Putin Is Still Attacking Ukraine, But NATO’s Bigger Problem Is Mollifying Trump

THE HAGUE, Netherlands ― Three-quarters of a century after its creation and despite its success in preventing intra-European wars and countering first the Soviet Union and then Russia, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s future may all depend on the mood Donald Trump wakes up in Wednesday morning.

Trump nearly withdrew the United States from the group during his first term as president, was planning to do so during the second term he expected to win in 2020, and now again has the opportunity to do it at the alliance’s business meeting.

And while during his first term Trump was surrounded by aides who did their best to check his impulses, particularly in foreign policy, this time those voices are gone, replaced by hardcore Trump loyalists.

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“If he wakes up the morning of the North Atlantic Council meeting … and decides this time he is going to withdraw from NATO, I’m not sure anybody’s going to argue against it,” said John Bolton, one of Trump’s first-term national security advisers.

Analysts of European militaries and Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine said that leaders of the other 31 NATO members are well aware of the chaos Trump could create and have taken steps to minimize his opportunity to do so — essentially trying to Trump-proof this week’s summit.

What is normally a two- or even three-day event has been truncated to an evening dinner on Tuesday followed by a Wednesday morning Atlantic Council meeting of the heads of state. Trump was even invited to play golf earlier in the day Tuesday by organizers — which, if he attends, would keep him away from the event site, thereby preventing him from getting into arguments with leaders from other member states.

Most astonishing, amid the continuing slaughter of Ukrainian civilians by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, the summit likely will not see a formal statement condemning Russia for fear it might offend Trump, who last week at the G7 summit of the world’s largest democratic economies criticized the group for having expelled Russia, suggesting that was a reason Putin did what he did.

In fact, Russia was expelled in 2014 from what was then the G8 after he invaded Ukraine the first time and annexed the Crimean Peninsula.

“The summit itself is a bit of a nothing burger, actually,” predicted Berlin analyst Jan Techau with the Transatlantic Defense and Security program at the Center for European Policy Analysis. “They’ve gotten everything out, including the Russia strategy that was supposed to be written, and now will not be written. That was, you know, to keep the peace.”

Further exacerbating Trump’s relationship with the rest of NATO is Trump’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites Saturday night even as America’s closest allies worked to negotiate an agreement. Asked on Friday whether European leaders were helping lower tensions, Trump claimed: “Iran doesn’t want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us.”

A few hours later, the United Kingdom, France and Germany released a joint statement that they had, in fact, met with Iranian negotiators earlier that day in Geneva.

On Saturday, key allies appear to have been given a heads-up notifying them of the impending strike but not solicited for advice or support. French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot in his statement about the attacks made a point to mention that France had nothing to do with them. “France was neither involved in these strikes nor in their planning,” according to a translation by the French embassy.

Doug Lute, the U.S. ambassador to NATO during President Barack Obama’s second term, two years into Trump’s first term pointed out that nowhere was it written in the alliance’s charter that there had to be a summit every year, and that it would be smart for leaders to stop holding them until Trump was out of office.

“It still remains good advice,” Lute said, pointing out that while it is possible to reduce the risk of Trump blowing up the coming summit, it cannot be eliminated entirely. “He’ll do something. God knows what.”

NATO’s mutual assistance provision, known as Article 5, has been activated only a single time in 76 years — following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. When the United States attacked the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan, NATO allies sent troops, as well, and then kept them there for years.

Denmark’s ambassador to the United States made that point at his country’s “Constitution Day” celebration in Washington early this month, reminding guests of the 44 Danish troops who died in Afghanistan as a consequence of Denmark fulfilling its treaty obligation to help a fellow NATO member that had been attacked.

Trump, though, has and continues to ignore this history as he paints NATO not as an alliance, but rather a mob-style protection racket.

Other NATO members, in his view, pay the United States for military protection. What’s more, he claims, these countries have been “delinquent” in their payments and therefore should not get any U.S. aid in the event they are attacked.

“No, I would not protect you. In fact I would encourage them (Russia) to do whatever the hell they want,” Trump bragged at a campaign rally last year — repeating a sentiment he has expressed many times before and since.

In reality, every NATO member is expected to maintain a military using equipment and systems that allow it to cooperate with other members in a joint defense, should the need arise. In 2014, after Russia’s first Ukraine invasion, NATO members — at Obama’s urging — agreed to increase their defense spending to at least 2% of their respective gross domestic products over the coming 10 years.

Bolton said Trump had this explained to him many times, but that he nevertheless continued to claim that his own theory was correct. NATO does collect dues for its relatively small “common fund” for administrative costs including the headquarters in Brussels, and Bolton said he worked to lower the U.S. share and increase that paid by others — as a way to let Trump claim victory and move on.

“After I succeeded in doing that, he forgot about it. He’s never mentioned it since,” Bolton said.

What Trump has demonstrated many times since is his antagonism toward Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom Trump unsuccessfully tried to extort into investigating then-candidate Joe Biden in 2019, and his affinity for Putin, who helped Trump win the presidency in the first place.

Trump during a February Oval Office visit essentially blamed Ukraine for getting invaded, while he has frequently made excuses for Putin. In the days following the 2022 invasion, Trump called Putin “savvy” and “genius” for having done so.

This has led summit planners to conclude that the best path forward is to more or less ignore the largest war on the European continent since 1945 — even though NATO has since the February 2022 start of the war denounced Putin. Last year’s summit in Washington, D.C., for example, had in its concluding joint communique: “Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has shattered peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area and gravely undermined global security. Russia remains the most significant and direct threat to allies’ security.”

No such direct language is planned for this year’s statement. NATO will instead focus on a new 5% defense spending target for its members, a goal Trump is certain to support. And while Zelenskyy will be attending the Tuesday night dinner, he will not be addressing the official meeting the following morning.

“Despite what began as sort of a bolder agenda for the summit, the scope has really been narrowed,” said Lauren Speranza, who worked for former Biden Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and is now with the Center for European Policy Analysis. “I think that’s come in response to both a U.S. push to focus more on defense spending, but also a desire from allied capitals to minimize potential clashes with President Trump.”

“There’s a major war going on in Europe, and they can’t afford to mention it among leaders,” added Lute. “It’s telling, how far NATO is distorting itself to accommodate the American president.”

Even if summit planners successfully excise both Ukraine and Russia from the conversation, though, the other signatories still face a United States administration that often seems actively hostile to the alliance.

In recent testimony before Congress, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth denigrated other NATO members’ contribution to the U.S. led-war in Afghanistan.

“We also wore a patch on our shoulder that said ISAF, International Security Assistance Force. And you know what the joke was? That it stood for ‘I Saw Americans Fighting,’” Hegseth told the Senate Armed Services Committee on June 11. “You’re not a real coalition, you’re not a real alliance unless you have real defense capability and real armies.”

A day later, Hegseth at first avoided answering when asked at the House Armed Services Committee if the United States would honor its NATO treaty commitments.

“If Russia invades NATO allies, are you going to recommend to the president that we fulfill our Article 5 obligations?” asked California Democrat Salud Carbajal.

At first Hegseth dodged the question: “Well, Russia has not invaded NATO allies.” It took Carbajal several follow-ups before Hegseth finally answered that, yes, the United States still recognized Article 5.

Lute, who is also a retired Army general, pointed out that Hegseth, presumably at Trump’s direction, earlier this month skipped a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a committee that was created under Biden to coordinate military aid to Ukraine to counter Russia.

“It just shows how dysfunctional NATO is when you can’t count on American leadership,” Lute said.