Donald Trump’s rift with Nato will leave the UK more vulnerable to Moscow’s hybrid warfare tactics and expose its European allies to direct Russian military action, experts have warned.
After repeatedly criticising Nato – which he described as a “paper tiger” – the US President said earlier this week he was “strongly considering” pulling the US out of the alliance over its refusal to join the war against Iran.
The remarks have plunged Britain’s 70-year special relationship with the US into uncertainty.
As The i Paper reported this week, UK security officials have begun withholding intelligence from their US counterparts, as Trump’s moves created “tensions and distrust” among European and American Nato colleagues.
The wedge between the two parties will also make the UK and its allies more susceptible to cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns and harm to critical British infrastructure under the sea from Russia, several experts and a former Nato official told The i Paper.
‘Cyber attacks, disinformation and drone incursions’
“Public friction in the relationship between the US-UK-Nato will always leave it open to Russia and its axis partners seeking to take the advantage,” said Melanie Garson, associate professor in international security and conflict resolution at UCL.
She explained that America is “still difficult to replace as an intelligence partner”, and growing distrust among its partners could create greater fragmentation within the EU, Nato and the Five Eyes intelligence alliance “that would hamper their internal co-operation without the US”.
“The most likely area that Russia will exploit is in the cyber and cognitive warfare realm, taking advantage of both the shifts in investment in the US into its cyber posture and the decline of co-ordination with allies,” Garson added.
She said that subversive Russian tactics could include disinformation campaigns, cyber attacks or interference with Britain’s underwater critical infrastructure.
“My sense would be it would be concentrated on attacks on cyber and cyber-physical infrastructure – subsea cables, jamming or the type of drone interference seen in Denmark.”
Luca Tardelli, associate professor in international relations at LSE, said Russia could go so far as to exploit the growing rift by launching a direct military attack on America’s Nato allies if doing so would not jeopardise US interests.
Tardelli framed the wedge between European Nato countries and the US as a “political rather than purely military” issue.
“First, Trump has made it clear that it is expecting the Europeans allies to take lead in dealing with conventional threats in Europe,” he said.
“Second, the administration’s continued threats and criticisms against Nato and Europe have raised significant doubts about US commitment.
“The credibility of US commitment to come to the defence of its allies is now being questioned. This is what Russia can exploit, either via acts short of war aimed at destabilising European countries or even via conventional operations in the future against Nato member states.”
Evie Aspinall, the director of the British Foreign Policy Group think-tank, also said that the alliance is “only as strong as its members’ commitment” to it, as well as their willingness to adhere to Article 5 of the Nato treaty, which suggests that an attack on one of its members is an attack on all, and obliges member states to assist the country under attack, including through the use of military force.
“President Trump’s trash-talking of Nato fundamentally undermines its influence and effectiveness and will embolden rivals such as Russia,” she added.
Europe’s bid to reduce its reliance on Russia
Luke Cooper, associate professorial research fellow in international relations at LSE, described Europe’s bid to become militarily independent from the US as a long-term trend that has been exacerbated by the Trump administration’s aversion to Nato.
“European states are already operating and taking initiatives independently of the United States,” he said. “The structure of Nato allows to a large degree this to occur.
“Even though the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe is always an American, and in this sense it is an explicitly US-led military pact, Nato countries have wide latitude to take their own multilateral initiatives.”
Cooper pointed to the example of Germany’s Lithuania brigade, which is the first brigade-size unit to be permanently deployed overseas since the Second World War. The primary purpose of the brigade was to provide added support to Baltic states in the face of growing Russian aggression.
“So, with Europe increasing its defence spending, we would expect to see more initiatives like this in anticipation of some form of partial American withdrawal from Europe,” he said. “And as you can also see from the UK-France multilateral initiative around the Strait of Hormuz, European states are also already taking diplomatic initiatives independently of the United States.”
Adrian Kendry, who served as a Nato senior defence economist between 2001 and 2014, told The i Paper that any continued reliance on the US could itself make the alliance appear weak in Putin’s eyes.
He said that keeping European Nato countries “reliant on US weapons, logistics, intelligence will provide some reassurance to Putin, who might be more concerned with Europeans strengthening their capabilities, organisation and co-operation”.
“Given the resilience of Ukraine and increasing sophistication and capabilities of Ukrainian defence, Trump might prefer to have Nato Europe dependent upon him and his increasingly chaotic Department of War rather than Europeans coalescing around Ukraine.
“Putin may prefer Nato to be a ‘paper tiger’,” he added.
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