The specter of former President Donald Trump returning to the White House in January portends a cataclysmic shift in American foreign policy, with repercussions from Europe to Northeast Asia.
Let’s assume the former president would at least try to make good on his claim to be able to reach a deal for ending the war for Ukraine “in a day,” most likely by letting the Russians keep the territory they’ve taken in Ukraine. The other NATO nations, bereft of passionate U.S. support, would be on their own, diffused, divided and uncertain how strongly to prosecute the war.
The implications for Ukraine would parallel what might be far more devastating implications for Asia, where Trump still thinks he can make a deal with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. It's not likely that Trump would be deterred by the words of a recent North Korean commentary, obviously dictated by Kim, declaring that if "the political climate" in the U.S. "does not change," then "we do not care...The U.S. had better make a proper choice in the matter of how to deal with" North Korea.
Although another Trump-Kim summit would break the wall of silence between North Korea and the U.S., there’s no way Kim would give up his nuclear program. He would go on attacking his enemies rhetorically and demanding Trump cancel U.S.-South Korean war games, as Trump did after his first meeting with Kim in Singapore in June 2018.
More dangerously, Kim would also extract from Trump an agreement to reduce the number of U.S. troops in South Korea and, if possible, close vital American bases. South Korea’s armed forces are vastly stronger than they were 10 or 20 years ago, but their numbers are still less than half of the North’s 1.2 million troops. And the new defense treaty that Kim and Russia’s Vladimir Putin signed in June portends the Russians joining the North Koreans, were a second Korean War to break out.
We have no assurances, from all Trump has said, that he would rush to South Korea’s defense as Harry........