Trump cuts NATO partners adrift
Where are the Reagan conservative and Cold War Republicans?
Recently, former U.S. president Donald Trump sent shock waves throughout European capitals. And I’m sure that there were similar convulsions felt in the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau.
It all started innocently enough when Trump began speaking at a mid-february campaign event in South Carolina.
“NATO was busted until I came along,” he stated pointedly. “I said, 'Everybody’s going to pay.’”
But if we don’t pay, the leader of one “big country” blurted out, are you going to protect us if Russia attacks? Trump responded bluntly: “'Absolutely not. They couldn’t believe the answer,’” he continued.
He then went on to add: “'You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent? … No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.’”
“You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills,” he said angrily.
MEMBER STATES
Translation: Trump has made it clear that he will not be bound by NATO’S Article 5 promise to come to the defence of any member state that comes under attack. He maintains that this is because those same Alliance members have not met their 2014 pledge to allocate 2 per cent of their GDP to military expenditures.
That means that since Canada and a host of other NATO countries have not achieved their spending targets, they are not worth protecting. Simply stated, U.S. security guarantees to the European theatre — and thus the long-standing extension of the nuclear umbrella to Europe — would no longer be extended under a prospective 2025 Trump administration.
I can just imagine how horrified political leaders in Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia (formerly part of the USSR) were when they heard Trump utter that extortionist threat. And I’m convinced that governments in Finland and Norway, both under the 2 per cent NATO commitment today, are wondering what exactly those chilling words mean for them.
CANADA'S STATUS
Moreover, what does Trump’s irresponsible remarks mean for Canada? It would appear to mean that Canada’s current delinquent status on defence spending would nullify any U.S. pledge to defend Canada if it came under attack. Need we be reminded that Canada shares an Arctic region with our Russian neighbour and adversary?
More to the point: Does that mean that Trump has thoughtlessly discarded all those Canada-u.s. defence co-operation agreements and American pledges made in the early 1940s to defend Canada? How would Trump’s promise impact the operations of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)? It certainly doesn’t bode well.
It is important to note that U.S. NATO participation clearly serves U.S. military and geostrategic objectives in the world. Indeed, the only time that Article 5 has ever been invoked was after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on U.S. soil.
It also bears repeating that no U.S. president, or senior U.S. cabinet-level official, has ever made such a statement in the post-1945 era. They always understood that the U.S. would automatically come to the aid of its NATO partners if they were invaded by the Soviet Union or Russia.
FRIENDS AND ALLIES
Significantly, they all realized that U.S. security interests were inextricably linked to those of their democratic allies in NATO Europe – where any shooting war was thought to take place. That’s why Canada pushed so aggressively for a NATO treaty in 1949, as opposed to the U.S. preference for a solemn pledge or declaration, to lock the Americans into a commitment to European defence.
Trump seems to have missed the critical point that the U.S. can’t do everything in the global security ecosystem on its own. In fact, Washington really needs friends and allies to work in concert with it. Has he already forgotten the bevy of recent NATOLED missions: the 1999 War in Kosovo, the 2001 Afghan War and the 2011 removal of Libya’s Gadhafi?
I have to confess that when I heard Trump’s unsettling comments, the first thing that popped into my mind was former U.S. president Ronald Reagan. I told one of my UPEI classes that Reagan was not only turning over in his grave, but that he must have sent tremors throughout the entire graveyard.
COLD WAR REPUBLICANS
“The Gipper,” as Reagan was nicknamed, would never have conceived of a U.S. president making such remarks. After all, he was the one who labelled the USSR as the “evil empire,” spoke frequently about “Soviet-supported aggression,” and that Moscow is “the focus of evil in the modern world.”
So what is happening to the Republican Party in the U.S.? Where are the Reagan conservative and Cold War Republicans? Has the party dispensed with all the neoconservative Republican hawks?
Reagan, a hero of the Republican Party, understood the importance of NATO and defending Europe against Soviet/russian expansionism. He realized that U.S. credibility, the projection of power and American resolve were all intimately connected to doing so. I know. It’s the Trump Party now – and the apparent return of U.S. isolationism.