Don’t let mainstream media’s reaction to President Donald Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy misinform. If Trump’s first-term foreign policy serves as any indication of how ‘pro-NATO’ and ‘anti-Russian’ his second-term foreign policy will be, the record is overwhelmingly pro-NATO and anti-Russian.
Regardless of criticism – mostly by perennial Donald Trump critics – the president is no friend to Russia and his first term substantively reflects that.
As a former military officer and diplomat who served in Eastern Europe during the majority of Trump’s first term, I witnessed first-hand the tangible, unrelenting and effective anti-Russian and pro-NATO policies he directed American diplomats to communicate, influence and implement.
The following is a list of specific foreign policies I witnessed and supported under from 2017 to 2020.
Increasing NATO countries’ military spending to greater than 2% GDP
This policy was of the highest priority for military diplomats serving in NATO countries. The quantifiable policy was customized based on the specific military modernization needs of each NATO country. In the country I served in, Bulgaria, the policy resulted in the Bulgarian parliament approving the purchase of eight U.S. F-16 jets to the price of more than $1.3 billion as Bulgaria’s Air Force required drastic modernization.
A more modernized and capable NATO (steered by American diplomatic pressure) focused on increased military spending… not good for Russia.
