Insults jeopardize future of NATO

“That’s really the ultimate test … We’ve never needed them. We have never really asked anything of them … They’ll say they sent some troops to Afghanistan, and they did, they stayed a little back, a little off the front lines.”

— U.S. President Donald Trump

In an interview with Fox Business on Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump was asked whether NATO would be there for the U.S. if it ever needed to rely on the alliance. He answered by suggesting that his nation cannot depend on its NATO allies at a time of crisis.

Even worse, he questioned the bravery of those allies, both misrepresenting and minimizing the immense contribution and sacrifice made by NATO states in the defence of the U.S.

What utter, insulting nonsense.

Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, the document that created NATO, stipulates that an armed attack against one NATO member is an attack against all. It has only been invoked on one occasion, and that was by the U.S. in 2001, in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

More than 1,000 armed service personnel from Canada, the U.K. and other NATO nations died in the 20-year U.S.-led war in Afghanistan that followed those attacks, and that was just the fatalities. Many, many more service members from NATO nations suffered serious injuries.

In the case of Canada alone, more than 40,000 Canadian Armed Forces members served in the region between 2001 and 2014, with 158 killed and thousands more injured. Several of those members were from Westman, posted at CFB Shilo. They were our friends, family members, our neighbours.

Trump suggests that Canadians and other NATO allies lacked bravery and served “a little off the front lines.” The reality is the complete opposite, however. Canadian troops manned the lethal front lines in the Kandahar province and many made the ultimate sacrifice for doing so. British soldiers paid a heavy price while deployed in the Helmand province, just as personnel from many other NATO nations were repeatedly in the thick of the fight.

When confronted with offensive, uninformed statements, we are often encouraged to “consider the source.” That is good advice in this instance, given that Trump is far from a paragon of bravery and factual accuracy.

He is often accused of being a coward and draft dodger due to his having received multiple draft deferments during the Vietnam War. He described American soldiers who died in combat during the First World War as “losers” and “suckers” for being killed. And he repeatedly attacked American war hero and former Arizona Sen. John McCain for having been shot down while flying a dangerous mission over North Vietnam. McCain spent five years as a prisoner of war.

We agree with United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who says that Trump’s comments were “insulting and frankly appalling,” and suggests the U.S. president should apologize.

We also agree with Prince Harry, who served in Afghanistan as a helicopter co-pilot. He has reminded Trump of the many sacrifices made by NATO members in support of the U.S., and says that “Those sacrifices deserve to be spoken about truthfully and with respect, as we all remain united and loyal to the defence of diplomacy and peace.”

The prince says we remain united, but where do we go from here? Over the past year, Trump has repeatedly said that the U.S. military is so powerful that it can win any conflict on its own — that it doesn’t need allies like NATO.

He’s wrong. In the Afghanistan conflict, the Iraq wars and countless other conflicts, the U.S. needed the assistance of allies because it did not have sufficient personnel and resources to fight the battle alone. That reality has not changed and, given the actions of Trump over the past year, the threat of terrorism against the U.S. has only grown.

That reality points to the self-defeating recklessness of Trump’s conduct. He is actively destroying alliances that took decades to build, and which have repeatedly served the economic, political and strategic interests of the U.S. At the same time, he is going out of his way to make enemies.

He may eventually find that, without alliances such as NATO, the U.S. is far weaker and the world is a far more dangerous place.