By David French / The New York Times
What if we’re on the cusp of a new Cold War, but have only one serious political party?
It’s hard to grasp Donald Trump’s foreign policy extremism without remembering the Cold War. I distinctly remember the hawk/dove dynamic of the 1980s. The Reagan Republicans were deemed the hawks — pressing for expanded nuclear capabilities and for a much more capable conventional force. The Democrats were the doves. They wanted to emphasize arms control, for example, and strongly criticized the Reagan administration for its alliances with illiberal or authoritarian anti-Soviet regimes.
The differences between the two sides were meaningful, but one thing was certain; both sides were serious. For example, let’s take the first election that I closely followed; the 1984 contest between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale.
The Democratic platform emphasized enhanced conventional warfare capability to decrease reliance on the nuclear deterrent. It emphasized “close consultation” with NATO allies, and the first bullet point under “defense policy” began with these words: “Work with our NATO and other allies to ensure our collective security.”
And what of the Republican platform? It warned that “Fragmenting NATO is the immediate objective of the Soviet military buildup and Soviet subversion” and was replete with admonitions to strengthen NATO, including by shoring up its southern flank and concluding new basing agreements. This shared commitment to NATO is a key reason American deterrence persisted through every American presidency during the Cold War.
Republicans and Democrats are not equally serious today. In a new interview, Eric Cortellessa of Time magazine asked Trump about his pledge to let Russia “do whatever the hell they want” to countries that he believes don’t meet NATO military spending targets. Trump doubled down.
“Yeah, when I said that, I said it with great meaning,” he said, “because I want them to pay. I want them to pay up. That was said as a point of negotiation. I said, ‘Look, if you’re not going to pay, then you’re on your own.’ And I mean that.”
Americans should want Europeans to pay more for their own defense. That was a component of the Democrats’ 1984 platform, and the NATO target of 2 percent of GDP military spending was negotiated under Barack Obama. But to provide Russian President Vladimir Putin with targets of opportunity based on temporary military spending levels is to shatter NATO itself.
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s deal with President Joe Biden to provide additional funding for Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel gives me hope that the Republican Party can find its footing again, but so long as Trump is the nominee, the voters face a choice between a strategy and a temper tantrum. They should choose accordingly.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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