Donald Trump’s win over Hillary Clinton for the presidency of the United States surprised a number of European leaders. Given Trump’s statements about NATO being “obsolete” and the need for all allies to contribute their fair share, NATO’s European member states are trying to figure out what the alliance will look like under President Trump. The Cipher Brief’s Kaitlin Lavinder spoke with NATO’s former Supreme Allied Commander, Admiral James Stavridis, who is also Dean at The Fletcher School at Tufts University and a Cipher Brief Network member, to get his thoughts on the future of transatlantic defense and security cooperation.
The Cipher Brief: What are your initial reactions to the Trump win, and what impact could this have on transatlantic relations?
Admiral James Stavridis: At this point, what we have to go on is what President-elect Trump said during the campaign. I would anticipate a reduced leadership role in NATO, construction of a wall with Mexico, a very aggressive anti-trade policy (particularly with respect to China), more latitude for allies to pursue nuclear weapons, and potentially a rapprochement with Russia. Those were consistent themes in the campaign.
In terms of transatlantic relations, I think we will be in for some choppy seas with our traditional NATO allies, because they perceive correctly that President-elect Trump is quite skeptical of NATO.
TCB: Can you elaborate on this idea of reduced leadership in NATO and skepticism of NATO? In a TIME article you recently wrote, you mentioned a potential “abandoning” of NATO. What does that mean in practical terms?
JS: We don’t know. President-elect Trump has not been clear, beyond the fact that he has spoken multiple times about his general lack of regard for NATO and his belief that NATO ought to pay more of its way. On that point, I think a particular aspect of the relationship will be demands that other NATO allies meet the two percent of GDP goal that they have set. I agree with that. I think we should be pressuring our allies to pay their fair share, and I would interpret their fair share as two percent of their GDP. So that’s one practical affect.
But I think the underlying tone of the conversation thus far has been one that says, and if they don’t contribute more financially to the alliance, then we ought to be willing to walk away from it. Hence the line about potentially “abandoning” NATO.
TCB: Is the first part of that potential policy – that European members need to meet the two percent GDP threshold – a continuation of President Obama’s policy with NATO?
JS: It is. That has been the policy of every administration, including President George W. Bush and of course Obama, and so I don’t see that as a sudden shift. We’ve always pressured our allies so that they meet that goal. But the difference is that the tone of President-elect Trump’s conversations about NATO would lead one to believe that if those allies did not meet that level, he was prepared to walk away from the table. That’s different.
TCB: The basis of NATO is largely values-based – democracy, human rights, etc. – what happens when not all members are on the same page? I’m thinking in particular of Hungary and Poland, and now potentially a United States led by President Trump.
JS: The nation that I would worry about is actually Turkey, which has seen mass incarcerations and an enormous roiling of the domestic waters in the wake of a coup directed against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
I do not foresee the United States falling into the category of a nation that is not meeting its human rights obligations under a Trump administration. I think there is such a strong commitment broadly to human rights that I’m comfortable that we’ll continue to meet our obligations. The nations I would worry about are, in particular, Hungary and Turkey. Those two countries are more on the edge than the United States will ever be.
TCB: How does NATO respond to something like that? Do you think there will be an erosion of the values-based basis and a different reason for members being a part of NATO?
JS: I think that we respond to it by doing what friends do. When a colleague or a friend is not meeting an obligation or is not fulfilling a promise, we begin by pointing it out. We then provide what the basis for our concerns are, we have a dialogue, we use the power of our meeting structure – NATO has meetings frequently of the foreign and defense ministers – and we use all the channels of communication to apply pressure. And over time, when we’ve seen nations that are not fulfilling all the treaty requirements, that kind of steady pressure using NATO as a mechanism has been helpful. I think it will be in the cases of both Turkey and Hungary.
