Politics

Trump’s sense of deterrence

There was a great stir when Donald Trump he did not rule out resorting to force to gain control of Greenland and the Panama Canal. Various politicians and analysts have harshly criticized the position of the American president in pectore, accusing him of being an authoritarian with expansionist tendencies. Indeed, there are those who said that, with his words, he would have encouraged Moscow and Beijing to behave similarly. The question to ask is: are we sure that things are as critics claim? Most likely not. You may like the tycoon’s statements or not. But many of the barbs they have thrown at him are totally out of focus. Well, to understand the strategic meaning of those declarations we must start from an unavoidable point.

As soon as he takes office, Trump it will have a non-postponable objective: to restore the US’s capacity for deterrence as a prerequisite to any future foreign policy act. A deterrence capacity that has been significantly weakened after four years of the Biden administration. It is therefore evident that Trump he urgently wants to convey to his adversaries and allies an image of his leadership as unpredictable and, therefore, dangerous. On the other hand, only if you are perceived as threatening can deterrence actually work. AND Trump aim for this first and foremost. He wants to let the world know: “Pay attention, I am willing to do anything”. And, upon closer inspection, he seems to have already achieved some results, thanks to those words.

On the Greenland issue, the Kremlin made unusually cautious, cautious, bordering on fearful comments. Let us remember that the island represents a privileged access point to the Arctic, in which Moscow and Beijing have intensified their military cooperation. It was the Pentagon itself that raised the alarm in this sense last month. Secondly, the Danish Foreign Minister himself, Lars Lokke Rasmussenhe replied to the tycoon, saying he was open to further strengthening collaboration between Copenhagen and Washington in the Arctic region: a position that was probably not too appreciated by Russia and China.

What is happening must therefore be understood in light of the strategy that Trump wants to use. The tycoon has understood that now, like it or not, power politics is back in vogue. And that, if we want to be competitive compared to Moscow, Tehran and Beijing, it is this type of logic that we must refer to: without hypocritical pretenses. Far from enticing the Russians and Chinese to act, the words of Trump on Greenland they have the opposite objective: to dissuade them. And the Kremlin’s soft comments, which we talked about, indicate that, in all likelihood, the American president in pectore has managed, at least for now, to achieve his objective. On the other hand, it is predictability and continuing to move according to outdated logic that push Moscow and Beijing to dare. It is no coincidence that Russia invaded Ukraine a few months after the debacle Afghan and, above all, a few months after the ok, given by Joe Bidento the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

The problem is that until today Trump it was poorly reported in Italy. Some said he was a friend of autocracies. Others that he was a pacifist. None of this. Trump he is a pragmatist with a sense of deterrence. It wants to put pressure on and intimidate China, Russia and Iran. And, to do so, it needs to restore the dissuasive capacity broken by its predecessor. Which means that the option of force, for him, is always on the table. On the other hand, the paradox of deterrence consists precisely in this: threatening the possibility of war to reduce the risk of it materialising.

Who then tears his clothes, accusing Trump of authoritarianism and expansionism has understood nothing of what is happening. The international order that emerged from the end of the Cold War is today heavily challenged by revisionist powers who understand only one language: that of fear. Trump follows the rules of the game, because it has understood that it no longer makes sense to appeal to international dynamics which, like it or not, are on the decline. If the West wants to survive, it must understand that it is now in a dangerously chaotic world. And that’s approach TrumpMaybe that’s not the problem. But part of the solution.