Trump’s approach to Russia-Ukraine war increases decades of US foreign policy

This is an adapted extract of February 12 “All in with Chris Hayes” episode.

Donald TrumpThe vision of foreign policy is beginning to focus, and is worse and more dangerous than it has imagined. The president and his Maga allies seem to be ready to quickly undo the global and democratic order led by Americans.

The collapse began on Wednesday with an announcement by Trump’s Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegesh, which the United States was withdrawing from defending its allies.

“We must begin by recognizing that returning to the borders prior to 2014 of Ukraine is an unrealistic objective.” Hegseth said during a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group In Brussels on Wednesday. “Pursuing this illusory objective will only prolong war and cause more suffering.”

“The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic result of a negotiated agreement,” Hegseth added. “We are also here today to express directly and unequivocally that marked strategic real ones prevent the United States of America from focusing mainly on Europe’s security.”

On Thursday, Hegseth tried to resort to some of those comments, tell the reporters that “everything is on the table” in the negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.

But part of the reason why this type of rhetoric is so dangerous has to do with what NATO represents and when it was created. These institutions and orders were established after World War II precisely due to competitive and conquering aspirations of growing empires and fascist regimes worldwide. NATO was formed by the United States 76 years ago To commit that an attack against a member was an attack against all, what is known as Article 5. It started with 12 countries and now has 32 members.

The only moment in which article 5 was invoked was when all allies joined in a fight: when everyone came to the help of the United States after September 11, 2001, and promised their troops and material to the war in Afghanistan. The Canadians, Italians, Danish, Spanish, Norwegians, stones, letters and more gave their lives for the United States War against terror. Because this is how alliances work. The allies are supposed to have their backs. At least they were before Wednesday.

Not long after Hegseth spoke, Senate Republicans voted to confirm Tulsi Gabbard As the next director of National Intelligence. Gabbard is a light policy whose greatest achievement of foreign policy was Visit Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, along with his upper clericthat threatened suicidal bombings in the United States. (Last month, Gabbard He told the senators She was not aware of the threat of the cleric at the time of her meeting.) She has also been accused of Put a requirement with Russia and President Vladimir Putin on the United States intelligence consensus. But all that was fine with all the Republicans in the Senate, except Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who joined 47 Democrats and independent to vote against Gabbard.

Almost at the same time, Gabbard was being confirmed on Wednesday, Trump was getting out of the phone with another international leader: Putin. Trump turned to social networks to break the news about what he called a “highly productive” call with Putin, writingin part:

The dazzling here is that the country at the extreme recipient of the aggression of Russia, Ukraine, did not seem to be in the developments related to its future. Trump even dodged a journalist’s question on whether he considered Ukraine as an “equal member” in the negotiation process.

We should be clear about what we are seeing: Trump is dismantling the international order led by the United States for the benefit of the global authoritaries that he sends and admires.

Politically, Trump has managed to sell isolationism to many Americans. It is true that our main role in the world has greatly been a product of an consensus of bipartisan elite and, sometimes, it feels quite eliminated from democratic majorities, which tend to believe that the United States gives too much foreign help and “policies “From the world. Believe me, I have spent two decades criticizing the many deficiencies and cruelty frankly of that same order. But however imperfect that order is, with which Trump wants to replace it is a lot, much worse.

The current international order was created by the United States and its allies to prevent the world from being unthinkable. When there were increasing tensions between victorious nuclear superpowers, institutions such as NATO and the United Nations were partly formed to avoid the Cold war to become a nuclear holocaust.

But there is another reason why Trump is anxious to get rid of the old order in favor of an anarchic world in which strong countries do what they want. When you listen Putin claim That Ukrainians are really wrong, you can listen Echoes of the Nazis statement that Austrians and Czechs were just Germans. What Trump is doing now is to send the message to everyone around the world that is not only the territorial acquisition by the OK force, but that the United States is interested in looking for it: since Green Earth toward Panama Canal to Canada as state 51 To imagine the Gaza pull as an American property development project.

Trump’s emerging doctrine seems to be that democracies are weak and soft and that we will put ourselves on the side of the autocracies on them. It is disastrous. Not only for the place of the United States in the world but also for the cause of peace.

The idea that the path to peace is to throw democracies byboard in favor of authoritarian regimes is a dangerous idea. And is the fundamental line of Trump’s worldview. It seems to hate our allies and love our enemies, possibly because our enemies see the world like him: transactional and mature for the selection.

With loyal and morally flexible subordinates such as Hegseth and Gabbard, Trump is essentially reoring as the most radical transformation of the United States role in the world from Franklin D. Roosevelt, and probably will not end well.

Chris Hayes

Chris Hayes hosts “All with Chris Hayes ” At 8 pm et from Monday to Friday in MSNBC. He is the editor in general of the nation. Former member of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Ethics of Harvard University, Hayes, was a member of Bernard Schwartz at the New America Foundation. His last book is “a colony in a nation” (WW Norton).

Allison Detzel contributed.