Donald Trump and the risk of a NATO-Russia war
Hello,
I just released this video about what Donald Trump's first weeks in office mean for global security. Unfortunately, his actions have significantly damaged military deterrence, and that has increased the risk of instability and war in areas where the United States traditionally has provided security guarantees.
Watch here or read the transcript below.
Best,
Anders
Transcript:
Donald Trump has now been in office for a couple of weeks. In that time he has made threats to American allies about territorial expansion, and he has announced trade wars that will have significant consequences for the world economy. In this video I want to talk about the security implications. We don't know yet how much of Donald Trump's rhetoric that will actually materialize into reality in those specific areas that he's talking about, but already at this point there are significant consequences for the world's security. So let's talk about it.
It's always important to acknowledge when there are things we don't know and the reality is that we don't yet fully understand the consequences of what Donald Trump is doing or how far he's willing to go. But there are a couple of things that we can say for sure already. And I want to make it clear upfront that I'm going to say some pretty dramatic things over the course of this video. So it's probably not for the faint of heart, but I think this is unfortunately where we are.
The first thing is that the next couple of years are going to be chaotic. The world order over the last 80 years has been built around the existence of a strong United States that is extending its power across the globe through strong alliances. And what's happening now is that Donald Trump is dismantling that structure of global security. Ironically, this is what the Russians have been saying for years that the Western alliance is in decline and that this is one of the reasons why the world is moving towards a new world order where there is multipliarity with different power centers. But now it is happening and it's happening very quickly.
The Western alliance that is built around the United States at its center is breaking apart these days. And it's unclear what will come out of it on the other side, but it's very clear for all the countries that have built their national security around that reliance on American security guarantees that the United States is no longer a reliable security partner. And that means that all these countries now have to find different security arrangements, but it also means that in the short term there is going to be a security vacuum.
The important thing to understand is that when there is an absence of war in an area, it's not really because there is an absence of desire for power or expansion at the expense of one's neighbors. Countries still want to do those things and politicians will be politicians. The reason why there can be long periods of peace is that there is a military deterrence that is supporting that peace. So nobody in a specific area gets the idea that they could benefit from a military confrontation and therefore they abstain from doing that.
What's happening right now is that this military deterrent is weakened significantly in different areas around the globe. So when I say there is a security vacuum, what I really mean is that there is now a vacuum of deterrence or there is reduced military deterrence. And this is the case in pretty much all the areas where deterrence was built on the assumption of American military intervention, if there is an armed conflict, especially in those areas that were covered by the American nuclear umbrella.
Deterrence is essentially a psychological effect. It's not about who would actually win a war if it breaks out, but it's about when your adversary believes that your military strength is credible and that you have the willpower to go to war. So when it comes to the question of military deterrence, much of the damage has already been done by the steps that Donald Trump has taken. The deterrence was based on the assumption that military action will trigger a military response from the United States. And at this point you can't really blame, for example, Putin for looking at Europe and thinking that well, maybe if there is a war the United States might not be there. Because that's pretty much what everyone else is thinking. So obviously Putin is also thinking that.
And that means that the deterrence is weaker than it was before because it's more likely that Russia will think that "well, maybe we can get away with doing something militarily against the European countries." And that in itself increases the likelihood that they're going to take the chance. It's very important that this military circumstance is taken seriously. Right now there is a lot of talk about trade wars and what economic consequences they can have, but it's important to understand that the military consequences of this standoff between the United States and its allies can be significant. That it increases the risk of war.
And here unfortunately, I think that the public debate about security in Europe is a little out of touch with reality. It's very often framed as if the threat from Russia is either a hybrid threat that is happening now where Russia can do things that are below the threshold of armed conflict, or it's a full-scale war that might happen some years after the war in Ukraine has finished, once Russia has been able to rebuild its forces. And unfortunately, I think those two perspectives don't really manage to grasp the consequences of the weakening of deterrence that has already happened as a result of the doubt that there now is about America's commitment to NATO.
What I'm saying is that I think it's important that we don't diminish the risk of war by saying that it's impossible that Russia could do something that triggers Article 5 in the short term. Because that's essentially what it means when we say that all Russia can do right now is hybrid operations, and that everything else is at least a couple of years down the road. I just don't see why that has to be the case. If Putin believes that he can get away with a military attack on Western Europe, and that if he does that then that will increase his chances of winning the war in Ukraine, then he will absolutely do that. It's not like Putin would have any moral scruples about attacking Western Europe. The only thing that keeps him from doing that is that there is military deterrence, and it is this military deterrence that is weakened now.
Last year I published a couple of videos about what a war between NATO and Russia would look like and why Russia might want to start a war with NATO and how soon it could happen. The short version of what I said in those videos is that it's a mistake to assume that a war between Russia and NATO will involve the entirety of Russia and the entirety of NATO, because on the contrary the Russian purpose with aggression against NATO would be to test the coherence of the Western alliance and to see if all the Allies are really willing to stand up for each other. If Russia does something that triggers Article 5 but some NATO countries, for example the United States, say that they're not going to do anything about it or "well, it's a European problem, the Europeans must deal with it," then what that means in essence is that NATO is dead. And it could it could be the end of the Western coalition that is supporting Ukraine.
And Russia doesn't have to do a lot also to trigger Article 5. It doesn't take a full-scale invasion of the Baltic countries or something like that. All they have to do is to make some kind of attack that is clearly above the threshold of Article 5 but might still be small enough that they can manage the escalation. In my videos back then I speculated that one example of such an operation could be a limited incursion into the northern part of Finland. Would the United States under Donald Trump actually go to war with Russia to liberate a small part of Finnish Lapland? I think it's questionable. But it's also possible to imagine other things that Russia could do to trigger Article 5. How would the West for example respond to a drone strike against a European NATO country? Is that something that would make the other European countries go to war with Russia if the United States is not willing to support them?
The point is that what the Russians need to do to achieve its goal of dividing the Western alliance is to create a situation where they would be a violation of Article 5 that that should trigger a collective response, but a significant group of countries including the United States do not fulfill their NATO commitments.
And I'm not saying that this is definitely going to happen but I am saying that the risk has increased as a result of the things that Donald Trump has done that have undermined the credibility of deterrence in Europe. And that is something that we have to take seriously. That's also why the European leaders right now are extremely busy trying to find different ways to make military deterrence work in the absence of American support.
As an aside, I think it really says something quite profound about the failures of the Biden administration that now three years into the war in Ukraine, I find myself saying things like this. It really shows how misguided their policy of escalation management has been. The war in Ukraine could have been over a long time ago if Ukraine had received stronger support, but instead we now have this mess.
I think these are some of the perspectives that it's important to keep in mind when we see what's going on right now with Donald Trump, and that he's starting trade wars and threatening military action against the allies of the United States. This it's not just something that's happening right here right now. This is an entire world order that is being redefined. And in that chaos there might actually be some areas where positive things can come out of it. There might be local actors that can get something useful out of this new situation. But overall it's going to be more bad things than good things. We are going into a period of more instability and more uncertainty, and it's important that we are aware of the profoundness of this situation and the urgency of finding positive solutions that can fill that security void that's there when there's now doubt about the commitment of the United States.
I want to finish off with a more channel related announcement. Donald Trump is going to steal much of the public attention in the coming time. It's going to fill the mainstream media. It's going to be the center of discussion in Western countries. So I think there is a significant risk that the war in Ukraine is going to get less attention, and that people will stop following it closely because it's being overshadowed by a different crisis. Actually, I can see that already just here on my own YouTube channel. Two out of the last three videos have been about Donald Trump. And I really want to get back to covering Ukraine, both because there are so many other people who talk about the United States and Donald Trump, but also because I think the war in Ukraine is really important. The old security order in Europe was defined by the outcome of the Second World War and around the role of the United States. And the future security order in Europe is going to be defined mostly by the outcome of the war in Ukraine.
And therefore we need to keep focus on that war and to ensure that it remains in our attention. And I think I have something to offer in that sense. So expect to see more videos about Ukraine on this channel in the coming time. I wanted to get this message out from this video about how serious the situation is and what the unraveling of the Western alliance system actually means. But I will try to not get distracted by all the things that Donald Trump says or does on a daily basis. And just leave that to the mainstream media.
Okay, I will end it here. If you found this video helpful or informative then please give it a like. And also remember you can subscribe to the channel. You can click the bell icon, then you will get notifications when I upload new videos. And if you want to support the channel, you can subscribe to my newsletter at www.logicofwar.com. Thank you very much for watching and I will see you again next time.