3.11.22
In the wake of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, there’s a question worth asking: If Donald Trump gets re-elected in 2024, is NATO toast? During his presidency, Trump harshly criticized our allies, while lavishing praise on dictators like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. “I have NATO, I have the UK, which is somewhat in turmoil, and I have Putin. I think Putin may be the easiest of them all, who would think!” he said. Trump also undermined the U.S. intelligence community, most infamously in Helsinki, when he sided with Russia over the FBI. These are just a few of the many examples of how in four short years, Trump buddied up to dictators while simultaneously straining America’s relationship with our allies. It could have been even worse. Former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s memoir says that he had to talk Trump out of quitting NATO in 2018. “In a second Trump term, I think he may well have withdrawn from NATO,” Bolton said recently. “And I think Putin was waiting for that.” Carol Leonnig and Phil Rucker, authors of the book I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year, buttressed this belief; they reported that some of Trump’s advisers warned of the political fallout that could come from leaving NATO in his first term. “We’ll do it in the second term,” Trump reportedly decided.
Trump may still get that second term. Then the question could shift from “What happens to non-NATO states like Ukraine and Taiwan” to “What happens to the Baltic states? What happens to Poland?” Regardless of the messages of deterrence that the West is now sending Russia (and China), it could all be upset by an incoming president with little regard to preserving past systems. In a mere two-and-a-half years, we may (re-)elect a leader of the Free World who is hostile to the idea of preserving the post-World War II rules-based international system and the institutions and alliances that have supported it for more than 70 years. If that happens, a lot of the hard work and sacrifice that is taking place right now—by Ukraine and, to a far lesser extent, the West—could be in vain. Of course, it could be that Russia’s cold-blooded invasion has finally done what Trump’s past comments about John McCain, the Access Hollywood tape, and a zillion other third rails could not do. Trump’s Putin praise, coupled with his lack of moral clarity about the invasion, “may prove to be his kryptonite.” This is possibly a tipping point moment where the Republican Party may be returning more to its Reaganite roots.
