5, which guarantees members’ rights to collective defence.

This week, Trump appeared to row back a little with half-heated reassurances to his friend Nigel Farage, stating that the U.S. would “100 per cent” help NATO members who pay their fair share.

It is no coincidence that revulsion at American “forever wars” of the 2000s and 2010s in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the treatment of jaded veterans has combined with anti-globalism in the “flyover states” that are both deeply patriotic and hostile to U.S. foreign involvement.

This new sensitivity in Washington is why President Joe Biden has largely kept Trump’s tariffs, immigration restrictions and executed its clumsy exit from Afghanistan. It’s also why the U.S. national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, sets course by thinking of a “foreign policy for the middle class.”

For Ukraine, Taiwan, the Baltic states, Japan and South Korea, the blowing of these recent political winds in the U.S. is unsettling — and existential. If the U.S. can no longer be relied on to enforce both the letter and spirit of their defence agreements, allies know they must resort to defending themselves or risk facing aggression from Russia, China and volatile states like North Korea.

In Europe, this debate has come into sharp focus after Ukraine failed to deliver a decisive blow to Russia. In the fall of 2023, it could be seen that the offensive had stalled and time was running out. It was only one year until the potential return of Trump, giving him the power to settle the Ukraine war in “one day” as he suggested last spring.

Not only will Russian President Vladimir Putin play for time while Ukraine faces perilously low supplies of ammunition, he will also threaten other nations if he feels that U.S. security guarantees no longer exist.

In late February, French President Emmanuel Macron stated the possibility of moving European troops into Ukraine should not be ruled out. His recent manoeuvring reflects a long-held French view that Europe should only rely on itself for its security. But his “journey” from arch-appeaser to arch-adversary of Putin also demonstrates France’s status as the only European country with a fully independent nuclear deterrent (the United Kingdom is increasingly reliant on the U.S.).

Figures from the U.K. establishment, typically in lockstep with U.S. foreign policy, have joined this debate with Malcolm Rifkind, who served as defence and foreign secretary under former prime minister John Major. They call for the U.K. and France to develop a new nuclear deterrent strategy that is entirely independent of the U.S.

Germany, Europe’s largest economic power and funder of Ukraine, may also reconsider its previous renouncement of nuclear weapons. It does not have nuclear weapons at the moment, and it is, after all, far closer to areas of potential Russian land aggression than France and the U.K.

Meanwhile in Asia Pacific, Japan and South Korea are already having to deal with direct threats on their doorstep not just from China, but much more pointedly and unpredictably from North Korea.

U.S. isolationism in the 1930s proved to be an epic failure, and that was before the dawn of the nuclear age. The U.S. politicians who believe the country should close itself off from the world and “let the others sort it out for themselves” will be met with a rude awakening when an even more serious crisis starts in Europe and Asia, whose ultimately escalation point is a nuclear one.

For now, the U.S. can largely call the nuclear shots among allied nations — even those that have independent deterrents. Nuclear weapons are also still a deeply held taboo in nations like Germany and Japan. But, in walking away from those same nations it will also be handing the strongest possible incentive for the rest to develop their own nuclear deterrents, which the U.S. will no longer be able to control.

Republicans can play the shortest-term, most cynical game to curry favour with Trump, but they will rue the day that the U.S. ceded its role in global defence to a multipolar, multi-nuclear world.

THE BLOWING OF THESE RECENT POLITICAL WINDS ... IS UNSETTLING.