Trump's latest Putin apologia deserves more attention

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T

"They are surging into Russia. Ok? You are going to end up in World War III."

Noah Berlatsky Aug 28, 2024

Donald Trump has long made clear that he admires Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, including calling his invasion of Ukraine "genius" and "savvy." Remarks he made Monday to the National Guard Association in Detroit demonstrate just how worried he is that Ukrainian efforts to resist Putin's aggression might be successful.

Musing on Russia's war against Ukraine, Trump expressed dismay that Russia — which escalated a war it initially started a decade ago by launching an unprovoked full-scale assault in February 2022 — has now itself been invaded by Ukrainian forces.

"Look at what's going on right now with Ukraine," Trump said, flailing his hands about in a vague effort to suggest troop movements. "They are surging into Russia. Ok? You are going to end up in World War III. And it's going to be a bad one." (Watch below.)

Putin himself regularly warns that resistance to his regime will result in World War III and nuclear holocaust. Is Trump really concerned about that, or is he echoing Putin talking points? One clue that Trump does not in fact have deep worries about nuclear conflagrations is that he suggested using atomic bombs to stop hurricanes. Another indication of where he stands is that he's spent the last eight years praising not just Putin, but every dictator whose epaulets he could get close enough to give a nice, orange polish.

Trump's fannish devotion to authoritarian strongmen isn't just a (disgusting) personal tic. It affected his policies as president. And there's every reason to believe that in a second term — with fewer constraints from a cowed GOP and more preparation — his jones for autocracy could encourage democratic erosion across the globe and a realignment of US foreign policy away from democratic allies and toward authoritarian strongmen.

He's not even trying to hide it

Trump loves dictators

Trump's enthusiasm for authoritarians is so repetitive, enduring, and documented that it seems almost superfluous to provide examples.

Besides repeated praise for Putin, Trump has also also enthused about China's ruler President Xi Jinping ("President Xi is a brilliant man,"); Turkey's authoritarian leader President Recep Tayyip Erdoan ("I know him well, he is a friend"); Hungarian strongman Prime Minister Viktor Orban ("He's probably, like, one of the strongest leaders anywhere in the world"); and North Korean totalitarian dictator Kim Jong Un ("very open and honorable"). Trump touts endorsements from Orban and Kim Jong Un at most rallies.

Trump's starry-eyed adoration of authoritarians is in part aspirational. Trump himself would like to be able to rule without democratic constraints. He has repeatedly denigrated voting, insisting that every election he's been in — win or lose — was rigged.

Trump has repeatedly praised not just dictators, but a dictatorial style of governing. For instance, he recently praised Orban by saying, "He's a very great leader, a very strong man. Some people don't like him because he's too strong. It's nice to have a strongman running the country." In June, Trump praised President Xi because "he controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist" and added "President Xi, Putin, all of them — they're smart, tough, they love their country … we have to have somebody to protect us." (Watch below.)

And, of course, Trump attempted a coup to overthrow American democracy.

Trump's love for strongmen is probably also inspired in part by his fondness for corrupt bargains. Putin worked to help Trump win election in both 2016 and 2020 — and there's evidence Trump's campaign was actively collaborating with Russia in 2016, when Russia hacked the DNC and released troves of emails to the press in a (successful) effort to damage Democratic nominee Hilary Clinton.

When Trump says he would tell Russia to "do whatever the hell they want" to NATO countries that don't pay enough for defense — as he does just about every single speech he delivers these days — we should interpret that as a naked quid pro quo. Putin has helped Trump; Trump will help Putin — especially against foes of Russia that don't pay their protection dues.

NATO on the chopping block

Trump has consistently denigrated NATO since his first presidential campaign. He's insisted over and over that the US pays too much for the alliance and that America should not promise to protect countries that don't pony up to his liking.

During his speech in Detroit on Monday, Trump told his oft-repeated story about how he once informed a NATO ally that he would not "absolutely not" protect his country against Russian aggression, thereby shredding NATO's mutual defense pact. (Watch below.)

Trump sees NATO not as an alliance for mutual benefit, but again as a kind of international protection racket in which countries pay a fee to the US to defend them. Or so he says. But it's surely not a coincidence that weakening NATO is a key goal of Putin, who has been waging what analysts call a hybrid war against the alliance.

Part of that hybrid war has involved meddling in Western elections and political systems — most successfully with the elevation of Trump in 2016. That has already paid big dividends for Putin; the GOP under Trump has become much more friendly to Russia. For instance, Trump running mate JD Vance has forcefully denounced seizing Russian assets and infamously said on the eve of Russia's full-scale invasion that "I don't really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another."

Trump could benefit Putin even more if he wins a second term. Trump's former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, believes Trump would withdraw from NATO, unspooling the central alliance in US and European policymaking since the second world war.

How the press helped Trump sell himself as a strongman

Dismembering Ukraine

Trump has also signaled that he wants to reduce, or eliminate altogether, military aid to Ukraine. He's regularly promised to end the war in Ukraine in a day, before he even takes office. It's clear that his imagined easy solution is simply Ukrainian surrender on Putin's terms.

Trump's commitment to harming and bullying Ukraine is one of his more consistent foreign policy principles. He was impeached for attempting to blackmail Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump threatened to withhold military aid to Zelenskyy unless the Ukrainian president agreed to smear Democratic party leader (and later presidential nominee and president) Joe Biden. Trump was trying to manipulate an election in the US; to do so he was threatening to leave Ukraine more vulnerable to its authoritarian neighbor. Undermining democracy at home goes along with undermining democracy abroad.

Withdrawing aid from Ukraine and NATO gives Russia a big green light to expand its imperial wars and its authoritarian rule across Europe with American blessing. That would obviously mean more war, and possible annexation, for Ukraine. It could also mean territorial losses and/or war for the Baltic states, where Putin has made noises about redrawing borders. A Putin ally has threatened Poland with a loss of statehood. Poland is a NATO member — but if Trump torches the alliance, that may not be much of a deterrent.

Authoritarianism for the world

Trump's pro-dictator enthusiasms are likely to be damaging far beyond Europe. For example, Trump — who has again often praised China's President Xi — has hedged on whether he would defend Taiwan, arguing (as with NATO) that Taiwan should pay the US for military support.

Along the same lines, Trump in his first term abandoned Obama-era anti-corruption and pro-democracy efforts in Guatemala. In 2023, after Guatemalans rallied against their corrupt, evangelical right-wing Christian oligarchy and elected reform president Bernardo Arevalo, Biden launched a major effort to back Arevalo and prevent a coup. Continued US support is critical, according to journalist Jody Garcia. Given Trump's past record and his anti-democracy bent, it seems likely that if he wins, Guatemalan democracy will lose.

Trump's disdain for democracy and for diplomacy would likely also worsen the already nightmarish situation in Gaza. Since the horrific Hamas attack on Israel on 10/7, Biden has supplied billions in weapons to Israel, while urging the far right government of Benjamin Netanyahu to take care to avoid civilian casualties. Israel has instead killed tens of thousands of civilians.

This is not a successful humanitarian policy, to put it mildly. Trump's recommendation, though, is to call for even harsher measures. During his debate with Biden in June, Trump called Biden a "bad Palestinian" and said that Biden should "let Israel finish the job." Given the terrifying level of devastation Israel has already inflicted, "finish the job" in this context appears to be an outright call for destruction. (In related news, Jared Kushner said during a recent interview that "Gaza's waterfront property could be very valuable.")

Trump likes strongman solutions, up to and including mass violence and ethnic cleansing. Rather than leading to any sort of peace, this push for more extreme violence will only enflame the region, potentially precipitating a dreaded Israel/Hezbollah war which could involve Iran. Such a widening of the conflict was only narrowly avoided this week.

Harris presents a very different vision of US power

The US record of support for democracy abroad is spotty. American presidents have often worked to install authoritarian loyalist regimes — as for instance in the 1954 CIA-sponsored coup in Guatemala. Trump is an extreme outlier — no modern president has been as antithetical to democracy at home and abroad as he is — but he's to some degree channelling the worst historical impulses of America by linking US self-interest to support for dictatorships abroad.

This is a legacy we should be trying to change instead of embrace. Or, as Kamala Harris puts it in her campaign slogan, "We're not going back."

Why "we're not going back" is the perfect theme for 2024

Harris's speech at the DNC laid out a very different foreign policy vision.

"I will not cozy up to tyrants and dictators like Kim Jong Un, who are rooting for Trump," she said. "They know Trump won't hold autocrats accountable — because he wants to be an autocrat."

Harris went on to emphasize her personal contacts with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and promised to "stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies."

On Gaza, Harris pushed back against progressive calls for an end to arms sales to Netanyahu's ugly regime. But she acknowledged that "the scale of suffering [in Gaza] is heartbreaking" and called again for an end to the war so that "Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination." The contrast with Trump, who uses "Palestinian" as a racist slur and actively repudiates self-determination for anyone, is clear.

Those differences are only starker on Ukraine, Guatemala, Taiwan, and the rest of the world. Harris wants to preserve and strengthen democratic alliances while isolating Putin. Trump plans to scupper alliances with democratic nations and empower autocrats like Putin and Orban.

As Harris says, Trump wants to undermine democracy worldwide, because he believes that doing so will allow him (with Putin's help) to undermine democracy at home. A vote for Trump is a vote for autocracy on a global scale. That's a threat, not just to the US, but to the world.