The Soviet Union spent more than 40 years trying to achieve what Vladimir Putin recently put on a plate. During the Cold War, the Kremlin’s primary objective was to divide the Atlantic Alliance (NATO) by turning the US and Europe against each other.
Every crisis in West Berlin’s security, from the Soviet ultimatum for the West to leave the city in 1958 to the construction of the Wall in 1961, was designed to open a rift in NATO. As then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev said in 1959, “I squeeze into Berlin to shout at the West.”
His successor, Leonid Brezhnev, used a new generation of nuclear missiles – the SS20s – in the satellite states of Central Europe to divide the West over exactly how to respond.
All those efforts failed. The US and Europe were well aware of what the Soviets were up to and although they differed and argued, the Allies did not allow the Kremlin to be satisfied that they had broken up.
Today, thanks to Donald Trump, Putin can enjoy that spectacle. He has spent 25 years pursuing the old Soviet policy of dividing the West. He has repeatedly condemned NATO for trying to “encircle” or “terrorize” Russia, as if the very existence of the Atlantic alliance threatens world peace and the view that sovereign countries choose to join its ranks somehow justifies his aggression.
Now, suddenly, the crack Putin has always sought is opening before his eyes.
The president of the United States not only claimed the sovereign territory of Denmark, a NATO ally, but threatened to use force to get his way. On Saturday, Trump deliberately escalated the conflict by ordering punitive tariffs against no less than eight allies, including Britain, for what should be a common cause of offence: that the future status of Greenland is a matter for the island’s residents and the Danish government.
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On Monday, Trump went even further with a threatening message to another ally, Norway. In a letter to Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Storr, Trump said he was “not feeling it anymore” after being stripped of the Nobel Peace Prize.[s] The obligation to think purely of peace, however important it will always be”, added that Denmark had no “property rights” to Greenland and that America’s “full and complete control” of the island was essential to global security.
Faced with rising US tariffs and continued threats, the EU is preparing to retaliate by using its “anti-coercion tool” to impose tariffs on €93bn (£80.6bn) of US exports. This extraordinary measure, which has never been used before, will be used not against China or any other adversary, but against the superpower that has guaranteed Europe’s security for almost 80 years.
Sir Keir Starr has so far ruled out imposing additional British tariffs on US exports, but the EU’s promised retaliation shows the two sides are now doing their best to damage each other.
Starr condemns Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on US allies – Tolga Akmen/EPA/Shutterstock
Putin can sit back and enjoy the view. And if this dispute is ultimately resolved through a compromise between the US and Europe over the future of Greenland – and, for all the sound and fury, that remains the most likely outcome – who will ever trust the US to honor its NATO obligations to protect its European allies?
The prime minister said in Downing Street on Monday: “Coalitions endure because they are built on respect and partnership, not under pressure. The use of tariffs against allies is completely wrong.”
By pressuring his friends — openly and brazenly — Trump has fundamentally weakened the transatlantic alliance. Soviet leaders always knew that if they attacked a NATO ally, they would find themselves in a war with the US, which they could not win. Peace itself depended on that faith. Why should Putin believe now?
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