Trump pulls the plug on the Ukraine. Is NATO now a dead duck?

 

In December 2024, the Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer-oid, gave his first big foreign policy speech at the Lord Mayor's Banquet at Mansion House. In that speech Starmer-oid said that he didn't believe that the U.S. President, Donald Trump, would abandon the Ukraine or pull the plug on the Ukrainians. Although Britain is supposed to have no money for the pensioner’s winter fuel allowance, Starmer-oid pledged £3bn a year in aid to the Ukraine until 2030.

Although the Ukraine is not a member of NATO, America is a member. Trump had already made it perfectly clear that if he was elected the U.S. President, he would end financial and military aid to the Ukraine and use his influence to bring the war with Russia to an end. This is exactly what he's now done or is trying to do, in some kind of Munich appeasement agreement with Vladimir Putin, which some think will make the world a more dangerous place. Without consulting other NATO members or the Ukrainians, Trump has entered directly into negotiations with Russia and Vladimir Putin. Before any meeting has taken place, Trump has already declared that he thinks it highly unlikely that the Ukraine will ever be a member of NATO or get back its pre-2014 territory now under Russian occupation. He also thinks that the Ukraine can't win the war. Starmer-oid has said that he wants the Ukraine to join NATO.

Russia is facing severe economic problems and is having to use North Korean troops in the Ukraine, but without American military and financial aid, the Ukraine can’t win any war. Trump has said that apart from an interest in extracting mineral resources from the Ukraine, the U.S. has no military or strategic interest in the Ukraine and is more interested in China and the Asian continent. Trump sees the Ukraine has a problem for Europe and has said that one day, the Ukraine may become part of Russia. The Americans see China as the biggest threat to their global interests and Russia and China are allies.

Starmer-oid and NATO have been left with egg on their face and made to look ridiculous by Trump. They think that any deal done with Putin is likely to encourage Russia to invade other countries and to make NATO look weak. NATO always claimed that it was merely a defensive organisation, but it was always about furthering American global interests and domination throughout the world which was underpinned by American military power. Take that away, and NATO is about as effective as a chocolate fireguard. NATO is probably now a dead duck as America under Trump, doesn't think much of it. Trump thinks that western Europe gets defence on the cheap because it relies on American military might.

I always saw Putin's invasion of the Ukraine has mainly revanchist, an attempt to regain lost Russian territory and status, rather than a NATO proxy war has claimed by many Kremlin apologists. Putin had initially claimed that Russia had launched a special military operation into the Ukraine to de-Nazify the country. Russia does have military strategic interests in the region and in particular, the Crimean region, which it annexed in 2014 without much opposition from NATO countries. Many Ukrainians who live in the eastern part of the country do identity with Russia.

There's an interesting interview between Tucker Carlson and Vladimir Putin, where Putin is asked if NATO expansionism towards the east had led Russia to invading the Ukraine. At the outset, Putin laughed and dismissed this out of hand. He then gave Carlson an history lesson about the historical links between Russia and the Ukraine. In short, Putin does not recognise the Ukraine as a sovereign and independent country even though a majority of Ukrainians voted for that following the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.