EXPERT INTERVIEWS – Over the past two and a half months, as President Donald Trump's administration has upended long-standing policies and assumptions about America’s role in the world, The Cipher Brief spoke to experts in multiple countries, all of which are U.S. allies, and all of which stand to be profoundly affected by the changes. From North America to Europe to Asia, shifts in the U.S. economic and geopolitical posture are producing a combination of concern and reflection among national security experts in many corners of the world.
In this report, The Cipher Brief shares excerpts from some of our most recent interviews with experts from a half dozen countries: Canada, Germany, Poland, Estonia, the Philippines and the United Kingdom. Not surprisingly, their reflections and reactions differ, given the range of national interests and differences in their relationships with the U.S. One thread ran through all the conversations: A hope that the sudden ruptures in U.S. policy - and in the world order - are not irreparable.
"I don’t think it’s going to be the worst case, but I think it’s right to prepare for activities, statements, and policies from the United States that are going to be unwelcome," said Nick Fishwick, a former senior official in the British Foreign Office. "I don’t think that we will have to give up on the relationship, but it’s unpredictable and we’ve got to be prepared for bad things to happen."
In addition to Fishwick, we spoke with Toomas Ilves, a former president of Estonia; Liana Fix, Senior Fellow for Europe and expert on Germany at the Council on Foreign Relations; Jacek Siewiera, former head of the National Security Bureau in Poland; and Richard Fadden, former National Security Advisor and director of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service and Rear Admiral Rommel Jude G. Ong, former Vice Commander of the Philippine Navy.
Full versions of the conversations are available at our YouTube channel; the excerpts below have been edited for length and clarity.
At one level, what Mr. Trump is doing in his own inimitable fashion is much the same as previous presidents have done. They’ve noted that we [in Canada] have not been pulling our weight on the national security front. I’ve been arguing this for a long time. Aside from dealing with tariffs, we’re going to have to up our spending on defense, on security, probably on foreign affairs more broadly. And this is now beginning to register.
The regrettable part is that Mr. Trump is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. He could have accomplished a number of the things he wants to accomplish without all of the unintended consequences.
Is it recoverable to a certain extent? Absolutely. But I think the nature of the relationship is going to change. From Canada’s perspective, we’re going to inject a lot more attention to defense, security and foreign affairs. That will be all to the good, but it will change things about how we deal with one another within the Five Eyes, within NATO and more broadly.
I cannot imagine Canada ever not passing on to the United States information and intelligence that we might have about threats to the United States. I’d like to hope that would be the same with the U.S. vis-a-vis its allies. All the other kinds of intelligence – they may be useful and very helpful, but the world will continue to turn if there are cuts here and there. I do think it’s going to cause everybody to think about what can be shared, and how quickly it can be shared.
[The Canadian government must] take national security seriously on an ongoing basis and not just when there are crises. This means developing new relationships and alliances across the board, in particular with Europe. I think Prime Minister [Mark] Carney’s already started doing that, but it will mean more resources on defense, on security and on foreign affairs. And most important is to take a realistic view of our relationship with the United States. The United States is not going to go away. The United States is important to us, but a lot of people in Canada are hoping that the [U.S.] midterm elections will reinstitute one of the guardrails of [the U.S.] constitution. We shall see.
[The U.S. should] consider carefully their priorities, to consider the unintended consequences of what they’re trying to do and how they’re doing things. And to note that in particular with Canada – yes, I understand Mr. Trump’s fixation with tariffs, but it’s hard to argue in the world today that the import of Canadian steel and aluminum presents a threat to United States national security. So I’d ask them to rethink what they want done and how they’re doing it. The United States’ strength is found in alliances and in allies. This is not going to help U.S. long-term interests.
I’d say that there is a high awareness [of the U.S. pivot to Russia], some anxiety, but also a rational response: we just have to do more.
Estonia decided to boost our defense expenditure for next year up to 5% of GDP. Right now we’re at 3.6%, which is way above the EU average. We were actually one of the very few countries that had already hit 2% — 13 years ago. So we’ve been quite conscious. And Latvia and Lithuania have also been spending a lot of money. And you have to put Poland in there as well, which is probably the biggest spender right now. Poland has bought or will acquire some 800 main battle tanks, which is a larger number than all of the rest of Europe. That shows how serious people are.
The public is willing to put up with the spending. So far, we haven’t heard any great rumbles based on decreasing social expenditure, which is a necessary thing to do. And in Latvia, Lithuania as well — Lithuania I know is quite gung-ho, and Latvia is getting there as well, they’re actually spending 3.6 % as well this year. So that’s a big change.
And of course in our neighborhood, we also have Finland and Sweden and Denmark, which are all increasing their defense expenditures as well as attention to issues such as the hybrid or so-called gray zone warfare attacks that we’ve seen in the Baltic Sea — cutting undersea cables, and we’ve had arson that has been directly tied to the Russians.
Like the other Baltic countries, we all share a border with Russia, so that already makes us quite “front-line.” Any kind of physical incursion would be rather simple if the [Russians] were to follow that.
Why should the U.S. care about Estonia? Proportionally, we had casualties up there with the U.S. and the UK in Afghanistan — we’re a small country, so there were fewer numbers, of course, but in terms of the proportionality, we were up there as one of the highest casualty rates. As far as funerals went, I went to every single one. It had the same kind of effect in this country as it did in the UK, Canada and the United States. The argument, of course, was that we were doing our duty in NATO. So now there is some disappointment in having done all that and then hearing the rhetoric from the U.S, that, Oh, those Europeans, they’re not doing anything. Why should we go defend them? That’s disconcerting – if not really depressing.
I know that [Prime Minister Keir] Starmer and the current government are committed to Ukraine. Democratic governments can’t use words like “forever,” but they can use words like “for the long term” or “as long as we’re in power.” I’m very confident that this government is committed to Ukraine, and it is clearly thinking about the scenario of less American commitment to Ukraine’s long-term security. I think Kier Stammer has done well in seizing that opportunity.
It’s an opportunity to respond to the American challenge. It’s an opportunity to assure Ukraine. I think there’s also an opportunity for us to reposition ourselves constructively with regard to Europe. Britain pulled out of the European Union — we voted against staying in the European Union in 2016. After a few years, we formally dropped out of the European Union. There’s a moment here for cooperation with European colleagues over defense, which will be popular in this country. And I think that will pave the way for a new set of constructive relationships between Britain and European Union countries — notably France, Germany, Italy, Spain, but the other countries as well — that will provide a new version of cooperation with Europe that might pave the way for cooperation across a different set of issues. An opportunity to set up new positive relationships with Europe, post-Brexit — I think the Prime Minister is is well placed to make the most of that opportunity.
If I was in government now, I’d be planning for the worst, but assuming that the intelligence relationship [with the U.S.] will continue, that military cooperation will continue, that there’ll be loads of people in the American administration, the intelligence community and Congress who will continue to share the values that we and our European colleagues share, and not want to go rushing off into an abrupt volte-face where suddenly President Putin is our best friend and we don’t like the new Prime Minister of Canada. I’m just assuming that’s not going to be happening, despite rhetoric that comes out of the White House.
I don’t think it’s going to be the worst case, but I think it’s right to prepare for activities, statements, and policies from the United States that are going to be unwelcome. I don’t think that we will have to give up on the relationship, but it’s unpredictable and we’ve got to be prepared for bad things to happen.
Poland is a country which has very specific, and I would even say extraordinary, ties with the United States. These ties were very significant and strong before the war [in Ukraine] started, because of our military spending, because of our membership in NATO and the commitment to the NATO transatlantic relations. But these relations became even more serious and deeper during the time of a war. American troops were deployed, before war started, in Poland in a big number. So the United States proved beyond any doubts its very deep commitment in the relationship with Poland.
On the other hand, of course, the situation and [the U.S. engagement with Russia] is concerning. And from the Polish perspective, we believe that a huge level of caution is necessary when it comes to any form of deals, agreements or even statements of mutual understanding when it comes to Russia. Because they don't see peace and democratic rules as a value of our world. And from this perspective, we see another chapter of the relationship [with the U.S.], with a very dynamic pace of changes, which is sometimes very surprising.
From our perspective, [we have] defense spending at the level of 3.7% and now 4.7% with a projection that we can exceed 5% in upcoming years. This is something that we perceive not as a preparedness for war. We want to create the message for the perception of our neighbors: We will be ready for any form of confrontation, but we want to avoid it. As far as we invest in our defense, we believe that we are taking every necessary step to avoid war. And that's the reason, that's the justification, that's the purpose of our efforts. Particularly when it comes to defense.
Poland will be prepared, we will deter effectively. And we mean it. So we invest in it deeply and very heavily. Also with the transformation of the armed forces, civil protection and defense industry. In this third part, we also believe in a cooperation with the United States, still as a strategic ally.
I think the temperature here is still OK. There were some words of affirmation coming from the U.S. DoD and the U.S. State Department regarding the value of the alliance.
My own personal understanding is that Trump is trying to find a way to win away Russia from China, and to break up the China-Russia axis. And unfortunately or fortunately, wherever you’re sitting, whichever side of the table you’re sitting, Ukraine is in the middle of that spot that you don’t want to be in. And I think President Trump is trying to do an exit strategy not only for Europe or Ukraine – he is also looking at an exit strategy for the Middle East. And if he succeeds, then he can focus his attention on the Indo-Pacific.
Some colleagues in academia from Europe say it’s not going to work — Russia will not just break off from China overnight. The conditions during the time of Nixon and Kissinger are totally different from the conditions that Russia and China have now. So some don’t buy the idea of breaking off the China-Russia partnership, assuming that is Trump’s game plan.
My other take is that even assuming that this is the grand strategy at play, I still haven’t heard from the White House or from DoD or the State Department what the shaping of their Indo-Pacific strategy is.
It doesn’t sound good. When you bring together what’s happening in Ukraine and not getting the big picture here in the Pacific, the optics are bad. We just hope that it doesn’t encourage China to be more adventurous in its actions.
Fortunately, from the Philippine side, the sentiment I’m getting is that they’re still positive with regards to the U.S.-Philippine alliance. But on the academic side, from those outside government, we’ve been looking at an alternative regional security architecture outside of the Philippine-U.S. alliance. We’re looking at alternative multilateral [relationships], like a combination with Japan or with Australia or maybe with Canada, not only on the security-defense side, but also looking at how we look at economic resilience as well — because China operates not at the geopolitical sphere but rather at the geoeconomics sphere.
From the Philippine side, we wish the U.S. well in terms of catching up, because they have to do a lot of catching up. And we do need that big picture as far as the Indo-Pacific is concerned because right now we don’t see it.
My personal view is that we’re not going to wait until the U.S. does its homework, because we need to look at how to mitigate a potential U.S. reduction of exposure or commitment in the region. We’re looking for our own Plan B, just in case.
Big decisions have already been announced [in Germany], even before the coalition government has been agreed upon, to put Germany back on the map of European and transatlantic security. The potential coalition partners agreed, for example, that Germany will loosen its famous “debt break” – which means Germany has basically unlimited defense spending in the future. There’s no ceiling. It’s a historic change for German defense.
The shock of the U.S. elections, and the statements by Donald Trump [led] to a situation where Germany, which has always positioned its foreign policy after 1945 in alliance with the United States and the West, now suddenly thinks, Well, we don’t even know if the West still exists. So perhaps this is the time to invest in defense spending beyond 2 percent and to assume a big role in European security.
There is a strong tendency in the German public to see the United States as the good guys, as the protector of Germany’s security. And so this adjustment to see the United States in a more transactional relationship will take time. But at the same time, the majority of Germans support a stronger German army, and support stronger European defense efforts.
The most important part of that is the money. You can’t get to that point [of stronger defense] without your public supporting you spending money on that. And there, the crucial item in the German context is the self-imposed debt break, which gives Germany some fiscal flexibility if the debt break is reformed or eliminated to invest in defense for Germany and for the European Union. And if that money is [released], which a majority of Germans support, then we can see real progress on the German level, and on the European level, towards investments into European defense.
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