President Donald Trump, Ukraine and America’s Role in NATO

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP MAKES NO APOLOGIES FOR THINKING THE UNITED STATES BEARS TOO MUCH OF THE BURDEN WHEN IT COMES TO AMERICA’S ROLE IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION–MORE COMMONLY CALLED NATO. WHEN THE PRESIDENT TEMPORARILY CUT OFF AID TO UKRAINE–AND MANY ANALYSTS AND EXPERTS SAYING THE U-S IS ENTERING A NEW PHASE OF DIPLOMACY…SOME NATO ALLIES ARE QUESTIONING U-S COMMITMENT TO THE CAUSE–AND TO THEM.
TO HELP ADD SOME CONTEXT AND PERSPECTIVE TO IT ALL–I SPOKE WITH AMBASSADOR ERIC RUBIN. HE WAS A U-S DIPLOMAT FOR ALMOST FOUR DECADES. NOW HE’S A FELLOW WITH THE CENTER FOR EUROPEAN POLICY ANALYSIS, WHERE HE FOCUSES ON CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

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Ryan Robertson
In your opinion, Ambassador, why did Russian President Vladimir Putin wait until 2022 to launch the full-scale invasion?

Eric Rubin
Well, I think his biggest priority all along has been to ensure or achieve a compliant Ukraine that would not threaten his rule. And Ukraine is the second largest part of the former Soviet Union. It is the second largest Slavic country. And Ukraine existing as a free democratic country with free elections, free media, freedom of religion, freedom of everything else is a very serious threat to Putin’s dictatorial rule in Russia where he’s pretty much eliminated all opposition, including through murder. Eliminated all free media, no longer having any kind of elections you could call elections. So, I think he was trying all along to see if he could manipulate Ukraine into, first of all, not choosing to join the European Union and essentially not going with the West, which includes the United States. And I think by 2022, it was clear that most Ukrainians were quite clear that they wanted to be part of Europe. They wanted to be part of the West. Ideally, they wanted to be part of the EU and NATO. And at some point, which I think was a huge mistake on Putin’s part, he just decided he couldn’t tolerate that and he was just going to try to take over his next door neighbor.

Ryan Robertson
In the three years since the invasion started, the full scale war, American support has kind of ebbed and flowed. It’s never, it’s in many people’s estimation, it was never the full-fledged support that might’ve been promised under the Budapest Memorandum. But President Biden did, you know, did send billions of dollars worth of weapons and aid. President Trump as he, you know, there was the question of whether he would continue it. It did. There was a pause, a suspension of aid and intelligence. It’s since been restored. How would you, you know, how would you gauge the current administration’s treatment of, or in handling of the war at large and our relationships with both Ukraine and Russia?

Eric Rubin
Well, let me just say, since you mentioned the Budapest Memorandum for those in the audience who don’t know that history, in 1994, Ukraine gave up the world’s second largest nuclear arsenal and gave it to Russia at our insistence. And in exchange, there was an agreement signed by Russia, as well as the United States and the UK, saying that in exchange for this, Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and borders would be protected. And that agreement says that Russia has to defend and protect Ukraine’s borders and sovereignty and independence. But it was not a binding treaty. It did not have any binding nature. So, unfortunately, that is a lesson for the future that a piece of paper is not worth much more than the paper it’s written on.
I think it’s fair to say that the Biden administration was, and the United States was very generous in helping Ukraine fight off this Russian assault. You know, the truth is, We have given Ukraine over the past three years more military aid than we’ve given really any other country since the Vietnam War. And it was very significant. On the other hand, there are critics who say, and they have a point, that we never quite gave Ukraine enough to defeat Russia. We just gave them enough to survive. And I think that’s true. I do think as President Biden said many times and President Trump says today, ‘American president has to ensure that we don’t have World War III, that we don’t have nuclear war.’ But the Russians love to play with that and to threaten that saying, ‘well, if we’re not happy, we might just blow up the world. We might start a nuclear war.’ And I think it’s very important not to give into that blackmail. I don’t think it’s serious. But American presidents are careful. I think in retrospect, would I have liked President Biden to do more for Ukraine? Yes, but I think it has to be said his administration did a lot. And as far as the Trump administration, know, the proof will be in the pudding. We are waiting to see. President Trump says he wants to end this war. That is a laudable objective. We all want to see this war end. It’s horrific. Most of the suffering has been on the Ukrainian side. But a lot of Russian soldiers have died and been maimed and crippled for life as well, hundreds of thousands actually.
So it isn’t on both sides in the sense that it’s the Ukrainian civilians, the children, the elderly who are suffering. In Russia’s case, for the most part, it’s just soldiers. But all that said, it’s horrible. And we want it to end, but it can’t end with Russia winning because then the lesson for the world is if you don’t like your borders, you just invade your neighbor and change the borders. And that threatens the entire international system. And we can’t allow that. And we also have to say when a country signs agreements and Russia signed many treaties, binding treaties, international agreements, including when it rejoined the United Nations, you can’t do this. On the other hand, we want the killing to stop. So we’re going to see. I sincerely hope that the Trump administration will hold firm on not letting Putin essentially take over Ukraine. I don’t think he can take over Ukraine. Ukraine will not surrender, I’m quite sure of that. But he can continue to destroy Ukraine and to make it impossible for Ukraine to survive and thrive. So I think that’s really the question we’re going to see in these negotiations.

Ryan Robertson
Let’s zoom things out a little bit in your mind when you, you know, as a former ambassador, as a NATO supporter, how do you see America’s role within NATO currently? And do you feel that the idea that America might be pulling back from the North Atlantic Treaty might be, I mean, is that good? Is that bad? I mean, what’s your gauge on America and NATO today?

Eric Rubin
Well, I’m very worried as just about everybody I know is because NATO remains really fundamental to our national security and our prosperity. And it really troubles me when I hear people talking about it as something from the past or as a one-sided agreement where we pay all the cost, which is simply not true. NATO has been there for us. It was there for us after 9-11 when we were attacked. NATO is the linchpin of international security for the United States. Obviously, NATO is based on Europe and North America. It doesn’t cover the rest of the world. But we are together with almost all of our most important democratic allies in NATO. There are a few other great democratic allies around the world, such as Japan and South Korea and Australia and New Zealand and some other countries that are not in NATO. Although most of them have cooperation agreements with NATO. And that was very important, for example, during the war in Afghanistan.
But most importantly, NATO remains relevant. And it would be a big mistake to say we don’t need friends, we don’t need allies, we’re just going to go alone in the world. We’ve had that experience in our history. It doesn’t go well. I think it’s fair to say the last time we did that seriously it led to World War II. And I do think we deserve some of the blame for World War II because of the way we pulled out away from the world, the isolationism, the rejection of international engagement. And in the end, we paid a very high price, as did the entire world.
So the small price of NATO, and it’s not a lot of money, first of all. And second of all, our allies could do more. They are starting to do more. I don’t object to pushing them to do more. Some of them do more than others. But this idea, for example, that we’re paying all the cost is not correct. And second of all, it’s crazy to walk away from more than 400 million people living in democracies who want to stand with us and say, actually, as some people do say, ‘we’d rather deal with Putin and Xi and China and just settle things with the dictators.’ That’s not going to end well if that’s the way we go.

Ryan Robertson
And you’re right, we were just at the AFA Warfare Symposium in Aurora, Colorado down the road from you. And one of the things that was talked about is the space infrastructure that we help NATO and NATO helps us support. A lot of that is integral to the Indo-Pacom area of responsibility as well. It’s not just Europe that benefits from NATO, it’s other areas around the globe too.

Ambassador, want to thank you for your time today. Really appreciate your insights. Hopefully we can catch up down the road at another date and hopefully there’s some more positive news to share.

Eric Rubin
I hope so, and it’s been a real pleasure. Thank you.