Hacker News Reader

Comment by dividedbyzero | Hacker News Reader

For now. A NATO left behind by a hypothetical second Trump administration might be a much less effective deterrent. With two nuclear powers on the continent and one latent nuclear power (Germany) and none in the east save Russia, things might get very interesting for a while if that came to pass.

View on HN

Good thing congress slipped in a provision in the latest defense spending bill to prevent the president from withdrawing from NATO unilaterally: https://thehill.com/homenews/4360407-congress-approves-bill-...

That's signaling intention to uphold NATO by that particular congress, not something that would prevent a US government from bringing it down. If a US president were only to make it known that he or she would actively resist giving the required orders to fulfill NATO commitments in a crisis, I think the alliance in its current form would be walking dead from that point forward. There is considerable public doubt already as to whether the US would honor their commitment to wage a nuclear war over NATO matters and that's the keystone of the whole alliance. If Russia were to attack a NATO member and win the gamble, I'd expect a massive shift of power on the continent and a great loss of US soft power in Europe (at the least).

I have read an argument that this does not solve much, because "as commander-in-chief, Trump could (and likely would) simply refuse to order the military to come to the aid of NATO allies in the event of a Russian attack."

[1] https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/some-thoughts-on-where-the-war...

BTW, the linked article by Noah Smith is pretty interesting, IMHO.

Well if Trump chooses to give the lead to China, that's certainly an option - the US can't be the leader of the free world, get all the perks, and then choose just the nice parts of it.

I mean, he can try, but I don't think it would work well.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com