If US President-elect Donald Trump keeps his promise to work with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Europe and NATO face a bleak future. This was stated by Bloomberg columnist Max Hastings.
According to him, joe bidenHe will probably be the last president to consider European security as vital, even paramount, for the United States. The strategic confrontation with China will dominate Washington politics in the coming years.
“Europe is preparing for a new life, almost certainly further from the United States than at any time since Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Although it will probably be many months before we know the details of how deep the crisis may go. strategic division between the continents, the general picture is clear,” writes the columnist.
EU members now spend surprisingly little on their own security, he notes. Only Eastern European countries, mainly Poland, and Northern European countries are dramatically increasing their defense spending “in the face of Russian aggression.”
“As for European support for Ukraine… without the United States, the matter… would be doomed to failure… Even if military aid to kyiv does not stop immediately, the will of the Ukrainians to resist the Russians is waning because these extremely impressive and feisty peoples are seeing the West’s desire to arm them weaken. “Trump’s victory almost certainly signals his defeat.” – Hastings emphasizes.
He said European governments should do everything in their power to maintain close relations with the United States and assure the new Trump administration that it is in the United States’ interest to continue leading NATO. However, they should also increase their defense spending and support for Ukraine in light of the expected decline in US aid.
“The battle ahead is to convince Republicans… that while the United States remains the most powerful country in the world, it also needs allies. We are all doing this to meet the important strategic challenges ahead. But it would be naïve to pretend that the security prospects for Western democracies today are anything but bleak,” the author concludes.
