gracchusdixit

Toward the end of his long, eventful, and momentous public life, Great Britain’s greatest prime minister, Sir Winston Churchill, made this observation:  “To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years.  To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.”  Little more than a day ago, such an act—an act that threatens to destroy the slow and laborious task of years—was committed by Donald J. Trump.

After a carefully stage-managed visit to Saudi Arabia, where he all but curtsied to an authoritarian king and obsequiously greeted a room packed with autocrats and dictators as if they were members of his own family, Trump stopped briefly in Israel, and then flew on to Brussels to meet the leaders of the 28 member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.  These men and women were not fawning autocrats, dictators, or keffiyeh-wearing kings.  They were the democratically elected presidents and prime ministers of our most enduring allies—the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, to name but a few.  Instead of treating these leaders as the friends they are and with the respect they deserve, Trump lectured and hectored them like unruly, insubordinate children.

He chastised our closest allies for not contributing enough to NATO’s budget and for “chronic underpayments.”  He claimed that many of them “owe massive amounts of money” to NATO and to American taxpayers.

He refused to affirm American support for Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which declares an attack on any member state to be an attack on all.  This, despite the fact that NATO members, invoking that article for the first time in the organization’s history, rushed to our defense after the twin towers fell.

When it came time for the “group photograph” that capped off the meeting, Trump dismissively shoved aside the prime minister of NATO’s newest and one of its smallest member states, so that he, with his Mussolini chin jutting up in the air, could take center stage.

Worse than any of that, Trump uttered not a word about the aggressive machinations of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which the members of NATO rightly believe to be the greatest threat to their security, their independence, and their liberties.

It was as if, for Donald Trump, Russia either doesn’t exist or can do no wrong.  It was as if, for Donald Trump, NATO, not Russia, is the enemy.

As to what other member states may “owe” to NATO itself or to American taxpayers, Donald Trump once again demonstrated his deep ignorance—or duplicity.  In scolding our closest allies, he conflated NATO’s budget with national defense spending.  The budget  itself amounts to less than $2 billion, and each member state contributes its share, according to a formula that absurdly favors the United States.  Our share of NATO’s budget is only 22 percent, even though our economy is $2 trillion larger than the combined economies of all the other NATO members put together,  That’s more a bargain; that’s chump change.

Nonetheless, Trump would like us to believe that poor, overburdened American taxpayers are being hoodwinked by wily, free-loading Europeans.  He used national military spending to support that insinuation.  That’s ludicrous.  NATO’s target for the national military spending of its members is two percent of GDP.  While it’s true that most members don’t spend that much, the target itself is entirely voluntary.  To suggest that Spain or Greece, which are coping with intractable economic depressions, are somehow derelict by not buying more guns and bombs at the expense of basic social and human services, is worse than disingenuous, it is immoral.

Trump also ignores the fact that we choose to spend more on defense than any other nation on earth—not out of generosity or a sense of obligation, but to pursue our own far-flung economic, strategic, and geopolitical interests.  We could cut our military spending in half and still outspend the next five nations put together.   The blunt truth is, we have chosen to spend our money to protect the interests of Exxon and GE.

Far more consequential than Trump’s fiscal obfuscation is the damage he has done to our oldest and most important military and diplomatic alliance.  To call NATO “obsolete,” as he did during the election campaign, is not simply wrong, it is absurd and dangerous. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded in the aftermath of the Second World War.  Its purpose was to prevent another such war and to protect both the United States and Western Europe against the aggressive post-war expansion of the Soviet Union.  NATO not only achieved those objectives, it helped to launch an unprecedented era of peace and prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic.  It may well be the most successful military and political alliance in history.

Those achievements, and that legacy, are now in jeopardy.

Having been insulted by Trump in Brussels, who among the 27 NATO presidents and prime ministers, will ever trust him—or us—again?  Having been forced to listen to his condescending gibberish, which of those leaders can help wondering whether Donald Trump is out of his mind?  Which prudent NATO member government isn’t now considering the possibility that it may, at some not-distant future date, have to fend for itself and defend its citizens without the backing and support of the United States of America?

It was the United States of America that created NATO in the first place.  It is the United States that has primarily benefitted from its existence.  It may soon be the case, however, that Vladimir Putin’s Russia will be the primary beneficiary of NATO’s disarray and disintegration.  If that calamity someday comes, it will be owed to “the thoughtless act of a single day,” a thoughtless act committed by Donald J. Trump.