On the dictator – Edsall in NYT:

‘If Donald Trump is re-elected, how will the former president — who has openly praised dictators like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, who has questioned the value of NATO and who has denigrated key allies — deal with what the Pentagon calls, in O’Hanlon’s words, the “the 4 plus 1 threat matrix — the five main threats of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and transnational violent extremism or terrorism”? To gauge the range of possible developments in a second Trump administration, I asked specialists in international affairs a series of questions. On the basic question — how damaging to American foreign policy interests would a second Trump administration be? — the responses ranged from very damaging to marginally so.’

(…)

‘Sarah Kreps, a political scientist at Cornell, suggested that “if past is prologue, we could expect Trump to harp on the issue of free riding but not actually do anything different. He’ll probably do a lot of heckling that’s unmatched by actual policy change.” In this context, Kreps continued, “it will be left to the career diplomats to do the heavy lifting behind the scenes to provide the alliance glue while Trump is hammering the capitals about burden sharing.” How about NATO? “The alliance has such deep roots now and has ebbed and flowed in terms of its strength, but the structural factors present right now will be more powerful than any individual president.” I asked Kreps whether it was conceivable that Trump could join a Russia-China-North Korea coalition.
“Again, past being prologue here, we have good reason to think that he talks friendly to autocrats, but won’t act.”’

(…)

‘James Lindsay, senior vice president at the Council on Foreign Relations, referring in an email to the perceived threat emanating from the “alliance of autocrats,” observed: If “alliance” is only intended to mean general cooperation among China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran, then that is clearly happening. North Korea and Iran are supplying Russia with artillery shells and drones. Russia is supplying China with energy. China is supplying Russia with political cover at various international venues over the war in Ukraine.
Lindsay argued: Trump could effectively gut NATO simply by saying he will not come to the aid of NATO allies in the event they are attacked. The power of Article V rests on the belief that alliance members, and specifically, the most powerful alliance member, will act when called upon. Destroy that belief and the organization withers. Walking away from Ukraine would damage the alliance as well even though Ukraine is not a member of NATO. Member countries would read it as a signal that Trump is abandoning Europe.
One of the major risks posed by a second Trump administration, Lindsay wrote, is that Trump’s hostility toward alliances, skepticism about the benefits of cooperation writ large, and his belief in the power of unilateral action will lead him to make foreign policy moves that will unintentionally provide strategic windfalls to China, Russia, Iran or North Korea. The scenario in which he withdraws the United States from NATO or says he will not abide by Article V is the most obvious example. His intent will be to save money and/or free the United States from foreign entanglements. But Vladimir Putin would love to see NATO on the ash heap of history.’

(…)

‘Kagan’s conclusion? “Trump’s foreign policy will be unpredictable because we haven’t had a dictator as commander in chief. It will be uncharted territory.”’

Read the article here.

We never had a dictator as commander in chief, true. We’ll find out what kind of dictator he will be. A Franco? A Saddam? A Videla? A Pinochet?

My gut feeling is a Pinochet. Kind of.

Institutions are still quite strong in the US. The EU, not a state, a hybrid, is much weaker and Trump might weaken it fatally. The same can be said about NATO, indeed.

I’m not sure if Putin will invade Latvia, perhaps he will devour Moldavia under Trump. And a Putin-friendly regime in Kyiv is a possibility.

For Europe and the world Trump might be a bigger catastrophe than for the Americans. A civil war in the US seems to be far-fetched, sporadic violence yes. But for a civil war, you need the disintegration of the army, and even under Trump I don’t see this happening. (Violence will be possible when Trump goes to prison, but Germany survived the terror of the Rote Armee Fraktion, the US will survive rightwing terror.)

Europe is an open question. Possible that Europe will undo itself, and possible that this time the US won’t come to its rescue.
But nobody is entitled to be immune to catastrophes.