NATO, Ukraine and UK Defence Policy under a potential Trump Presidency

24 July 2024 | By: Dr Katharine A.M. Wright | 4 min read

Sir Keir Starmer and Joe Biden sit with other delegates at the NATO Summit.

With the US presidential elections looming, Dr Katharine Wright, Senior Lecturer in International Politics, explores how a Trump presidency might impact NATO’s future and the strategic positioning of the UK, particularly under its newly elected Labour government.

NATO’s 2024 Summit and its significance

The NATO Summit in Washington DC in July 2024 gave us an insight into how the next few months in international and US politics will shape up. It was significant not just for the Alliance, and the commitments made to Ukraine, but for US and UK Politics. It also underscored how defending democratic values is key to defeating Russia.

The war in Ukraine unsurprisingly dominated the Summit. While the headline outcome was the $40 billion annual support package allies committed to, this fell short of the five-year support package the outgoing NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg hoped allies would sign up for. It also glossed over division within the Alliance. Hungary, for example, had held off endorsing Stoltenberg’s successor as Secretary General, Mark Rutte (who has just stood down as Prime Minister of the Netherlands), until agreement was reached between Stoltenberg and Hungarian President Victor Orbán, which Rutte committed to upholding, on an opt- out for Hungary vis a vis support for Ukraine:

‘What the prime minister and I have agreed today is that Hungary will not block other allies to agree a pledge for financial support for Ukraine and for a leading role for NATO in coordinating the support for Ukraine.’

The challenge to maintain NATO cohesion at a time when a number of member states are rejecting democratic values and embracing the Far Right, notably Italy, Hungary, Slovakia and Turkey, is a significant one that Rutte will face when he becomes Secretary General this October. The rise of the Far Right more broadly across Europe, in the EU elections and at a national level, for example in France, is a further test to say nothing of a possible Trump presidency.

NATO’s policy on women, peace and security: a broader commitment

Added to this, the fact that Russia’s war is one fought not just on Ukrainian territory but against such NATO values, including democracy and gender equality, makes it important to examine some of the wider outcomes of the Summit beyond ‘hard’ defence commitments. It is therefore highly significant that one of the headline outcomes of the Summit was the endorsement by Heads of State of the revised NATO Policy on Women, Peace and Security. This matters because it demonstrates a commitment to viewing women’s security as tantamount to NATO’s security. As US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said of the policy:

‘This is not just a women’s issue. It’s a national security issue, an economic issue, and yes, a moral issue as well – including for NATO, which was built on a shared commitment to defend liberty, to defend democracy, to defend the rule of law.’

The policy was updated to reflect the current security environment, notably in relation to its applicability in respect to defence and deterrence, and introduced the concept of technology-facilitated gender based violence (TFGBV) to NATO’s lexicon. Gender disinformation, which targets women in different ways to men, has been a key weapon Russia has used to wage the war. NATO Public Opinion Research shows women are less trustful, knowledgeable and supportive of the Alliance than men and therefore more susceptible to disinformation. Added to this Russia has sought to sow discord in attacking democratic values by targeting the LGBTQ community through disinformation.

The impact of the upcoming US Presidential elections on NATO and Ukraine

The future outcome for Ukraine, and for ending Russia’s war more broadly, rests on the outcome of the November 2024 US Presidential elections. Of course, those in the US viewed the NATO Summit as a test of Biden’s ability to run for the presidency, and whether he could recover from his dismal performance in the previous week’s debate. The answer was clear during a speech at the Summit, where he introduced President Zelensky of Ukraine as ‘President Putin’ and referred to Vice-President Kamala Harris as ‘Vice-President Trump’.

Now Biden has stood aside, and with the prospect of a Trump presidency not inconceivable, NATO and the UK need to be smart in how they position themselves. The addition of JD Vance to the ticket, an ardent supporter of an ‘America First’ approach, has effectively sent notice that US support for Ukraine would end and Europe would bear responsibility for it. While Vance’s position on NATO is more nuanced than headlines suggest, a likely US pivot to the Indo-Pacific would leave NATO scrambling for relevance. As Vance stated at the Munich Security Conference:

‘I don’t think that we should pull out of NATO, and no, I don’t think that we should abandon Europe.’

The UK's Strategic Defence Review

For the UK, the NATO Summit came just a few days after the election of the new Labour government. Keir Starmer, David Lammy (Foreign Secretary) and John Healey (Defence Secretary) were keen to reiterate the UK’s longstanding support for Ukraine at the Summit and through bilateral meetings in DC. This has been a defining feature of UK foreign policy since 2022 and the UK is acknowledged by Ukraine as one of its most stalwart supporters. The UK is also ahead of the curve in committing to reach 2.5% GDP on Defence, something agreed under the Sunak government, and continued under Labour, though Starmer has sensibly refused to cave to pressure to put a timeline on achieving it. This overall commitment, however, can be perceived as a pragmatic move, particularly if a Trump presidency were to become a reality.

In this light, the announcement of a Strategic Defence Review led by Lord Robertson with support from Dr Fiona Hill and General Sir Richard Barrons is significant. The team are reflective of how the government views the world with a former NATO Secretary General (Robertson) at the lead, a Russia expert and former US National Security Advisor who testified against Trump in his indictment (Hill) and a General who has spoken about the "serious risk" of Ukraine losing the war this year (Barrons).

The focus is very much on European security through NATO. Robertson is a heavyweight within the Labour Party and could use this position to push the Treasury to support their plans, though he stood down from NATO over 20 years ago in a very different geopolitical world. Hill and Barrons’ addition suggests the war in Ukraine is likely to come to a head.

The Europe focus also indicates an end to Tory aspirations of a post-Brexit ‘Global Britain’, with reach into the Indo-Pacific unlikely. Thus recognising the reality that the UK is a middle power, which outside of the European Union has lost a significant part of its influence in the world. NATO then, is a potential space in which the UK can punch above its weight particularly in its unwavering support for Ukraine and through efforts to seek to bring an end to the war.