EXPERT INTERVIEW – Donald Trump has issues with NATO. That much seems clear from his past statements as a candidate and as president. But that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll carry out his veiled threats to abandon the alliance, or ignore the American commitment to Article V of the NATO charter, which states that an attack on any NATO member must be treated as an attack on the alliance writ large. As with many other questions involving national and global security, world leaders and policy analysts are trying to understand precisely where the Trump-Vance administration will stand when it comes to NATO and its support of the Ukrainian resistance against Russia.
As president, Trump declared the alliance “obsolete,” and he has threatened to withdraw U.S. support or pull out of NATO entirely. Earlier this year, as a candidate, Trump warned that the U.S. wouldn’t defend NATO members that don’t meet their targets of spending at least 2 percent of their budgets on defense (more than two-thirds of NATO nations now have met those targets). Trump said he would “encourage” Russia “to do whatever the hell they want” to those countries.
If Trump has disdain for NATO, the feeling is mutual among some NATO members.
The Europeans “don’t like [Trump] as a person…They don’t like his vulgarity,” former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker told The Cipher Brief during this year’s NATO summit in Washington. “They don’t like the threats that he makes about not supporting NATO allies,” Volker said. “You name it, they have anxieties about Donald Trump and they express them constantly.”
But Volker and others believe that – whatever the President-elect has in mind for NATO – the Europeans would be wise to bolster their defenses for future threats, and for a world in which the U.S. may be less willing to support Ukraine’s resistance against Russia.
The new NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte, congratulated Trump after his victory and said he hoped “[Trump’s] leadership will again be key to keeping our Alliance strong.” On Wednesday, Trump named as his NATO Ambassador Matthew Whitaker, an acting Attorney General in the first Trump administration with no foreign policy experience. Trump said Whitaker “will strengthen relationships with our NATO Allies, and stand firm in the face of threats to Peace and Stability — He will put AMERICA FIRST.”
Cipher Brief Senior International Correspondent Ia Meurmishvili spoke with John Herbst, a former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine and Eurasia director at the Atlantic Council, about the issues facing NATO and Ukraine as they await a second Trump term.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Meurmishvili: Where do you see America's role in NATO moving forward, particularly given that the U.S. will have a new administration – President Trump's administration – at the White House?
Herbst: You had a controversial statement by the candidate a few months ago about the concept of a two-tier NATO – those who pay their way, and those who don't, and the U.S. security commitment on Article 5 perhaps only applying to those who pay their way.
I suspect that statement represents President-elect Trump's ongoing frustration with NATO partners who are not paying 2 percent [for their defense]. And now there's agreement that the floor for defense expenditure should be more than 2 percent, maybe 3 percent. I think that statement comes from such frustration. But of course, establishing such a two-tier NATO is nigh impossible.
I would interpret that statement as an encouragement for those laggards in NATO to increase their defense spending. And during the first Trump term, he said some things that would raise questions about his commitment to NATO and about NATO's future. But the actual policy of his administration towards NATO was very similar to that of his predecessors.
Meurmishvili: President-elect Trump [has said] he can end this war in Ukraine in 24 hours. How do you see the resolution of the Ukraine war once the Trump administration comes in?
Herbst: I would take that statement as hyperbole, but it does reflect his strong intention to move quickly to try and end the war via a Trump-brokered peace deal. And we're already seeing that effort in the phone calls he had shortly after he was elected, with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky and then with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.
Trump has been outlining the basics of his approach for months, which is to put forth a compromise based somewhat on the lines of the current military disposition of forces on Ukrainian territory, involving perhaps a moratorium on Ukraine joining NATO, but also involving a demilitarized zone, perhaps supervised or enforced by European troops, and major arms to Ukraine to deter future Russian aggression. And he seemed to be pushing those ideas in conversations with Zelensky and with Putin.
Meurmishvili: Do you think it would be possible to convince Putin that peace must come to Ukraine?
Herbst: I believe that Putin's goals have not changed since he launched the big invasion, which is to establish effective Kremlin control over Ukraine. He doesn't want to stop at the territories he currently controls unless he has a puppet government in Kyiv, which is under his control. And obviously he does not have that.
We've already seen signs that the Kremlin will reject Trump's proposal. [Deputy Speaker Konstantin] Kosachev, the number two in the Russian Federation Council, the upper body of their legislature, said these ideas will not do, that Russian interests are not met. We've had – while not quite as frank – similar intimations coming from the Russian Foreign Ministry, from [Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov. And of course, the biggest figures on Russian propaganda TV, like [Vladimir] Solovyov and [Olga] Skabeyeva, have been saying this before the election. So it does seem clear that this is not acceptable to Putin. He may think he can sweet talk Trump into abandoning Ukraine. I suspect that will not work.
I think the strongest factor here is Trump's sense of himself as a strong leader who can achieve deals which others cannot achieve. And if he were to launch a negotiation, and reach an agreement which Moscow then violates, he would have to do something about it. Or before that, if Putin refuses Trump's good-faith offers, then Trump is on record as saying he would arm Ukraine as it has never been armed before. And I still have no doubt that if the United States and its allies chose to arm Ukraine for victory, they'd be able to kick Russia out of much of currently occupied Ukraine, and put enormous pressure on Crimea, so that holding Crimea for the Kremlin would be extremely expensive and maybe untenable.
Meurmishvili: Do you anticipate any sort of economic pressures or additional economic pressures on Russia coming from the Trump administration?
Herbst: You’ve already seen statements by [Trump’s pick for National Security Advisor, Mike] Waltz or by [Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, Senator Marco] Rubio. One of them has talked about increasing pressure on Russia by going after violators of sanctions. And that's of course a very important thing to do, noted not just by Trump people but also by people in the Biden administration and analysts worldwide.
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Meurmishvili: Where do you think the new administration will stand on Ukraine's NATO membership?
Herbst: People in the Trump campaign have spoken negatively about Ukraine joining NATO. And some have said naively that the fact that Ukraine was going to join NATO is why Russia invaded Ukraine, when we know Ukraine had no chance of joining NATO ever since the Bucharest summit in 2008, despite the language there.
But in connection with Trump's peace ideas, we hear talk of a 20-year moratorium on Ukraine joining NATO, which means for 20 years it would not join, but does not rule out the possibility of eventually joining NATO. That's not ideal. Ultimately, Ukraine should be in NATO – the sooner the better.
If a deal is reached – brokered by Trump – where you have European peacekeepers in between Russian and Ukrainian forces, and if you have Ukraine receiving major armaments, that probably would prove sufficient to maintain Ukraine's security and its sovereignty. And while that's not ideal, especially for the Ukrainians who live under Russian occupation, because the Russians have been brutal to Ukrainians, it would still be a way to safeguard Ukraine and its future.
Meurmishvili: So from the White House's perspective, it still comes back to increasing the European burden sharing in this war.
Herbst: Yes, for Trump that's important. And Europe does have the means to do this. And while I believe that a Russian defeat in Ukraine is critical for the United States, it's also critical and perhaps even more so for Europe, since that's their neighborhood.
Meurmishvili: Would China be in any calculations for the new White House to deal with Russia?
Herbst: It should be. I don't know if it will be. We do know that there is a group around Trump that appears to be clueless about the threat that Russia poses to United States interests, that does not acknowledge that Putin and other Russian officials say all the time that the United States is adversary or enemy number one. They seem to be unaware, or have decided it's not worthy of comment, that Russia conducted two major cyberattacks against the United States a few years ago that disrupted our petroleum supply system for part of the country, and our food distribution system for another part of the country.
For short-sighted people, since China has a much larger and stronger economy, they are a greater threat. And in the long run, that's absolutely true. But they seem to not understand how China and Russia, and for that matter Iran and North Korea, are working together against American interests, and how the best way to deal a blow to [Chinese leader] Xi [Jinping] and to make it less likely that he would strike at Taiwan is to ensure that Putin loses in Ukraine. That logic, which is eminently clear to people who think with a straight mind about the international picture, and about dangers to American security, seems to be unknown amongst some portions of Trump world. But of course there are others – and I think that the others include the Secretary of State-designate Rubio and the incoming National Security Advisor Waltz, [who] understand the connection between China's threat to the United States and Russia's threat to the United States.
Meurmishvili: Do you think security guarantees, or a just or sustainable peace for Ukraine, are possible outside of NATO membership?
Herbst: It's a great question. The obvious solution is, Ukraine gets to join NATO. But if that's not going to be possible for 20 years, other solutions which have worked in the past include a bilateral security guarantee with the United States. They also include – as in Korea – American troops on the ground, which has kept the peace with just some occasional clashes since the end of the Korean War.
I sadly do not think that the current administration is thinking about this. I wish they were. I would encourage them to do so. They seem to be thinking about Europe as providing a peacekeeping force. And that could work as well, as long as there's very strong coordination and clear understanding with the United States about the type of support we would be providing from day one. That support would include intelligence. That support would include air defense of the European troops. And perhaps that support would include a clear and public understanding that if Russian troops without provocation struck European troops, the United States would help in any response to that provocation.
Now, what I just described is also a tall order, but the stakes for any peace deal in Ukraine are extraordinarily high. There is no easy solution, and American critical interests are at stake. And the single most important reason for some optimism here is that Trump does not want to be seen as a weak figure, a patsy for Putin. And obviously if he brokers a peace deal which the Russians break, and he does nothing, or if he allows Russia to get away with rejecting his peace deal, and he does not make good as promised to arm Ukraine far beyond the way Biden armed Ukraine, then he would look weak.
Meurmishvili: Do you think there is anything that the Biden administration can do before January 20th to advance this, and to make it easier or set the stage for Trump?
Herbst: There's a lot it could do. It could, most immediately, allow Ukraine to use the ATACMS missiles on targets in Russia. [This interview was conducted before President Joe Biden lifted restrictions on Ukraine’s use of the American ATACMS for strikes inside Russia.]
Two, the Biden administration should be leading an effort in NATO to respond to regular Russian intrusions into NATO airspace. We should take the lead in forging an agreement in NATO to shoot down the next Russian drone or missile that flies over NATO airspace.
Three, there has been now six or seven months of increasing Russian sabotage in NATO countries, including, if you believe The Wall Street Journal, an effort to plant bombs on planes heading to the U.S. and Canada, without any response. We should take the lead in NATO in responding to that.
Fourth, the administration should work with like-minded members in Congress to try and get a supplemental aid package to Ukraine passed.
I am pessimistic about all of these. The last one – I think there's no way of it happening, but it would be wonderful it did. We, the United States, should give Ukraine Tomahawk missiles, which have a notably farther range than the ATACMS, and allow them to strike at strategic targets in Russia.
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