Fear in the western camp; Trump and the possibility of NATO dissolution

Mehr News Agency, Bin Group International: Donald Trump’s decisive victory against Kamala Harris, was not the desired and expected result of America’s European allies, because the two important institutions of the Western alliance, i.e. the military organization “NATO” and “European Union”, both have bitter experiences in They are cooperating with Trump. They remember very well that during his first term as president, Trump repeatedly challenged the necessity of NATO’s continued activity and questioned the contribution of European military participation. Therefore, it is natural that the central headquarters in Brussels is worried about whether Trump’s America may still remain in NATO or not.

The fear and concern of NATO leaders about Trump’s future decisions has become important in a situation where, in addition to the American president, many political thinkers have repeatedly stated that NATO belonged to the Cold War era and Its life and mission has ended and should be dissolved.

Trump’s condition to stay in NATO

Analytical report of Politico newspaper about one of Trump’s recent interviews, Confirmed is the fact that he still has a pessimistic view of the NATO alliance, but at the same time he made some conditions and said: “America will not withdraw from NATO, but on the condition that the European countries play fairly and American support do not use“.

Both expressions of playing the role of “fair” and “not mis use of American support”, the main keywords of Trump’s attitude to the NATO alliance. With his broker’s Mabane policy, he is looking for European countries to allocate a greater share of their budgets to military expenditures, and secondly, in the final decisions, have more compliance with America. It is based on this logic that Trump has repeatedly claimed that if he remained in power, he would not have allowed the war between Russia and Ukraine.

The latest spending report released by NATO shows that despite Trump’s constant complaints about European countries being stingy with military spending, many of these countries, including Poland, Lithuania, Romania and Hungary, as well as Spain, Greece and Finland, have increased their defense spending percentage over the past three years. Of course, the two rich countries, England and Norway, as well as Italy, reduced their military spending during Joe Biden‘s era, and by the way, now all three countries have to wait for that. They will soon be exposed to Trump’s balls and comments. This point is reminiscent of a part of the memories of former German chancellor Angela Merkel, who, during a trip to Washington and a meeting with Trump, suddenly faced the question: “So when are you going to pay us your debts?” After Merkel expressed surprise, Trump said: “I mean defense spending.” Germany is one of the countries that have not spent enough money on defense!

It is said that about two-thirds of the 32 NATO member countries spend 2% of their GDP on defense, according to the conventional agreement. But Germany, as a rich NATO ally, often allocates an amount of 1.5 percent, and Trump was angry about this in the previous period.

Trump against Putin

Ed McMullen, former ambassador Appointed by Trump in Switzerland, in an interview with ABC News, he mentioned the issue that Trump will act in his own way when making decisions about NATO, but Mac Mullen at the same time claimed that Trump has great experience in curbing the power of Vladimir Putin and in the period New also knows how to control Putin. Meanwhile, Anthony Gardner, the former US ambassador to the European Union appointed by Obama, believes that in addition to Trump, many other American politicians have repeatedly criticized NATO’s performance, but still preferred to keep this alliance standing. Gardner says: “Trump’s concerns about how much NATO allies contribute to funding defense spending are reasonable. and European countries have to pay more money. But some of Trump’s comments and positions actually disarm European allies against Russia. The guarantee of collective defense is still the main reason for NATO’s continued activity, and no one should joke about this issue.”

Gardner pointed out some other important points, which reveal some important problems and challenges within the NATO organization. Bremy has:

1. The issue of paying attention to national interests among European countries does not have a particular coherence and there are scattered definitions and approaches regarding this debate.

2. The lack of understanding of the national security threat among many countries makes increasing defense spending difficult for the NATO alliance.

3. How is a significant part of the defense budget of NATO allies spent ineffectively, and the vast majority of the military budget is spent on things that are not related to the battlefield and combat readiness, and even the payment of military retirees’ salaries and regular personnel’s salaries are defined under the same budget. does.

What do international relations experts say?

This is not the first time that Trump’s attitude towards the life and death of NATO has become a challenging debate because Trump has been strongly criticizing NATO for years and has openly said: “NATO must be fair to the United States, because if the United States is not in this group, there will literally be no such thing as NATO.”

Although it is difficult to predict Trump’s possible actions, everyone knows that Donald Trump’s previous statements and actions regarding NATO are worrying for Europeans, and basically he is not a predictable politician! But in addition to Trump and other politicians, several political analysts and theorists have questioned the necessity of NATO’s continued activity in the post-Cold War era and have emphasized the necessity of disbanding or starting important reforms in this organization. They say that basically NATO was created in the post-World War II era just to contain the Soviet Union and it does not make sense that this mechanism should continue. For example, George Kannan, a famous American diplomat, was one of the early critics of NATO expansion, arguing that this indiscriminate expansion would provoke Russia and endanger European security. throws His prediction came true and NATO’s decision to join Georgia and Ukraine angered Russia.

John Mearsheimer as an American political scientist and researcher of international relations, argues that NATO a few decades ago It has reached its goal and now it must be dissolved. If NATO stays on its feet, it will achieve nothing but provoking Russia and weakening the stability of Europe. In addition to Mearsheimer, a thinker close to him, Stephen Walt, also criticized the expansion of NATO and He wants to limit the scope of American foreign-military policy. Meanwhile, Richard Saqua, a British researcher and professor of Russian and European politics at the University of Kent and author of the book Postcommunism, believes that the continued existence of NATO will lead to the continuation of the Cold War mentality and increase the tension between Russia and the West.

Europe’s dependence on America has now practically become a serious challenge. According to Stephen Sideman analyst Institute (The Conversation), “American forces, the nerve center and The circulatory system of NATO and the command and control systems that operate based on the knowledge of encryption and support of satellites and the most advanced ammunition are all provided by the United States. As a result, if Trump imposes restrictions on cooperation with NATO, the Western military alliance will be severely weakened. If the US withdraws, NATO’s deterrence power will be lost; Especially when the other two nuclear powers in this coalition, France and England, are not effective enough. France acts cautiously, and England does not have good relations with Europe after Brexit.”