Well, maybe there is, if we’re incredibly lucky. And since we’ve been so incredibly unlucky recently, aren’t we due, just maybe, for a crop of four-leaf clovers?
I won’t think about all the bad things that are incredibly likely to happen under Trump, because if I do think about them I’ll start screaming, and my neighbors hate that. So, what good things could happen under Trump?
In his typically fatuous and wrong-headed way, Trump has convinced himself that when it comes to NATO, Uncle Sam is in his accustomed role as Uncle Sucker. Let’s make those Europeans pay up or they’re on their own!
Well, it would be nice if that happened. We don’t need NATO because there’s no Soviet Union any more. Furthermore, Western Europe is far wealthier and more populous than Putin’s shrunken Mother Russia. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, in 2015 Russia’s military budget was $66 billion, while United Kingdom spent $56 billion; France, $47 billion; Germany, $37 billion; Italy, $22 billion. There is no reason for the U.S. to be “defending” Western Europe, because they can defend themselves. There is no reason for the U.S. to defend Central and Eastern Europe, because Germany’s mere presence will discourage any significant Russian expansion.
If Trump actually gets “tough” with Europe, he will discover that, contrary to widespread belief, they haven’t been getting a free ride from Uncle Sam. When we give them money, we are buying their international support. A Europe without NATO would far less dependent on the U.S. and be far less inclined to follow our lead, and one could hardly blame them. If Trump is ready to strike a deal with Putin, he may find that Europeans are ready to strike their own deals, not merely with Putin, but with Iran. What will he do then, bomb London?
Trump’s “evolving” Middle Eastern policy, giving a full embrace of Israel’s Likudist government and its oppression of the Palestinians, is sure to alienate a wide swath of Europeans, who are happy to be anti-American and anti-Zionist (verging, very often, on anti-Semitic) at the same time. Even a partial withdrawal from NATO would weaken U.S. influence, rather than making us “stronger.”
The obvious danger, of course, is Trump’s (presumptive) appetite for unilateral action, which is certainly on display among the collection of vengeful cranks who make up his foreign policy “advisors”—Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani, and John Bolton. All of these men are hungry for “crisis”, because they see in crisis a justification for arbitrary power, power exempt from review and, worst of all, exempt from criticism. Back in the day, Dick Cheney wanted to “take out” Iran in some unspecified manner. We may be longing, a lot, for the “restraint” of W.
