Trump, NATO, and Nuclear Deterrence

The challenge for Britain and France

In the control room of HMS Viligant, one of the UK’s four nuclear-warhead carrying submarines.

In a recent post dealing with anxieties about a future war with Russia and whether young people in the UK would be prepared to fight for their country, I suggested that there was a potentially larger issue to be addressed about the role of the UK’s nuclear forces. If, as a result of Donald Trump returning to the presidency, European members of NATO can no longer rely on the US for its nuclear umbrella, would the UK be expected to take its place, on its own, or in concert with France?  

Trump and NATO: Seeking a Divorce

Campaigning in Conway South Carolina on 10 February, Donald Trump promised his audience that he would be tough with America’s free-loading allies once he got back to the White House. He described a conversation from his previous stint with an unnamed leader ‘of a big country.’ As this country had failed to pay its dues its defence was being subsidised by the United States. According to Trump the encounter went as follows:

Unnamed leader: ‘Well, sir, if we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?

Trump: ‘“You didn’t pay. You’re delinquent.’

Unnamed leader: ‘Yes, let’s say that happened.’

Trump: ‘No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.

The moral of the story for Trump was that his tough stance led the allies to pay up. But the underlying attitude it reveals goes much further. It is bad enough casting doubt on whether alliance commitments would be met. Quite another, and in contrast to President Biden’s promise to defend ‘every inch’ of NATO territory, to encourage aggression.

This was not the first time Trump had told this story. He had already done so in August 2018.

‘Someone said, “Sir!” Someone calls me Sir, that that shows me respect. He says, “would you leave us if we don’t pay our bills?” They hated my answer. I said, “Yeah, I would consider it.” They hated the answer … l. But if I said, “No, I won’t leave you. I promise you we will always protect you.” Then they will never pay their bills. So I said, “Yes, I will leave you.” You could see those checkbooks coming out for billions of dollars. They paid their bills. I think we will pick up in the next short while over $100 billion.’

This version of the story just left his pressure doing the trick and the delinquent ally paying up without him needing to threaten to abandon NATO to Putin. (The fact that this story has been repeated does not make it true. It is highly unlikely that any leader of a big European country would have shown such deference. When someone calls Trump ‘Sir’ in one of his anecdotes that is usually a clue that he has made it up.)

This was before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has somewhat changed the context. Trump has never hidden his dislike for alliances but during his first term his senior officials in key national security positions worked hard to limit the potential damage. Some later told the New York Times that ‘several times over the course of 2018, Mr. Trump privately said he wanted to withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.’  He thought the alliance pointless and a drain on the US. A  member of the European Commission has recounted how in a meeting with the Commission’s President Ursula von der Leyen in 2000 he said ‘You need to understand that if Europe is under attack we will never come to help you and to support you.’ He added, ‘By the way, NATO is dead, and we will leave, we will quit NATO.’ His former national security advisor, John Bolton, predicts  that he probably would seek to get out of NATO during a second term.

Trump certainly view the alliance in transactional terms as he views all relationships, assuming that European contributions to the collective defence are in effect repayments to the US. (He is also proposing switching from foreign assistance to loans). But even if Europeans spend more, which they are doing and should do more, it may still not make much difference to his attitudes. As Fred Kaplan notes Trump exaggerates the impacts his bluster had on past spending. It was going up before he became president, following Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014, and it continues to do so.

It is best therefore to assume that this is more than transactional. When coupled with his instructions to Republicans in the House of Representatives to block more aid to Ukraine, it would be unwise to assume that his disinterest in opposing Putin is just for show. Before his latest remarks the possibility that he might try to take the US out of NATO was already taken sufficiently seriously for the US Senate to  pass a bipartisan bill  prohibiting any President doing this without Senate approval or an Act of Congress. That reduces the potential disruption but does not get to the main risk, which would be that Trump would simply ignore his alliance obligations.