United States Vice-President Mike Pence and Secretary of Defence James Mattis are on a charm offensive of Europe now to try and convince the leadership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) and western European nations that the Trump administration remains committed to their joint defence. That the two are on such a mission speaks volumes as to how far we have come in this first month of Trump’s administration — especially that since the Second World War and the subsequent reconstruction of Europe, the US has been at the very bedrock of Nato itself.
The concept of common mutual defence as formalised in Nato from Day One has assured that the enemies of the West — the former Soviet Union, its satellite republics and its Kremlin and Communist-leaning ideological allies — were not only kept in line but ultimately defeated — without as much as a shot being fired in anger nor a battle tank moved in earnest.
What we have learnt so far is that the President Donald Trump is man of many words, opinions and tweets, and it’s hard to keep track of what he says, what he means and what he believes. Just how those three strands are related to reality is only apparent in what the White House does — and there seems to be a disconnect between the president and his appointees sitting around the cabinet table. That’s one way to run a boardroom or a real estate empire — another when it comes to running the US.
Simply put, the leadership of Nato, its generals and commanders, and the leaders of the nations it represents should be at least be able to count on the support of the US commander-in-chief. The reality, though, is that Trump’s National Security Council apparatus seems in a mess, and his entire administration is increasingly under a cloud over his campaign’s relationship with the Kremlin and its interference in the US election.
If this were the Cold War, where the Soviet threat was real, could we ever imagine the US president being under such a cloud? Would secrets be shared between the European capitals, the Nato headquarters in Brussels and the Washington administration? Now, the threat from Russia remains real still; it has annexed Crimea; has fostered separatists unrest in Ukraine; has aided and abetted the survival of the regime of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad; and may have undermined the democratic election process in the US.
But can the US be trusted? Can the White House be included in the most sensitive of secrets? Who is calling the shots? Or pulling the strings?
