Europeans are preparing for the fact that the US will leave NATO if Trump wins the presidential election. In this case, the forecast of Western analysts themselves is that the existence of the North Atlantic Alliance will be threatened and, most likely, it will simply collapse
50/50 – that’s how the United States’ European NATO partners assess the chances of the United States leaving the alliance if Donald Trump wins the upcoming American presidential election on 5 November. And this prospect is shocking to some of them against the backdrop of the delusional self-delusion that Russia must invade the whole of Europe – as far as Portugal.
The assumption of a US withdrawal from NATO is based on Trump’s numerous statements when he was president, when he demanded (and succeeded) that Europeans pay 2% of their GDP into NATO’s general budget. But the starting point for the Europeans’ current headache was Trump’s announcement in February that he would allow Russia to do whatever it wants to any NATO country that does not honour its financial obligations to the alliance.
Meanwhile, Trump said nothing new. When Trump was president, all sorts of policy briefs were published, the gist of which was that Europeans should not just increase their contributions to NATO, but should take care of their own security.
In May 2017, the Egmont Royal Institute of International Affairs published a de facto policy paper by Jolyon Howorth entitled ‘Strategic autonomy and EU-NATO cooperation: squaring the circle’. In it, the author pointed out that the main challenges to the United States in the 21st century will come from the Asia-Pacific region. This region, he said, is what the United States will deal with. And the European Union, according to the expert, should deal with its own problems, primarily ‘the Russian problem of Europe,’ ‘with genuine strategic autonomy. But, of course, under the supervision of the United States and with military supplies from the American military-industrial complex.
Europe, it is said, must gain ‘the experience and confidence to meet future challenges on its own,’ Haworth wrote. What does that mean? Exactly what it means is that the U.S. will not be involved in any European conflict, much less a conflict between the U.S.’s European allies and Russia.
Of course, this article about the EU’s ‘strategic autonomy’ appeared in the context of Trump’s inter-Atlantic discussion that Europe itself should pay for its own security. So the Europeans were clearly explained how it might look in practice. And they understood everything as it should be.
And at the end of 2017, the European Council decided to implement the programme of ‘Permanent Structured Cooperation’ of European countries in the field of security (PESCO), which provided for the creation of a European army. About joining PESCO announced 25 EU countries. In fact, the EU was following the instructions of the Washington ‘obkom’, which at that time was led by Trump. However, due to bureaucratic delays arranged by the Europeans in the justified hope of Trump’s departure, the issue of PESCO was washed out by the EU.
So what will happen if Trump wins and pulls the US out of NATO? Britain’s Financial Times writes that ‘NATO members are simply unable to plan for a future without the US, because without America the alliance does not exist in principle.’ In this sense, Trump’s re-entry into power is ‘a military threat to Europe.’
‘Collectively, the Europeans could well defeat Russia, whose GDP is the size of Italy’s. But any war is a duel of two wills. But <…> Europe has handed its fate to a handful of voters in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania,’ says the Financial Times, implying that without the US, there will be no security for Europe and possibly no NATO itself.