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00:00Let's go to Washington, because the Trump administration released a significant document in the early hours of Friday morning.
00:05Without fanfare, press conference, just solely an update on the White House website.
00:10It is a newly published US national security strategy now being scrutinised by diplomats around the world.
00:1633 pages setting out the Trump administration's vision to, quote,
00:20ensure America remains the world's strongest, richest, most powerful, successful country for the decades to come.
00:26In order to get it right, all Americans need to know what exactly it is we're trying to do, it says.
00:32It critiques what the president calls past globalist policies, overextended US resources,
00:37and it introduces the concept of, quote, Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.
00:42Well, the Monroe Doctrine goes back to the 1830s and President James Monroe,
00:46who opposed interference in the Western Hemisphere, that is North and South America,
00:50spelling out the American continent was off limits to outside interference.
00:55Well, this is being revised.
00:57Another core priority in the security strategy is titled The Era of Mass Migration is Over,
01:03asserting that past Western experience shows it's strained domestic resources,
01:08increased violence and undermined national security.
01:11And there's a section, too, on the reframing of relations with each continent,
01:14which comes with a damning critique of Europe, where it cites economic decline
01:18being eclipsed by the prospects of civilisational erasure and that the EU and other transnational bodies undermine political liberty,
01:26migration policies and censor free speech.
01:29It predicts that at the current rate, the continent will be unrecognisable in 20 years or less.
01:35Now, this US policy going forward, it says, should include, quote,
01:39cultivating resistance to Europe's current trajectory and be separate yet connected on Ukraine
01:45to bring about a speedy cessation and hostilities and prevent an expansion of the war.
01:50Let's cross to Washington.
01:51We can bring in Don Jensen, a US foreign policy expert specialising in Russian security and disinformation.
01:58Don's a former US diplomat negotiating on US, Soviet and Russian arms control treaties in the 80s and 90s
02:04and also associate fellow of the Gino Germani Institute for Social Sciences and Strategic Studies.
02:08Great to have you on the programme tonight.
02:09Welcome to France 24, Don.
02:11Well, thank you for having me.
02:12Thank you for having me.
02:13Great to have you.
02:14Let's also bring in Leo Michel, US defence policy expert specialising in NATO and European defence relations as well,
02:19former CIA analyst, senior fellow at the think tank, the Institute for National Strategic Studies.
02:24Good to speak to you too as well tonight.
02:28Let's begin, both of you, with the extent to which this document is a surprise,
02:33what it tells us about President Trump's rhetoric and what goes further.
02:38Don.
02:41Well, I think the reaction has been notably and remarkably different depending on which side of the Atlantic you live in.
02:48And for, at least for myself, this is not a surprise so much as a putting together of a lot of the Trump administration's foreign policy impulses over the past year.
02:59We should have seen it coming.
03:01And to some extent, we intuitively knew this was coming.
03:04But it's a very interesting document.
03:06I disagree with a significant part of it.
03:08And we can talk about that.
03:10But in Europe, I think this was a wake-up call that the era, the year, the months of trying to manipulate President Trump to get a foreign policy outcome that they want is now over.
03:23The call is really for Europe to stand up, Europe to respond if they can.
03:28And whether they can do that, I think, is to be seen.
03:30And I think that's why it's been such a shock.
03:32Because we have to no longer, Europe has to no longer talk about Trump and where the continent seems to be going.
03:38It needs to take action.
03:40And now we have to see whether they do so.
03:42Well, you hinted to it, Don.
03:44Talk us through the bits you disagree with.
03:46Well, I'm an Atlanticist with grandparents from Europe.
03:54And I grew up and served in a U.S. administration, in plural, which believed in the value of the North Atlantic alliance, the value of strength.
04:05And above all, something which is not mentioned at all very much in the document, is the threat that Russia poses not only to Europe's security, but to U.S. security.
04:16That, I think, is a major shift from past administrations, including the first Trump administration.
04:21For me, this marks a change in the way U.S. addresses the world, pursues its interests.
04:29And that has been a major, major change from the continuity since 1989 and 1991, when the wall fell and when the Soviet Union dissolved.
04:38That is now, I think, it's time for a different approach.
04:41Certainly, the Trump administration wants a different approach.
04:44Whether it works is to be seen.
04:47Leo, just listening to Don, particularly when it comes to Don's talk of Europe and the very different strategy prioritizing, in all senses, Leo, appears to be business relations with Russia.
04:58We've seen that in the rhetoric, but in writing, in the vision, it's about basically, if we cut to the chase, Europe needs to get over its Russia problem, is essentially the message, isn't it?
05:07That Ukraine needs to be sorted swiftly, otherwise this will be of detriment to, existentially, to Europe itself.
05:14Well, I agree very much with Don's assessment here.
05:20First of all, the national security strategy is supposed to be a serious document.
05:25It has various audiences.
05:27One audience is the U.S. government.
05:29The bureaucracy, really, to set the tone and, in the past, with some detail on what American interests are and how we would pursue them.
05:39It's very different, as Don mentioned, from even Trump won his first administration, this very heavy emphasis on America first, the comments on Europe, which, frankly, to me, resemble very much what Viktor Orban would say, not any of President Trump's predecessors.
06:01And I also share, sadly, I share the assessment that this should not be a surprise.
06:08We had a foretaste of this with the Vice President, J.D. Vance's speech in Munich in February, which I found very shocking, very aggressive, very wrong.
06:20And he followed it up, as you know, with meetings with the AFD in Germany.
06:23They were highly publicized.
06:25And this constitutes a type of, I could say, right-wing interference or right-wing support for right-wing elements in Europe that are very surprising and, personally, to me, very disconcerting to see in the document that, as I said, should be a serious document.
06:44I would go one step further than Don, and that is that I saw no critical word, not one, in this national security strategy of the actions of the long-term strategy of Russia.
07:00Russia, let's face it, Russia, let's face it, is the aggressor in Ukraine.
07:05Russia could stop the war today or tomorrow by stopping its assaults of hundreds of drone attacks and dozens of ballistic missile attacks every day on Ukraine.
07:20So I have grave concerns about this U.S. diplomatic push, if you can call it diplomatic push.
07:27But in the longer term, this national security strategy, despite the throwaway phrase on the importance of alliances, I think will do much to confirm European doubts about the confidence it can place in this administration, at least, in terms of the capability and political will to work together as an alliance to safeguard transatlantic defence and security interests.
07:53We talk about Europe because Europe comes in for a hell of a blunt set of critiquing.
08:00Don, just listening to Leo's point, one thing that I would say is, is a part of what President Trump's administration, this vision they're setting out, is true?
08:09Is getting to a point in Europe where there are parties, there are governments in power that are wrestling, particularly on this higher gender issue of migration?
08:16We've seen in the U.K. Keir Starmer referring to the problems of Britain, his new Home Secretary, Shibana Mood, saying it's actually, this is an existential problem for the U.K.
08:27Are they hitting on something as well that does get close to the problem?
08:32How do you see it?
08:33Well, I do, I do.
08:37One of the interesting things about the document is the way that its comments on Europe in particular mirror, to some extent, the concerns of the MAGA base here in the United States.
08:49We talk about immigration all the time here in the U.S.
08:51One of the many remarkable things about this document is that they are now reaching out and essentially tell the Europeans, with whom we have many cultural and political affinities, of course, telling the Europeans how to govern their own countries.
09:06And that's really not isolationism as we classically understood it in graduate school.
09:11It's really quite something else.
09:13And again, what Leo said about the Russia issue is very true.
09:17And one of the remarkable things about the document, about the entire Trump approach to Russia, has been the extent to which the Kremlin narrative, the Kremlin, frankly, propaganda, disinformation approach strategy, has taken root in the minds of some Western leaders.
09:35The issue of commercial activity over values, which Leo just talked about.
09:40The issue, frankly, of the Russian narrative about narrative and the way the war began.
09:45This is what what some people worryingly say is, frankly, the Kremlin point of view.
09:51It's not factually true.
09:53And while everybody has the right to their opinion, as my old mentor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, said, they don't have the right to their facts.
09:59And this in that sense, this report rests on a house of cards.
10:03It's simply not true.
10:04And that doesn't argue well for the success of the implementation of some of the things it recommends.
10:09I think it's notable, Don and Leo, that there are no major European leaders that have spoken publicly about this, not given their assessment.
10:19We have heard from the High Commissioner on Foreign Affairs for the EU.
10:22Let's have a listen to Kaya Callas.
10:24You know, the US is still our biggest ally.
10:29And there, I read it as well, that we are still the biggest ally.
10:34And it's in the interest of the United States as well, that Europe lasts.
10:40And that we are really still the ally and working together for these things.
10:47I think we haven't always seen eye to eye on different topics, but I think the overall principle is still there.
10:55We are the biggest allies and we should stick together.
10:59So that's Kaya Callas.
11:01Leo, interesting.
11:01This is the reaction from Carlo Calenda, who is a senator, a central senator in Italy, saying this, quote,
11:08America is officially an adversary of democratic Europe.
11:13Europe needs to work out a way to disengage and disengagement in terms of its approach to NATO.
11:21That is clear the way that Europe is being put out on its own.
11:27What's your sense of what this means for NATO relations?
11:30We've had this conversation a lot.
11:32Is Europe not getting the message?
11:34Well, I'm afraid it's gotten a very bad message from this administration, really.
11:44I mean, I have not served in this administration.
11:46I retired from government in 2015.
11:49But someone who has, who is one of the most prominent experts in this country on Russia, is Fiona Hill.
11:57And Fiona Hill was a member of the National Security Council staff in the first Trump administration.
12:04And witnessed a number of things, including this very terrible meeting, a summit meeting that President Trump had with President Putin in Helsinki in 2018.
12:16And when the first 28-point peace plan was released leaked to the press, and that's how European leaders found out about it, she said quite forthrightly that this constitutes a betrayal of Ukraine and of Ukraine's confidence in the United States.
12:37It also constitutes a betrayal of Ukraine and of its faith that the U.S. was committed to collective security in Europe.
12:47And sadly, I have to agree with her assessment.
12:51I don't think that NATO is fated to fall apart.
12:57I don't think this is predetermined.
13:00But I think that these types of actions and statements, the way it's conducted, the negotiations with Ukraine, the way Europe is portrayed in this National Security Council, National Security Strategy, I'm afraid it's doing serious and long-term, long-term damage to our relations with NATO.
13:24And I would add to this, some of this, some of this is even institutional.
13:29We've seen effects on the role of the U.S. military.
13:34We've seen the purging, really, of experienced nonpartisan civil servants in the defense agencies and in the intelligence agencies in ways that are going to be very, very difficult to replace in the near term.
13:50And many of those people were experts, nonpartisan experts, and devoted to a strong transatlantic relationship.
13:59I simply don't see that having the upper hand in this administration.
14:05And I see, unfortunately, a very ideological, ideologically right-wing, tempted towards non-intervention, except in perhaps more and more in Latin America, where we always have harmonious relations, sometimes difficult, but more harmonious.
14:28Harking back now to the Monroe Doctrine and the Trump corollary, this is setting things back.
14:33Well, my last point in all of this is that the American soft power is having a terrible time now.
14:40Just look at the scenes of what the U.S. is doing with regard to forcing out undocumented immigrants in the United States, rounding them up often by mistake American citizens.
14:54And the whole controversy over the Secretary of Defense, Mr. Hegseth, and his conduct of alleged anti-drug boat strikes in the Caribbean and in the Eastern Pacific.
15:08This is not doing very good service to really the brave and honourable men and women of the U.S. Armed Services.
15:17It's a very interesting point. Don, Leo talks about the Monroe Doctrine.
15:22The Monroe Doctrine, according to the Trump security strategy, is all in vogue at the moment.
15:27If you look at the Zenn diagram of words, that probably comes out one of the top words, talking about this new corollary, this new version of the Monroe Doctrine.
15:35Is it a thing in the U.S., Don? Is it something that the administration and administrations gone by have talked about, this idea going back to the former president, James Monroe, and protecting the continents of America?
15:50Because, of course, that also includes the influence from Russia and China, too, in Latin America.
15:56Well, I was very glad you mentioned the Monroe Doctrine, because very few people have this week, even here in Washington.
16:02Because what you're seeing really is not a classical isolationism in a way, as Leo just said.
16:08You're seeing a pulling back to the Western Hemisphere.
16:11I'm not sure that's at all viable in the current age, but it's a very interesting strategy, whereas a year and a half ago, we were talking about who's the greater threat, Russia or China.
16:21The focus then seemed to be on China.
16:24Events with Beijing have evolved to some extent in several directions at once.
16:28And now we're talking about maybe invading Venezuela.
16:31This is a very unsettling shift of priorities to happen so fast, with not a lot of public debate about it.
16:40So that's what I would say to your point.
16:43And, again, you have to realize, and I think it's easy to forget, that according to the polls, at least, and last week, most American Republicans support supporting Ukraine.
16:57Most Americans support a vigorous U.S. participation in NATO.
17:01But as Leo just said, that water in the river has already passed.
17:04So if it snaps back, it will have to snap back in a different way.
17:08And that, of course, means a more vigorous European engagement in NATO's activities.
17:14As Leo also said, and I agree, the alliance, I don't think, is about to fall apart.
17:18It's just that it's a victim of global forces, which it has not yet fully adapted to.
17:24And that's one of the main challenges in the years ahead.
17:27Very briefly, Don, you've dealt with Russian negotiators in the past.
17:30If you were sitting on the other side of the Atlantic, if you were in the Kremlin right now, what would you be thinking of this doctrine, of this strategic plan?
17:39Happy birthday.
17:40I think they're going right with the Kremlin.
17:42Is that for Leo or myself?
17:44No, for you, Don.
17:44OK, I think that they will probably assess this as going right where they will.
17:50They have the U.S. right where it wants to, which is to say you don't have to have a war in Europe.
17:54You just manipulate so-called hybrid power to get the adversary to go in the direction you want.
18:01And that's a pullback from Europe.
18:02That's a weakened NATO.
18:04That's a subjugated Ukraine.
18:06And that's what they want.
18:07They've not really changed their goals at all since the beginning of the war almost three or four years ago now.
18:12They have not really changed.
18:14What changes is their adaptability to developments on our side.
18:18And they're very good at that.
18:20They have by no means won because one of the things that's been ignored this week is Russia has a lot of military vulnerabilities and liabilities themselves.
18:28Those need to be exploited by the West.
18:30And we'll be able to do that better with a more cohesive, imaginative, and distinctive leadership, not only here, but especially now in Europe,
18:39because the ball, as they say in U.S. basketball, is now in their court.
18:43And that's where we have to go now.
18:44Don, Leo, great to talk to you both tonight.
18:47John Jensen, U.S. foreign policy expert, former U.S. diplomat, and also Leo as well,
18:53the associate fellow at the Gino Germani Institute of Social Sciences.
18:56Speak to you both again soon.
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