Gabriel Elefteriu
The prospect of a second Donald Trump presidency and, in particular, his recent pick of JD Vance as vice-presidential candidate have further increased the sense of alarm within the “transatlantic community.” The balance of US commitments to NATO’s main mission, the defence of Europe, is already under heavy pressure due to the Chinese pressure on Taiwan. As previously explained in these pages, American military resources will be increasingly drawn away from the North Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific regardless of who runs the White House.
This may be a secular trend but nuance matters. Both the Democrats and the establishment Republicans, on the whole, remain strongly committed to NATO. They might redeploy significant US forces to Asia (like Barack Obama intended after 2012) and they might insist that the Europeans take up more of the burden – but they would not put Article 5 in doubt.
In turn, that logic effectively guarantees that the key elements of US military contribution to NATO, particularly in terms of the essential nuclear dimension and practical command and control capabilities (as well as actual planning assumptions), would stay in place. If war came, the “wiring” and the political will would be there to make a surge of US forces to Europe at least viable.
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