World War Trump

by Hall Gardner

  Published 2018 by Prometheus Books

  World War Trump: The Risks of America's New Nationalism. Copyright © 2018 by Hall Gardner. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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  Cover design by Jacqueline Nasso Cooke

  Cover design © Prometheus Books

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Gardner, Hall, author.

  Title: World war Trump : the risks of America's new nationalism / by Hall Gardner.

  Description: Amherst, New York : Prometheus Books, 2018. | Includes index.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017042513 (print) | LCCN 2018004448 (ebook) | ISBN 9781633883963 (ebook) | ISBN 9781633883956 (hardcover)

  Subjects: LCSH: United States--Foreign relations--2017- | Nationalism--United States--History--21st century. | World politics--1989-

  Classification: LCC E895 (ebook) | LCC E895 .G36 2018 (print) | DDC 320.540973/0905--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017042513

  Printed in the United States of America

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction: A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

  Chapter 1: The Perils of the New “America First” Nationalism

  Chapter 2: Inauguration Tremors: Rifles, Tanks, and Nuclear Weapons

  Chapter 3: The New Bogeyman: Russians, Immigrants, Muslims—and the Question of Impeachment

  Chapter 4: Risks of the New American Nationalism for the European Union

  Chapter 5: The Risk of War over Crimea, the Black Sea, and Eastern Europe

  Chapter 6: The Global Impact of the China-Russia Eurasian Alliance

  Chapter 7: China, North Korea, and the Risk of War in the Indo-Pacific

  Chapter 8: Syria and Widening Wars in the “Wider Middle East”

  Chapter 9: Peace through Strength? Or World War Trump?

  Chapter 10: Defusing the Global Crisis

  Postscript: It Can Happen Here

  Notes

  Index

  Writing this book, has, like many of my previous works, been like shooting at a moving target. But in this case, the Trump administration has been zigzagging through ever-changing policies like a vampire in flight. I would like to thank the American University of Paris library staff for their assistance with my book projects over the years, and Nina Bechmann and Mohammad Abdalhaleem for their valuable assistance in volunteering to check over my endnotes, as well as Soyoung Park and Anita Maksymchuk for helping build my website. And once again I would like to thank Isabel, who had to put up with me working on this project from early morning to late at night for several weeks. And my daughters, Celine and Francesca, whom I have generally neglected in the process. I would also like to thank my editor, Steven L. Mitchell, Jade Zora Scibilia, Hanna Etu, Cheryl Quimba, and Jackie Nasso Cooke for their support and help in working with me on this project, and for those at Prometheus Books who originally proposed the title, World War Trump.

  Let us hope that this project is not in vain—and that the Trump administration policies will not generate a global war. But, even then, it is crucial to begin to turn around the new arms race and concentrate on the real need for negotiated peace, development, and human fulfillment in the United States and abroad—and on a truly healthy and inhabitable planet.

  “Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative.”

  —President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961

  “At this moment, for example, in 1984 (if it was 1984), Oceania was at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. In no public or private utterance was it ever admitted that the three powers had at any time been grouped along different lines…. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible.”

  —George Orwell, 1984 (1948)

  “For the first time in all history, a great nation must go on arming itself more and more, not for conquest—not for jealousy—not for war—but for peace!”

  —Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here, 1935

  Toward the end of the Cold War, it became a cliché to cite the adage that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was created “to keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down.” Someone else later added as a joke: “to keep the French happy.”1 But this original rationale for expanding NATO (as a collective defense organization in such a way as to keep the new Russia out of Eastern Europe and former Soviet states, the Germans/Europeans restrained, and the French happy, with the Americans fully in control) should have been thrown out the window once the Warsaw Pact dissolved in 1989. The Clinton administration should have put the whole NATO enlargement process on hold in the late 1990s and begun a full reassessment—just like one of the founders of the anti-Communist containment policy, Paul Nitze, among other officials and experts, had urged at the time.2

  The Clinton administration was not entirely oblivious to the possibility that NATO enlargement could eventually provoke Moscow. And it did at least superficially consider a range of options for European security that could have provided an alternative to NATO as the primary supplier of European security. But in the process of expanding a large and complex political-military bureaucracy, President Clinton decided to hedge his bets and opt for what could be called the NATO “self-limitation approach.”3

  In the NATO self-limitation approach, NATO would not deploy foreign troops and nuclear weapons on the territory of new NATO member states. This approach was then confirmed by both NATO and Russia with the signing of the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act. The latter was intended to represent the basis for a closer NATO-Russia relationship, but Moscow saw it as almost immediately breaking down—given the fact that NATO's so-called exceptional war ‘over’ Kosovo, which was fought by NATO in 1999 against the interests of one of Russia's historical allies, Serbia, was not granted approval by the UN Security Council. Not only was that war in technical violation of the North Atlantic Treaty that had founded NATO, and against the spirit of the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act that Moscow had just signed, but the Clinton administration had opted to reject Russian proposals to deal jointly with the ongoing sociopolitical conflict in Kosovo—without even permitting Moscow to discuss those proposals thoroughly with either the United States or the other NATO members. And combined with the open NATO enlargement, this war represented one of the major factors that helped bring to power Vladimir Putin.4

  For more than twenty years, I have been warning that the uncoordinated NATO and European Union enlargements into former Soviet space would result in a Russian revanchist backlash—and that the major focal point of dispute would be Crimea.5 My argument was the following: If the Russian Federation was not fully included and engaged with both the United States and the Europeans in the formulation of the new post–Cold War security architecture, then the world could eventually expect a Russian backlash and the militarization of Russian behavior.

  The militarization of Russian behavior would, in large part, result from the ambiguous nature o
f the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act. On the one hand, the expansion of NATO's integrated military capabilities and infrastructure to new members in eastern Europe, particularly once NATO proposed expansion to the three Baltic states, Georgia, and Ukraine in particular, risked a counter-military reaction by Moscow. On the other hand, the open NATO enlargement also made it more difficult to defend NATO's new members—that is, without the deployment of conventional forces coupled with direct threat to use of nuclear weapons the closer that NATO moved to the Russian border without a geostrategic “buffer” of neutral states.

  That easily predictable Russian backlash against both NATO and European Union enlargement has now taken place. Much as NATO was seen by Moscow as containing Russia in geostrategic and military terms, Moscow also saw the European Union as seeking to isolate Russia in political-economic terms. And it is now the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, among other international accords, that have been put in question in the aftermath of the early 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, Moscow's political military interference in eastern Ukraine, and the buildup of Russian forces in the Baltic region. These Russian counteractions have led to the subsequent deployment of NATO forces in Poland and the Baltic states on a rotating, yet possibly permanently rotating, basis. In effect, rather than working together with Moscow to forge a new conjoint system of post–Cold War European security since the Gorbachev and Yeltsin administrations, the United States, NATO, and the European Union have achieved what can truly be considered a self-fulfilling prophecy by provoking a Russian backlash.

  But that is not all. I also argued that along with a Russian backlash, a general militarization of interstate behavior would concurrently take place. Such a general militarization—which would include states such as the People's Republic of China in closer alliance with the Russian Federation, Iran, and other countries—would develop over time as the new powers that would emerge after Soviet collapse would soon resist US efforts to expand its global hegemony in eastern Europe, in the Indo-Pacific, and throughout the “wider Middle East” and much of the world.

  Not only that, but these major and regional power rivalries are beginning to merge with the ever-expanding Global War on Terrorism that was initiated by George W. Bush against both anti-state organizations such as al-Qaeda and so-called rogue states including Afghanistan under the Taliban, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and Libya under Muammar Gaddafi. The concern raised here is that the human and political costs of the US retaliation for the September 11, 2001, attacks—a retaliation which should have focused on al-Qaeda alone—have far exceeded the actual damage caused by those attacks, and that these wars on both “terrorism” and “rogue states” cannot be judged to be “successful” by any standard. Since 2001, approximately 370,000 people have been killed by violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. At least 200,000 civilians have died in this fighting. Moreover, at least 10.1 million Afghans, Pakistanis, and Iraqis have been surviving as war refugees in other countries, or have been forcibly displaced from their homes.6

  In terms of costs, the United States alone has spent or committed at least $4.8 trillion on the wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq—a sum paid for almost entirely by heavy borrowing. Depending on the costs of the ongoing wars against the Islamic State, future interest payments could total over $7.9 trillion by 2053.7 Despite these huge costs, and despite the highly unlikely possibility that Washington can bring many of these conflicts to “successful” conclusions, the Global War on Terrorism is now being extended by President Donald Trump in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and countries such as Niger, among others. Trump has proclaimed that he would “eradicate” radical Islamist terrorism “from the face of the Earth”—but without necessarily pointing to feasible diplomatic solutions to establish peace in the long term in the aftermath of those military interventions.8

  On the domestic side, the intensification of major power rivalries and sociopolitical struggles within states, coupled with the 2008 global financial crisis, has indirectly resulted in the rise of a number of authoritarian or “illiberal” democracies. Recall, President Bill Clinton had originally justified NATO enlargement as least in part on the basis that NATO would help to stabilize fledgling eastern European democracies—even if NATO was not exclusively democratic at the time of its conception. And yet, in contemporary circumstances, NATO members Hungary and Poland—and particularly Turkey—can now be considered authoritarian states, or in the new formula, “illiberal democracies.” And NATO members Bulgaria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Turkey have all begun to flirt with Russia, for better or for worse.

  On the international side, the ongoing conflict between major and regional powers and differing anti-state “terrorist” groups has increasingly taken place both outside and within domestic societies through new forms of hybrid warfare, cyber-sabotage, and acts of partisan “terrorism.” The modernization of nuclear and conventional weaponry, combined with the deployment of advanced US missile defense systems, not to overlook the deceptive tactics of hybrid and cyber-warfare, have largely rendered the Cold War concept of mutual assured destruction (MAD) obsolete. As indicated by the tremendous risks involved in President Trump's nuclear brinksmanship with North Korean leader Kim Jung Un, it has become increasingly evident that any number of direct, or even indirect, conflicts in differing regions of the world could draw major and regional powers into a direct confrontation. The possibility of major power war—most likely with the use of nuclear weaponry—is real.

  The danger that is now confronting the world is that these twenty-first-century hybrid wars against both “terrorists” and “rogue states,” combined with major power rivalries, are now leading to the formation of two contending systems of alliances. The United States, NATO, Ukraine, Japan, Israel, and Saudi Arabia have all begun to take steps to align more closely with each other against Russia, China, or Iran. States such as Belarus, Bulgaria, Hungary, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Qatar, the Philippines, Pakistan, and India, among others, have all been caught up in the cross fire and may either strengthen their present ties with either the United States/NATO or with Russia and China—or else switch to the other side, if they do not opt for neutrality. In any case, the very threat to switch sides further exacerbates regional and global tensions.

  World War Trump argues that the new “America First” nationalism—coupled with Trump's largely unexpected and erratic foreign-policy flip-flops and willingness to use force—will provoke even greater regional sociopolitical-economic instability and interstate disputes than those that already exist. In essence, Trump's threatening actions and the general militarization of American policy could soon polarize much of the world into two rival alliances.

  Trump's impatience; his Nixonian “madman” behavior; and his wild, unstatesmanlike foreign-policy flip-flops make both rival states and present allies automatically assume worst-case scenarios—as leaderships fear that the United States will not keep its promises or that Washington will radically alter its policies. Trump claims that he wants to bargain from a “position of strength,” yet the United States is already seen as the predominant global power by far. America is already great and does not need to be “made great again”—at least not in Trump's militaristic manner of thinking. The risk is that Trump's “Peace through Strength” approach could soon spark a number of potential military confrontations—if his foreign policies are not accompanied by a sincere effort to seek out compromises and even make concessions through intense bilateral and multilateral negotiations. In this respect, Trump missed a major opportunity in his address to the UN General Assembly on September 19, 2017, to formulate a concerted path toward global peace that would involve the United States, the Europeans, Russia, and China, among other concerned states.

  In order to defuse a truly critical state of affairs, World War Trump proposes that Washington find ways to work with both Moscow and Beijing, in addition to other major and regional powers, through bilateral meetings and through multilateral Contact Groups, bac
ked by the United Nations or the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), in the diplomatic effort to ameliorate political-economic tensions and disputes in key regional “hot spots” throughout the world. These multilateral Contact Groups need to prevent the global geopolitical system from polarizing into essentially two hostile systems of alliances, by seeking to better manage, if not resolve, key regional disputes that could potentially draw major and regional powers into direct conflict.

  CHAPTER OUTLINE

  Before we move forward, I want to present to you the general structure of World War Trump. As you have seen, this introduction, “A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy,” argues that the Russian backlash to the uncoordinated NATO and the European Union “double enlargement” represents a self-fulfilling prophecy.

  Chapter 1, “The Perils of the New ‘American First’ Nationalism,” outlines the general arguments of the book and argues that Trump's “America First” nationalism and his often-contradictory foreign policies and policy flip-flops will prove destabilizing and provocative. The chapter discusses multiple tactics of the “hybrid warfare,” including cyber-sabotage, “democracy engineering,” and Russian “nationalist engineering.” It argues that Trump-Pence policies, geopolitical rivalries between major and regional powers, and the new US-Russian arms race could lead the global system to polarize into two contending alliance systems. And that new techniques of hybrid warfare and acts of “terrorism”—which impact both the domestic and the international relations of differing states—could help spark a major power war.

  Chapter 2, “Inauguration Tremors: Rifles, Tanks, and Nuclear Weapons,” critically examines Trump's “Make America Great Again” budget and discusses the real social and political-economic costs of his proposed military buildup and the perverse impact of what President Eisenhower called the “military-industrial” (and congressional) complex on the American political economy and society.