Yes, Donald Trump’s Putin comments were unhinged – but he’s right to question Nato’s future | Simon Jenkins

DOnald Trump said,appallingly unstable” everyone says. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said he invited President Vladimir Putin over the weekend to invade NATO and “do whatever he wants” unless Europe spends more money on its own defence. All safety is at risk.” The Alliance should be a bulwark of freedom against dictatorships, not who pays for what.

They might start by pointing out to Trump that the most outrageous abuses of NATO have been by the United States. The US government’s request for allies to support a retaliatory invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11 had nothing to do with Western security or American neo-imperialism, and was a costly, long-term fiasco. It similarly calls on allies to join in other military interventions, from Vietnam to Iraq and throughout the Middle East. America’s “exit from empire” is proving to be as bloody as Britain’s, and if anything, more humiliating. It is outrageous for a former US president to incite President Putin to war with NATO.

So Trump is certainly upset, but does he have a point? he is consistent. Over the past decade, he has encouraged one of America’s periodic bouts of isolationism. He suggested that now that communism is dead, the idea of ​​an ideological empire in global conflict is obsolete. For him, Western countries have enough problems at home. It is not their job to intervene in other people’s border or internal disputes. Britain and others may be itching to play a role on the world stage in the style of the 19th and 20th centuries, but if they do, they will have to pay for it themselves. Let them build stupid aircraft carriers that don’t work.

On a more practical level, NATO’s expansion at the end of the century to include the Baltic states and Poland was overtly provocative. Putin’s reaction in Ukraine was so shocking that the West was right to help reject it, leaving his little antics in the Caucasus alone. Now the rejection is at a stalemate and some way has to be found. NATO must become a force for peace, not endless war. Even if it does not intend to fight in Ukraine permanently, its long-term intentions remain unclear. Trump’s skepticism is justified.

It is hard to believe that President Trump will actually disband NATO, as has been reported. I was personally threatened with. However, Article 5 of the Alliance, the promise to go to war if the integrity of a member state is threatened, appears to need reconsideration. This is especially true given America’s Pacific leanings and Europe’s own declining political cohesion. It is hard to believe that President Putin will try to overthrow more governments across Eastern Europe. However, it is quite possible that he will destroy the borders and stir up discontent among Russian minorities in the front-line provinces. Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 are more likely to serve as precedents than Ukraine in 2022.

In that case, Trump, as well as Trump, has the right to ask what business this is for the United States. It is not clear whether Europe can come up with a convincing answer.