Depending on which military expert you talk to, Donald Trump’s comments in a New York Times interview suggesting U.S. defense of a NATO ally would depend on whether countries “fulfilled their obligations” is either a profoundly misguided statement that sends a dangerous message, or routine campaign rhetoric that raises a legitimate concern about NATO members pulling their weight.
In the first group you find former supreme NATO commander retired Adm. James Stavridis, now dean of the The Fletcher School at Tufts University.
“A deeply dangerous, uninformed, and ambiguous answer that will dismay our closest allies while providing great cheer in the Kremlin,” Stavridis said. “I can hear Vladimir Putin chortling from here.”
Stavridis, who has been mentioned as a possible running mate for Democrat Hillary Clinton, argues Trump’s equivocation on America’s obligation under the transatlantic alliance “undermines the most important deterrent structure in the world and the bedrock of the global economy.”
Tom Donnelly of the conservative American Enterprise Institute had a harsher assessment.
“Trump is an imbecile in international politics, and apparently proud to be so,” he said. “To begin with, the Eastern Europeans are the ones meeting their defense spending targets. Moreover, they’re the front-line states, the ones who would pay the highest costs in blood and loss of freedom in any contest with the Russians.
“Finally, if the changes in the Republican platform on Ukraine are anything to go by, Trump is prepared to grant Russia a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe that would begin to undo the victory of the Cold War. He sounds like he thinks it’s clever to be ambiguous.”
Then there’s James Carafano at the conservative Heritage Foundation, who says it’s silly to read too much into off-the-cuff pronouncements that are basically aimed at winning over U.S. voters, not sending policy guidance abroad.
“I understand that in American campaigns the whole world is watching, but the reality is he’s not talking to you,” Carafano said in a phone interview from Cleveland where he was attending the Republican National Convention.
He predicts Trump, if elected, will not be unilaterally abrogating any U.S. treaties. “When I look at NATO policy, I think America’s commitment to NATO is going to look on Nov. 9 a lot like it looks on Nov. 7.”
But many experts raised concerns that Trump was viewing the relationship between the United States and other NATO nations as a business transaction, and was either unaware or ignoring the fact that the defense of NATO nations is a treaty obligation spelled out in Article 5 of the NATO charter, which specifically says an attack on one NATO nation is an attack on all.
It’s not a question of how much bang you’re getting for your buck, says Anthony Cordesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “NATO is not a business, and there is no clear balance sheet.”
But others argue Trump is making a legitimate point when he suggests not all of NATO’s 28 member nations contribute their fair share, even though their security is more at risk than America’s.
“Trump recognizes it is fundamentally unfair for Americans to be covering other countries’ defense bills at the same time those countries are taking advantage of us with unfair trading practices,” said Loren Thompson of the conservative Lexington Institute.
“One reason Trump became the Republican nominee is because he was willing to tell the truth about how unbalanced our relations have become with some nations,” he said.
But Cordesman counters “Politicians also need to be careful about talking about the burden of U.S. military spending. It is now well below 4 percent of our [gross domestic product], or about half the level during the years of the Cold War when we were not actually fighting.”
Looking at NATO as an operation on a “pay for play” business model is extremely shortsighted, Cordesman said.
“Giving up Europe to Russia, or giving up our other forward defenses and ties to our allies in Asia and the Middle East, is also scarcely going to save us money over time. It simply means that someday we will have to fight on far worse and far more expensive terms.”
Lawrence Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense during the first Bush administration, said Trump needs to be more careful in how he frames the debate over the future of NATO and how it’s funded.
“Words have consequences and the world pays attention, and this man is the nominee of one of our two major parties, and he’s sending a signal that I don’t think we want to send, that undermines our security,” said Korb, who is now with the progressive Center for American Progress.
