Trump is ‘very serious’ about leaving NATO
The former US national security adviser talks to Kathimerini about what the ex-president really thinks about the Alliance and Turkey
“Erdogan would appeal to Trump as somebody who he could work with and I think Trump would accept that,” says the onetime White House hawk Ambassador John Bolton. The former national security adviser to Donald Trump, who became a fierce critic of the former president, expresses his concerns to Kathimerini about Trump’s imminent return to power while stating that the presidential candidate may hold unpleasant surprises for the future of NATO.
Founder of the Foundation for American Security and Freedom, the veteran diplomat explains that Trump’s attraction to authoritarian figures such as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan may disturb the balance in the Eastern Mediterranean, while acknowledging the mistakes of US foreign policy in Ukraine, stressing that “the military assistance that has been provided to Ukraine has not been provided in a strategic way.”
Trump’s recent threats to allow Russia to do whatever it wants to countries that “do not pay” for NATO have alarmed the member-states of the transatlantic Alliance. Do you believe Trump intends to withdraw from the Alliance and dismantle NATO?
I do think Trump is very serious about withdrawing from NATO. I describe in my book “The Room Where It Happened” the scene at the NATO summit in Brussels in 2018, where he was as close as you can get to withdrawing and ultimately did not. But he has never changed his views since then. And these most recent comments, I think, are just a further reflection in public that he feels pretty strongly about it for a lot of reasons.
Obviously, these statements are something that the Russians are very happy to see and are very discouraging to NATO members given that Trump is likely to be the Republican nominee for president. However, we are still a year away, and there is no guarantee that he will be elected. On the other hand, I do not think, frankly, Europe is capable of defending itself without the US being in NATO. So those who think this is a great victory for the European Union, really, I think should think again.
In the scenario of a US withdrawal from NATO, what will this signify for the Euro-Atlantic security architecture, and which countries will be most directly affected?
I think NATO would collapse without the US presence because it would also involve the withdrawal of capabilities that are now part of NATO’s command infrastructure in Brussels and elsewhere, the withdrawal of American forces, and possibly other steps as well as not sharing intelligence as broadly. I think the most immediately affected country will be Ukraine because Putin, if he sees Trump withdrawing from NATO, will know that time is on his side and that as NATO’s coherence begins to disintegrate, his position in Ukraine will strengthen.
In your opinion, why is the reaction of the Republican Party so tepid – almost zero?
‘Erdogan would appeal to Trump as somebody who he could work with and I think Trump would accept that’
I think many Republicans in Congress are intimidated by Trump and they do not want him as an opponent in their re-election campaigns. I think if there were a responsible Republican nominee the Republicans would line up almost unanimously in support of Ukraine.
Do you think Republicans would be willing under President Trump to abandon key foreign policy positions on Russia and China, or would there be internal backlash and a tempering of any Trump policies?
I think the majority of Republicans do reject many of these Trump policies. I do not think “isolationism” controls the party, but I think the “virus” is loose and I think Trump is responsible. Therefore, it will be a debate within the party and, if he is elected, the kinds of people he will put in his administration will be what we call “yes men” and “yes women.” These will be people who will not try and explain what is at stake here. There will be people who simply carry out his orders.
Two years since Russian troops invaded Ukraine, how do you see the war unfolding in the long term and what possible terms will be put on the negotiations table to end the war?
I do not think NATO as a whole, and particularly the United States, has approached this war strategically from the beginning and I do not think the US did nearly what it could have done before February of 2022 to deter Russia. In fact, the president said several times, that “you cannot deter Russia.” Therefore, we do not know whether it would have been possible, but we did not really try very hard. In my opinion, ever since then, the military assistance that has been provided to Ukraine has not been provided in a strategic way. It has not been deployed in the way most advantageous for a Ukrainian victory. It has been deployed piecemeal and usually after long debates on Abrams tanks or on the missiles or the F-16s or whatever the case may be. So, the result is that the repeated concern from the White House about a wider war in Europe has led to the current battle lines and basically to a stalemate.
After two years of conflict, I am worried that Putin has now concluded that he should offer negotiations. He did this in the Tucker Carlson interview. I have been worried about it for a long time. I think now the moment may be at hand. And from the Kremlin’s point of view, they would say, “Let’s have a ceasefire along the existing lines of control on the battlefield and negotiate in Geneva or Vienna or someplace.” And at that point the risk is that the lines of control would become the new Russia and Ukraine border with Russia, doubling the territory it held in 2014. And who knows how long the negotiations would take? So, I think it is a very risky proposition for Ukraine if Putin follows through on what he said in the interview and really makes a full-scale peace initiative.
Regarding the terms for ending the war, I am worried about the United States because we are in the middle of this very partisan election campaign. We have got two wars – one in the Middle East and one in Ukraine. And I think President Biden would like to be able to put one of those wars on the back burner and Ukraine may be the easiest one. Also, I think many European governments would look forward to turning the page on the Ukraine conflict and going back to business as usual with Russia. I think that would be a mistake for Europe, a mistake for the United States. But I think we need to worry about it because it is a very realistic prospect.
Given the fact that Trump has an attraction to authoritarian figures such as President Erdogan. What will a possible re-election of Trump mean for the Eastern Mediterranean and especially for Greek-Turkish relations?
Well, I am very worried about this because Trump’s instinct in almost every case is to avoid involvement in foreign issues if he can. The history of the Greek-Turkish dispute inside NATO and the effect it has had on the Alliance and stability in the Eastern Mediterranean is not something Trump is very familiar with. So given what is happening now in the Middle East I think Trump would look for ways to try and tamp that down and not really give consideration to what the strategic implications would be, especially if simultaneously, he is withdrawing from NATO. Therefore, I would worry with the NATO framework gone and with the aspirations that Erdogan has, that can really only be described as neo-Ottoman [and] not just in the Middle East, but perhaps with respect to Greece and the Balkans as well, that there would be trouble ahead and real instability. And I think that is almost the inevitable consequence in Europe and the Middle East of the US withdrawal from NATO. Concluding, I think Erdogan would appeal to Trump as somebody who he could work with and I think Trump would accept that. That has been his pattern of behavior with respect to Erdogan.
