NATO is in serious trouble, and with it, the post-Cold War international order. For the first time in the alliance’s 75-year history, its most powerful member is pulling back and may be effectively pulling out.
In Brussels, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lectured that the United States could not be “focused on the security of Europe,” because “consequential threats to our homeland” mean the U.S. must focus “on security of our own borders.” But countering Russia in Europe and managing the U.S.-Mexico border are not trade-offs; the U.S. can and should do both.
America is effectively switching sides, from helping Ukraine resist Russia’s attack to helping Russia gain concessions.
Hegseth’s statement makes more sense as an excuse — one that might play with the MAGA base back home, but with few elsewhere — signaling a broader strategic shift away from alliances with rule-of-law democracies. Under the new Donald Trump administration, the United States will be friendlier to, and act more like, authoritarian governments such as Russia and China.
The first big impact will be in Ukraine. America is effectively switching sides, from helping Ukraine resist Russia’s attack to helping Russia gain concessions.
Hegseth declared that the United States not only refuses to be part of any force providing security guarantees to Ukraine in a war settlement, but also won’t come to the aid of a NATO member whose forces backstopping a settlement get attacked by Russia. At best, that is a bad negotiating strategy. Even if the U.S. did not provide security guarantees, the strategic ambiguity of potential U.S. support for a NATO ally that does would discourage violations of the peace, and create future leverage.
While Hegseth was dressing down NATO allies, Trump was conducting talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin about the future of Ukraine without including the Ukrainians or Europeans. That makes it less likely they’ll accept any agreement and means any deal the U.S. and Russia force on them will be less likely to last. Ukraine is already wary of taking Putin’s word, considering that Russia first attacked in 2014, failed to fully honor ceasefire agreements, then returned with a bigger attack in 2022.
But Trump and Hegseth forfeiting Ukraine’s bargaining position in advance — rather than showing a unified front, starting high and being willing to move down in exchange for concessions — is more than poor negotiating. When a reporter asked Trump if he views Ukraine “as an equal member of this peace process,” Trump responded, “I think they have to make peace. That was not a good war to go into.”
In reality, Ukraine got into this war because Russia invaded it, demanding it give up independence. The only way for Ukraine to not go to war was bowing down to Putin and forfeiting freedom.
That’s apparently what Trump thinks Ukraine should have done at the start. Trump reacted to Russia’s February 2022 invasion with gushing praise, calling it “savvy” and “genius.” Three years of Ukraine’s NATO-backed resistance has not only thwarted Russia’s main goals and weakened Russia overall, it also calls into question Trump’s worldview that bullying readily yields gains.
Ukraine got into this war because Russia invaded it, demanding it give up independence. The only way for Ukraine not to go to war was bowing down to Putin and forfeiting freedom.
So now Trump’s position appears to be that Russia deserves something for its aggression. Asked if there’s any possible future where Ukraine returns to its pre-2014 borders, Trump could have taken a negotiators’ stance that everything would be worked out in talks. Or he could have gone for hard-hearted realist, saying that realities on the ground mean Ukraine will have to make some tough concessions if Russia does as well. Instead, he said it’s “unlikely,” explaining that Russia “took a lot of land and they fought for that land and they lost a lot of soldiers.”
The fact that Ukraine has lost a lot of soldiers fighting to keep its independence does not appear to be a relevant factor in the U.S. president’s calculus.
After his call with Putin, Trump said the Russian leader “wants peace.” That, too, is upside down.
Putin could get peace at any time by ordering Russian forces to leave Ukraine. Instead, he tells them to keep attacking, including with drones and missiles that deliberately target civilians. Putin wants peace only in the sense of military theorist Carl von Clausewitz’s quip that “the aggressor is always peace-loving … he would prefer to take over our country unopposed.” Trump negotiating one on one with Putin as if Ukrainian territory were America’s to give away, and Hegseth telling Europe it’ll have to uphold any peace agreement on its own, puts the Western alliance on shaky ground. With America’s commitment uncertain, it’s weaker already and could cease to be effective. NATO’s biggest benefit is deterrence. Risk of war with the entire alliance — including nuclear-armed France, Britain and America — kept the Soviet Union from attacking NATO territory, including impossible-to-defend West Berlin. This decade, deterrence has proven its value in Russia menacing and invading non-NATO neighbors while refraining from attacking any NATO country, even countries transferring weapons to Ukraine to fight Russians. But deterrence depends on credibility, and NATO’s rests on a belief in European capitals and especially Moscow that attacking any NATO country, even the smallest, means war with the United States. The U.S. does a lot to make the treaty commitment credible — stationing troops in Europe, conducting joint exercises, consistent verbal assurances, etc. — and has gained a lot as a result. NATO has prevented a third World War after the first two killed over 350,000 Americans in the European theater alone. And the only time the alliance has invoked its provision that “an attack on one is an attack on all” was to assist the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in response to the Sept. 11 attacks. At that point, the world’s most powerful alliance will be effectively dead, even if it persists on paper. The Trump administration pulling back on U.S. commitments to European security means Russia will probably test the alliance in the coming years, with cyberattacks, assassinations, small incursions and eventually a land grab against a NATO member, such as Estonia. The menaced country will ask its treaty allies for help, and America won’t provide it. Making things worse, the U.S. president will probably take Putin’s side, at least rhetorically. At that point, the world’s most powerful alliance will be effectively dead, even if it persists on paper. And it will cast doubt on America’s other treaty commitments, especially to allies facing threats from authoritarians whom Trump praises. Democratic U.S. allies and partners, such as South Korea and Taiwan, should be nervous and are probably already working on security strategies that, at minimum, hedge more against America. The U.S.-led network of voluntary alliances among democracies has helped make America the world’s most powerful country and kept the international system more stable and less violent than the first half of the 20th century. Picking fights with longtime friends instead of working with them against shared adversaries is a recipe for American weakness and global instability, but it might make Donald Trump and his friends feel big and give them more opportunities for corruption. We all have our priorities.
Nicholas Grossman
Nicholas Grossman is a political science professor at the University of Illinois, editor of Arc Digital and the author of "Drones and Terrorism." 
