May 25, 2017
HIS MASTER'S VOICE:
'Putin will be thrilled': Former NATO ambassadors say Trump just dealt 'a major blow' to the alliance (Natasha Bertrand, 5/25/17, Business Insider)
"Putin will be thrilled at Trump's refusal to endorse Article 5," said Tom Wright, the director of the Center on the United States and Europe and a fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution. "Unimaginable under any other president."After Trump called NATO "obsolete" in a January interview, Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said Moscow "shares Trump's opinion that NATO is a remnant of the past."
Trump hands Putin a win at first NATO meeting (Robbie Gramer, May 25, 2017, SF Gate)
"Trumps behavior at this NATO meeting in Brussels is a definitive win for Putin," said Jorge Benitez, a NATO expert at the Atlantic Council who was at the NATO confab. "It just increases a lot of the doubts and fears and concerns our allies have had," he told Foreign Policy."Every US President since Truman has pledged support for Article 5-that US will defend Europe. Not so Trump today at #NATO. Major mistake," former U.S. ambassador to NATO Nicholas Burns wrote on Twitter.Trump said he was "very direct" with NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg and other leaders about ponying up more on defense spending.His refusal to explicitly endorse the principle may rattle U.S. allies who were already nervous that Washington won't come to their defense in the event of an attack. Baltic countries, in particular, are worried about massing Russian military forces that could overwhelm them, and were hoping for the typical, ironclad U.S. commitment, but left disappointed.Optics-wise, things didn't fare much better, with passive aggressiveness out in full force. French President Emmanuel Macron went out of his way to leave Trump hanging for a handshake as he greeted the phalanx of NATO member leaders.In another cringe-worthy moment, Trump shoved Montenegrin leader Dusko Markovic out of his way to clamber to the front of the pack to preen for a photo-op.
Posted by Orrin Judd at May 25, 2017 6:52 PM