Robert Delaney

On Balance | Why Trump’s Republicans are deaf to Nato’s cry for Ukraine support

It’s no surprise the Nato secretary general’s trip to Washington to rally support finds no traction with the US right-wing, whose real enemy is the liberal order, not Putin or Xi

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A musician plays the guitar near Russian combat cars, destroyed by the Ukrainian army, that are on display at Mykhailivska Square, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on February 4. Nato believes that Ukraine must prevail as a sovereign independent nation and that Russia must be made to realise that the cost of trying to control Ukraine is too high. Photo: EPA-EFE

Robert Delaney

Published: 7:30pm, 5 Feb 2024

“In 2022, deterrence did fail.” That was the assessment that Victoria Coates, a former deputy national security adviser to former US president Donald Trump, threw at Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg about Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine in a discussion at her think tank, The Heritage Foundation, last week.

Stoltenberg’s chat with Coates was one of his final public appearances after several days in Washington to deliver a dire message: China’s economic and rhetorical support for Russia is connected to the likelihood of an attack by People’s Liberation Army on Taiwan. If Russian President Vladimir Putin prevails in Ukraine, he warned, Chinese President Xi Jinping will be emboldened to take Taipei.

Stoltenberg had to explain to Coates that Ukraine isn’t a Nato member. To those unfamiliar with the rhetoric of the American far-right these days, it must have appeared odd that someone with her background didn’t know this.

She does know, as does everyone else at The Heritage Foundation, which in recent years has dedicated itself to throwing fuel into the fires of the American culture war and preparing a blueprint for a right-wing takeover of the US government through its Project 2025.

Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts knows. “It was our sabre-rattling about Ukraine entering Nato that is one of the many factors that led to this,” he said in a recent New York Times interview, referring to Putin’s invasion.

This contention that we shouldn’t make any moves that might disturb Putin is exactly what Stoltenberg was trying to bury during his many appearances in the US, where Republicans are pushing the narrative that President Joe Biden is responsible for the terror that the Russian leader is unleashing.