Sunday, April 7, 2024 | 2 a.m.
View more of the Sun's opinion section
For centuries before the end of World War II, international affairs were defined by constant strife between nations where the strongest could exploit the weakest and warfare was an accepted way of resolving international disagreements big or small. Nations lurched into wars over trade policies, personal slights, economic envy, the tiniest disputes over borders, anything at all.
History turned after WWII and a new idea — imperfectly implemented, but novel in human history — of a rules-based international order emerged.
World War II ended as an unusual alliance of liberal western democracies and the anti-democratic Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) beat back the forces of global domination led by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.
Unfortunately, the WWII alliances could not last. Not only did Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin fail to share U.S. President Harry Truman’s and U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s commitment to freedom and democracy, Stalin had his own dreams of world domination. With much of Europe, Asia and North Africa in ruin, there were few forces remaining that could counter the USSR.
So, while the world celebrated the end of the war, Truman and Churchill got to work building the political alliances and military infrastructure needed to avoid World War III, a potential conflict both men saw looming just beyond the horizon.
In a 1947 speech to Congress, Truman argued that the United States could no longer allow Soviet expansion into free and independent nations. Now known as the Truman Doctrine, he pledged to provide political, military and economic assistance to democratic nations under threat from authoritarian forces.
Then, in April 1949, Truman and Churchill gathered with the leaders of 10 other countries to sign the Washington Treaty and form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
More than just an international alliance that serves as a counterbalance to Soviet (and now Russian) military might and a deterrent against aggression toward the West, NATO embodies the concept of peace through unity, collaboration and a refusal to engage in reflexive conflict. It has become a model for stability and is the guardian of the rules-based order of norms and expectations that has governed geopolitics for the past 75 years.
For those of us who live in Western Europe and North America, that peace and stability is something we may have taken for granted. But we shouldn’t.
Just as Truman and Churchill recognized that successfully winning WWII did not end the threat to the West, we cannot allow the past 75 years of NATO’s success to blind us to the threats of today.
Around the world — in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s saber rattling in the China Straits, the seemingly endless conflicts in the Middle East, instability in Africa and elsewhere — the rules-based order in international affairs is crumbling. If we let it slip away, we will enter a period of constant warfare around the world again. NATO is a fundamental safeguard to the idea of rules-based international affairs and we must see it prevail.
However, not all threats to the rules-based order of the world are foreign. Despite the U.S. leadership in creating NATO and the new rules-based order, one threat to peace, stability and democracy is the presumptive Republican nominee for president and the MAGA radicals he leads.
Donald Trump has long expressed his admiration for and allegiance to authoritarians. Fundamentally, he thinks aggression deserves respect and that the mighty should be beyond. But his increasing praise and affection for Vladimir Putin specifically, coupled with his criticism of NATO, has given rise to serious concerns that the disgraced former president might abandon the alliance should he be reelected in November.
At a summit in Helsinki in 2018, Trump said he believed Putin’s denials above those of U.S. and NATO intelligence who presented a mountain of evidence of Russian interference in U.S. elections.
In 2022, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Trump praised Putin’s judgment and intelligence by describing Ukraine as “a great piece of land” and saying that Putin was “pretty smart” for taking it over.
Then, in February, Trump told supporters at a rally in South Carolina that he would not offer protection to members of NATO who were behind in payments to the alliance and that instead he would encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to delinquent member states.
He is so hungry to emulate and please his despotic heroes that he intends to disable the most powerful and important strategic defense alliance in the history of the western world.
Which makes sense. Trump can’t pursue his own authoritarian ambitions if he screws up his relationship with his master, Putin, or is beholden to 75-year-old ideals of freedom and democracy.
At a town hall meeting in December, Trump publicly declared that, if elected, he would “abuse power,” seek “retribution” and “be a dictator” on Day One of his presidency. This from the same guy who was impeached for inciting a rebellion to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election and is now actively leading the campaign to eliminate humanitarian and defense funding for Ukraine.
It’s safe to say that if he had been older than a toddler when NATO was formed, Trump would’ve been cheering for Stalin rather than Truman and Churchill. Sadly, he remains a toddler today.
So, as we celebrate NATO’s 75th anniversary and reflect on visionaries like Truman and Churchill, who united to defend peace, stability and democracy from the threats of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and the Soviet Union, let’s also reflect on the threats that exist today from dictators and their allies, including Trump. The U.S. isolationism MAGA adores will lead to a world in which millions die at the hands of rogue dictators. That is not in the national interest of this country.
The U.S. must protect the rules-based order of international affairs that has brought decades of prosperity to the world. At a minimum, we must counter the threat of Putin by providing aid for Ukraine now, reaffirm our commitment to NATO and reject Trump and other MAGA candidates in November. Otherwise, the U.S. may find itself wondering if, just beyond the horizon, the threat envisioned by Truman and Churchill may again arrive at our doorstep in a war-torn world.
