Trump, the end of MAD, the beginning of madness

That the return of Trump to  the White House has dire implications for European security is widely recognised and much discussed. Ukraine deprived of American support will be forced into subservience to Russia, possibly leaving a free rump around Lviv but obliged to remain outside NATO  and the EU and to be disarmed and therefore, obliged to respect Moscow’s further demands, whatever they may be. Putin will move on to the next stage of his endless war against the West, cold, semi fredo or hot. Possibly the next focus will be Moldova, or demands  for a land corridor into Kalingrad (Danzig, anyone?), or campaigns about Russians in the Baltic states, or more underhand shenanigans in the Baltic Sea, or maybe the arrival of russian troops in Slovakia and  Hungary - by invitation, of course. What is absolutely certain is that Putin will be much emboldened by the arrival of Trump and NATO much weakened.

No doubt Ukraine's European allies will continue to support it even after American wothdr\wal.  But who are those allies? Not Turkey certainly. Hungary and Slovakia are pro Putin. In France, Germany, and Italy there are large and growing minorities up both left wing pacifists and right wing appeasers of Putin, the difference between the two categories not always clear. Only Britain, Poland, the Baltic states and Scandinavian countries are absolutely firm against Russian aggression. That makes the olds look very favourable to Putin, since unlike these European states he does not care about his casualties and does not care about the economic consequences for his own people and is also prepared to take enormous risks.

What I've not seen so far is any discussion about the impact of all this on deterrence theory. From nearly a  century a precarious  nuclear peace has been based on MAD, the theory of Mutually Assured Destruction. According to MAD, no nuclear country dares initiating nuclear war against another,  because even if they strike first, the other country may have  enough nuclear power left to wnsure the destruction of the aggressor  state. (This applies not just for the US versus Russia or China or North Korea, but also India versus Pakistan. It doesn't hold for Israel versus Iran until Iran becomes a nuclear force of its own but then Israel seems to be winning hands down using conventional force). Admittedly a number of world leaders including Putin and blank and Trump at the beginning of his first term,  have suggested they might in some circumstances consider first use. Nevertheless the nuclear peace has held.

The return of Trump to the White House casts  MAD in doubt. Trump's vice president is a vociferous  advocate of American isolationism. Trump himself has already threatened not to honour his NATO  commitment for countries who he thinks aren't spending enough on their own defence.

Imagine a Trump world in which the US has  withdrawn either formally or implicitly from his NATO  commitments, perhaps withdrawn troops from Europe, and Europe itself is much divided between pro and anti Russian states. Imagine pressure from Russia on the anti Russian states to give way,   including the UK –  and Putin hates the UK more than any other country. It might be about continued support for Ukraine or intervention in  Moldova or any other flashpoints of the kind of I’ve described. Suppose there in such circumstance Putin either openly or more likely implicitly threatens first use. We would then know that there was considerable doubt whether America would reply with a nuclear attack on Russia if Russia had launched a nuclear attack on us, particularly if it was just one smallish bomb say on Faslane. And we would know that Putin would know this. And Putin would know that we knew this. In such circumstances the UK government would have to consider the possibility that the only deterrent available was the single UK submarine on patrol. One sub must be extremely vulnerable to concentrated Russian attempts to destroy it. Supposing it were destroyed. There would then be no deterrent at all. UK governments would have to concede to whatever the Russian demands were or face the possibility of a nuclear assault in which it had no nuclear allies at all right  (I'm discounting the French of course] .

My point is not that these nuclear exchanges would actually happen – likely not - but that all parties would realise that they could happen. Whereas  now at the moment such a scenario  is not conceivable, becauses of MAD, which is underwritten by the  US. In other words, the second coming of Trump threatens the end of MAD. And in the circumstances  of Europe at the moment, that gives enormous power to the fascist leader in the Kremlin – wiithout his having to fire a shot.

 I don't think we've begun to think about that. We should.