Putin is still attacking Ukraine, but natos major problems is to mold Trump

The Hague, the Netherlands, three quarters of the century after its creation and, despite its success in preventing intra -European wars and first counteracting the Soviet Union and then Russia, the future of the organization of the Northern Atlantic Treaty may depend on the mood that Donald Trump wakes up on Wednesday morning.

Trump almost retired to the United States from the group during his first term as president, planned to do so during the second term he hoped to win in 2020, and now he has the opportunity again to do so at the Business Meeting of the Alliance.

And while during his first term Trump was surrounded by assistants who did everything possible to verify their impulses, particularly in foreign policy, this time those voices have gone, replaced by Trump’s Hardcore loyal.

“If you wake up the morning of the North Atlantic Council meeting … and decide that this time you will retire from NATO, I am not sure that anyone can argue against,” said John Bolton, one of Trump’s first period national security advisors.

The analysts of the European military and the invasion of Ukraine in Ukraine in 2022 of Russia said that the leaders of the other 31 NATO members are aware of the chaos that Trump could create and take measures to minimize his opportunity to do so, essentially trying to succeed in this week’s summit.

What is normally an event of two or even three days has truncated a night dinner on Tuesday, followed by a meeting of the Atlantic Council on Wednesday morning of the heads of state. The organizers, who, if he attends, would keep him out of what he attends, invited him to play golf earlier on Tuesday, which, if he attends, would keep him away from the event site, which prevented him from discussing with leaders from other Member States.

The most surprising, in the midst of the continuous slaughter of the Ukrainian civilians by the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, the summit will probably not see a formal statement that condemns Russia for fear that it would offend Trump, who last week at the G7 summit of the largest democratic economies in the world criticized the group for having expelled Russia, which suggested that it was a reason for a reason. The one who did what he did what he did what he did what he did.

In fact, Russia was expelled in 2014 of what was then the G8 after invading Ukraine the first time and annexing the Crimean Peninsula.

Andrew Harnik through Getty Images

“The summit itself is a hamburger of nothing, in reality,” predicted Berlin analyst Jan Techau, of the Transatlantic Defense and Security Program at the European Policy Analysis Center. “They have taken everything, including Russia’s strategy that was supposed to be written, and now it will not be written. That was, you know, to maintain peace.”

Exacerbe Trump’s relationship with the rest of NATO is Trump’s bombardment of Iran’s nuclear sites on Saturday night, even when the closest allies in the United States worked to negotiate an agreement. When asked Friday if European leaders were helping to reduce tensions, Trump said: “Iran does not want to talk to Europe. They want to talk to us.”

A few hours later, the United Kingdom, France and Germany issued a joint statement that, in fact, had met with Iranian negotiators that day in Geneva.

On Saturday, key allies seem to have received a notifying them of the imminent strike, but not requested for advice or support. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, in his statement on attacks, mentioned that France had nothing to do with them. “France was not involved in these attacks or in their planning,” according to a translation of the French embassy.

Doug Lute, the United States ambassador to NATO during President Barack Obama’s second term, two years after Trump’s first mandate said he was now written in the alliance letter that there had to be a summit every year, and that it would be intelligent that the leaders stopped keeping them until Trump was out of the office.

“It is still good advice,” said Lute, noting that although it is possible to reduce the risk that Trump explodes the next summit, it cannot be completely eliminated. “He will do something. God knows what.”

Don’s protection racket

The NATO mutual assistance disposition, known as article 5, has been activated only once in 76 years, after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York City and Washington, DC when the United States attacked the rulers in Afghanistan, NATO allies also sent troops, and then kept them there for years.

The Denmark ambassador to the United States made that point in the celebration of the “Constitution Day” of his country in Washington earlier this month, remembering the guests at the 44 Danish troops who died in Afghanistan as a result of Denmark to fulfill his obligation of the treaty to help an NATO member who had been attacked.

However, Trump has and continues to ignore this story, since it paints NATO not as an alliance, but rather as a racket of protection in the style of the mafia.

Other NATO members, in their opinion, pay the United States for military protection. In addition, he states, these countries have been “criminals” in their payments and, therefore, they should not obtain any American help in case they are attacked.

“No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them (Russia) to do what they want,” Trump boasted in a campaign rally last year, repeating a feeling that has expressed many times before and since then.

Actually, each NATO member is expected to maintain an army using equipment and systems that allow them to cooperate with other members in a joint defense, in case the need arises. In 2014, after the first invasion of Ukraine of Russia, NATO members, at the request of Obama, agreed to increase their defense expense to at least 2% of their respective gross national products in the next 10 years.

Bolton said Trump had explained this many times, but that, however, he continued to affirm that his own theory was correct. NATO collects quotas for its relatively small “common fund” for administrative costs, including the headquarters in Brussels, and Bolton said he worked to reduce the participation of the US. UU. And increase that paid by others, as a way of letting Trump reclined the victory and move on.

“After achieving that, he forgot. He has never mentioned it since then,” said Bolton.

Do not mention Ukraine. Or Russia.

What Trump has demonstrated many times since then is his antagonism towards Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom Trump tried to extort unsuccessfully to investigate Joe Biden in 2019, and his affinity for Putin, who helped Trump win the presidency first.

Trump during a February Oval office visit essentially blamed Ukraine for being invaded, while he has often put excuses for Putin. In the days after invasion 2022, Trump called Putin “intelligent” and “genius” for having done so.

This has led the summit planners to conclude that the best way to follow is to ignore more or less the greatest war in the European continent since 1945, despite the fact that NATO has done so since the beginning of February 2022 of the war that denounced Putin. Last year’s summit in Washington, DC, for example, had had in its final joint communication: “The large-scale invasion of Russia of Ukraine has destroyed peace and stability in the area of ​​the Euro-Atlantic and the global security seriously undercanding. Russia remains the most significant and direct threat to the safety of the allies.”

Such direct language is not planned for this year’s statement. On the other hand, NATO will focus on a new 5% defense spending target for its members, a goal that Trump will surely support. And while Zelenskyy will attend dinner on Tuesday night, he will not go to the official meeting the next morning.

“Despite what began as a kind of bolder agenda for the summit, the reach has really been reduced,” said Lauren Speranza, who worked for former Biden Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, and is now at the European Policies Analysis Center. “I think that has come in response to an American impulse to focus more on defense spending, but also a desire for allied capitals to minimize possible clashes with President Trump.”

“There is an important war in Europe, and they cannot afford to mention it among the leaders,” added Lute. “It is revealing, to what extent NATO is distorting to accommodate the US president.”

However, even if the summit planners successfully eliminate both Ukraine and Russia from conversation, the other signatories still face a United States administration that often seems actively hostile to the Alliance.

In recent testimony before Congress, the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, denigrated the contribution of other NATO members to the United States LED LED war in Afghanistan.

“We also use a patch on our shoulder that said the international security assistance force.

A day later, Hegseth at the beginning avoided responding when asked in the Armed Services Committee of the House of Representatives if the United States would honor the commitments of his NATO treaties.

“If Russia invades NATO’s allies, will you recommend to the president that we comply with our obligations of article 5?” California Democrato Health Carbajal asked.

At first, Hegesh dodged the question: “Well, Russia has not invaded NATO allies.” Carbajal took several follow -up before Hegseth finally responded that, yes, the United States still recognized article 5.

Lute, who is also a retired general from the army, said that Hegseth, presumably in the Trump direction, at the beginning of this month jumped a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a committee that was created under the intention of coordinating military aid to Ukraine to counteract Russia.

“It simply shows how dysfunctional it is NATO when you cannot count on American leadership,” Lute said.