The Nuclear Risks of Trump's Alliance with Putin

Trump is dismantling our protections against Russia, shattering the Western Alliance and plunging us into a dark and uncertain nuclear future.

Dear Readers: I was traveling all last week and did not post. On Monday, I did an “emergency episode” on the Deep State Radio network with its founder and host David Rothkopf and Federation of American Scientists Director of Global Risk Jon Wolfsthal. I thought that I would expand in this post my comments from this episode, bringing in the excellent points raised by David and Jon. You can watch the full, 30-minute episode by clicking below.

Most political and media attention over the past six weeks has been on the domestic chaos Donald Trump is creating by his destruction of vital government programs and of the checks and balances carefully built-in to the American political system. But the national security and foreign policy damage may be much more serious. It is not just his tariffs. Trump is strategically re-aligning America “to effectively become an ally of Russia,” as David Rothkopf says, “and to become an adversary to our traditional allies in Europe.”

No serious security analysis, no war game, no foreign policy conference has ever considered the question of what happens in the world if America “switches sides.” But that is exactly what is happening now. What does this mean for our nuclear security?

It is not just what Trump did last Friday at the White House, where he and JD Vance ambushed Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. From day one of his administration, every step he's taken has been beneficial to Putin and detrimental to the national security of the United States. The very first acts of new Attorney General Pam Bondi, for example, were to disband the Foreign Influence Task Force, a unit dedicated to enforcing the Foreign Agents Registrations Act, and to disband Task Force Kleptocapture, that enforces sanctions against Russian oligarchs. Most recently, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth effectively surrendered in the cyber war with Russia by shutting down all cyber operations against Russia.

Rothkopf detailed the long list of pro-Putin moves at the beginning of our podcast. Rachel Maddow also did an excellent job on her March 3 episode, which I highly recommend. You can watch it here, or listen to the podcast here.

Trump’s betrayal of Ukraine is part of this pattern. Ukraine is an obstacle to the strategic partnership that Trump wants with Putin and other autocratic powers. So, he wants to end the war. His “peace” will force Ukraine’s surrender while Putin makes no concessions at all.

Trump Betrays Ukraine and America

A nation cannot take these steps, cannot make this shift, cannot switch sides and still maintain the basic institutions and frameworks created after World War II and that all presidents have continued and expanded for some 80 years.

Part of those frameworks are the agreements, treaties and institutions that have prevented the spread of nuclear weapons around the world. This is why what Trump is doing is so dangerous for one of our greatest threats — the possibility that more countries will get nuclear weapons, thus increasing the chances that somebody will use nuclear weapons and conflicts will escalate to a global nuclear war.

I was struck by this when I saw Yale historian Tim Snyder write last week that should Russia be allowed to prevail, should Ukraine be defeated, then “nuclear weapons will spread around the world, both to those who wish to bluff with them” - the way Putin has done in his war on Ukraine - “and those who will need them to resist these bluffs.”

He is right. Here is why. For over seven decades, there been two basic frameworks that have stopped the spread of nuclear weapons in Europe. One is NATO, founded in 1949, that provided positive security assurance to Europe. America assured European NATO members that if they were attacked, the United States would defend them, including with our nuclear weapons. So, these countries did not need to get their own nuclear weapons. America would protect them.

That extended deterrence, as it is called, was not, by itself, enough to stop countries from considering their own nuclear arsenals. The United Kingdom got nuclear weapons in 1952 and France in 1960 despite the security assurances. Another framework was needed: the arms control and disarmament commitments embodied in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), negotiated in 1968 and ratified by the Senate under Richard Nixon in 1970.

That treaty and the associated mechanisms provided the diplomatic and legal framework that assured countries that if they choose not to get nuclear weapons, they would be part of the international norm. The future will be based on collective, non-nuclear security. Those countries with nuclear weapons promised to negotiate their reduction and elimination, and those without them promised not to get them. This gave countries the assurance that if they did not get nuclear weapons, their neighbors would not either.

So, a country like Sweden, for example, that had a nuclear weapons program, was not part of NATO, only gave up its program up in 1968 after the NPT was negotiated.

Those two basic frameworks are now at risk. NATO clearly, and the entire nonproliferation regime, so dependent on US commitments, is likely to be one of the next dominoes to fall. As these frameworks crumble, all nuclear-capable countries will have to consider their options. We are likely to see the same kinds of debates now in Europe and in Asia as we saw in the 1950s and 1960s: Should we go nuclear or not?

A good illustration of the problem can be found in the first comprehensive national intelligence assessment of the risk of nuclear proliferation done for the Eisenhower administration in 1958. The “Development of Nuclear Capabilities in Fourth Countries: Likelihood and Consequences” assessed that 16 nations had the ability to produce nuclear weapons. Twelve were in Europe.

The collective impact of NATO’s security assurances and sweeping arms control and disarmament efforts, including President John F. Kennedy’s Limited Test Ban Treaty and the NPT, had a real impact. NIEs in 1963, 1964 and 1966 confirmed a steady decrease in the number of likely or possible new nuclear states. The 1958 assessment judged five states as likely to develop nuclear weapons, four as possible and seven as possible but unlikely. But, the analysts found that if disarmament efforts faltered, if the global security changed, if several states did go nuclear, then many mores states might take the leap. These were not “outlaw states,” but developed nations including Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, West Germany and Japan.

Trump’s shift to an alliance with Putin is a geopolitical earthquake. His shifts are exactly the kind of dramatic changes in global security that will - once again - force all nations to asses their nuclear futures. He has already terminated one of our most powerful national security tools, our foreign assistance that encourages scores of nations to forge good relationships with America. I have no doubt that he will soon take an ax to U.S. diplomatic influence, including shrinking or eliminating the State Department’s non-proliferation department. Trump’s proposal for a continuing resolution to prevent a government shutdown foreshadows his intentions: it includes dramatic cuts to the Department of Energy’s non-proliferation programs.

Intense, unprecedented discussions are already beginning in Europe. Germany’s likely next Chancellor, Friedrich Merz said last week that“My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA.” Since Hitler’s defeat, no German leader has ever said anything like that. But, under Trump, we are no longer that America. As the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said “the free world needs a new leader.” She made her statement as Europe’s leaders rallied around Zelensky this weekend. French President Emmanuel Macron has offered to discuss having his nation’s arsenal of 290 nuclear weapons serve as a Euro deterrent force.

Having French or British nuclear weapons pledged in defense of democratic Europe might not be enough. Consider the dilemma of eastern European nations. If Putin prevails in Ukraine, he we certainly pursue his territorial ambitions with Moldova, the Baltic States and Poland. He will certainly make new demands on all of Europe, backed by veiled or direct nuclear threats. These nations might be able to rely on a French nuclear umbrella now, but what if far-right leader Marine Le Pen becomes president? She has already said that “French defense must remain French defense.”

Every single European nation on that 1958 list, plus Canada, is likely having internal discussions at some level about their nuclear options. It would be irresponsible not to.

Trump’s shift to Putin plunges us back to the dark world that President Kennedy warned us about and helped prevent: “I ask you to stop and think for a moment what it would mean to have nuclear weapons in so many hands, in the hands of countries large and small, stable and unstable, responsible and irresponsible, scattered throughout the world. There would be no rest for anyone then, no stability, no real security, and no chance of effective disarmament. There would only be the increased chance of accidental war, and an increased necessity for the great powers to involve themselves in what otherwise would be local conflicts.’

Trump is dragging us back to this terrible, uncertain future.