How Ukraine could break the western alliance
Open the White House viewing newsletter for free
Your guide to what Trump’s second term for Washington, Business and World
Fear of Russia brought the Western Alliance together. Now the fear of Russia is threatening to break it.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed in 1949 by the United States, Canada and European Allies to curb Moscow. But if the Trump’s administration is now trying to force Ukraine to take partial defeat with Russia in its war, the United States will be widely presented with Russia’s aggression. If NATO allies can no longer agree on the threat they face, and how to deal with it, their entire bloc is endangered.
The Atlantic Alliance has survived the decades in 1956 in Vietnam and Iraq, as they always understood that the United States and its European allies were on the same side.
The US-European partnership was based on common interests and values. During the Cold War, the general interest was the restraint of the Soviet threat. The total value was the protection of democracy. Even after the war, one of the terrorist attack and the new democracies of Europe gave a common goal to NATO.
But that common understanding is now fragile. The catastrophic conclusion could be conducted at all in Ukraine.
Over the past week, the United States and Europe are against various peace programs against Ukraine. Europeans reject the main elements of the Trump Plan, first of all, the legal recognition of the Crimean annexation.
Donald Trump seems to have a friendly conversation with Volodimir Zelenki in Ukraine in Rome, and the US leader also deported Vladimir Putin’s rare criticism. But the United States has not considered any element of its peace plan, which Europeans and Ukrainians consider so subject to such subject.
In general, this disagreement is deeply different visions of international security, and where the threat of the next war comes from. Europeans believe that the remuneration of Russian aggression in Ukraine will make Putin attack the rest of Europe, from the Baltic States.
Trump administration sees things in a very way. It is a skill that the United States could eventually be directly addressed to a direct conflict with Russia. Trump himself has repeatedly warned about the risk of World War II. Biden’s administration was also concerned about escalation with Russia. But, unlike Trump, it shared the deep doubt and determination of Putin’s Europe that the Russian aggression should not be rewarded.
The disagreement of security visions now exceeds the issue of ending the War of Ukraine. America’s allies must face reality that Trump directly threatens the territory of two NATO members.
Trump has repeatedly promised to include Greenland, which is the autonomous part of Denmark in the United States. Recently with a lasting magazine in the last interview he too repeated His desire to turn Canada into the 51st country of America. Trump has not been committed to open military threats against Canada. But he clearly wants to repay his existence as an independent country.
Combine this authoritarian instinct, its threats to NATO allies and its obvious sympathy for Putin, and it is difficult to claim that NATO continues the alliance based on common values.
Indeed, the collision of values ​​is now open. Both the United States and its biggest European allies continue to claim that they support democracy. But both believe (or claim to believe) that democracy threatens the other side of Atlantic.
In a well-known speech at the Munich Security Conference, JD Vance accused the European allies of European allies to suppress freely and fear their own people. The accusations of the vice president met with cold fury in most of Europe.
Trump’s administration and European allies are now preaching two conflicting visions of Western values. The vision of the vans-Trump is nationalistic, culturally conservative and disabled. European is an international index and is based on law and liberal institutions.
The division is more bitter, as both sides think that this is a noun struggle for political survival and is watching allies on the other side of Atlantic. The Trump administration wants to work with the nationalist populists like Victor Orbani, Lovakia’s Robert Ficulists, and the Britain’s Faraj. Large European governments hoped that Kamala Harris wins the US presidency and now desperately counts the days before the medium-term elections in America.
The transatlantic alliance was a previously bilateral obligation that could easily survive the change of government. Now it can only work if liberals or illegalities are at the same time under the Atlantic side.
Even in that case there are grounds for doubt. As well as common values ​​and interests, the Western Alliance depends on trust. All sides need to know that it will endure it, whatever happens in the next election. But Europeans and Canadians now know that the United States has twice capable of chosen Trump. They can no longer last American stability.
English