'Living in some other century': Ex-diplomat blasts Trump's wild claims at NATO summit

Trump Treats Alliance Security Like a Joke, Because He CanThe Source, BrieflyA former U.S. ambassador to NATO and China used a CNN appearance to say Donald Trump is wrong to dismiss Russia as a threat and wrong to talk about the Atlantic Ocean as if geography still guarantees safety. Nick Burns also said Trump speaks about NATO as though Europe has not changed, while CNN pointed to drones and modern warfare as proof that the old distance-based fantasy is dead.Power Is Not the CommentatorThe central fact is not that a former diplomat objected. It is that the sitting president is the one with real institutional power over U.S. foreign policy, alliance signaling, and military posture. Burns can criticize Trump on television. Trump can shape what the United States says to NATO allies, what he treats as a threat, and what he chooses to ignore.That is the political meaning here: a president is using the authority of his office to perform strategic illiteracy as if it were judgment.The Ocean Is Not a DoctrineTrump’s line about “the ocean in between us” is not just outdated. It is an admission that he is thinking in a pre-drone, pre-missile, pre-networked-warfare frame while occupying the most powerful office in the country. Burns was blunt that this is not the century we live in.The problem is bigger than a bad quote. It is a governing instinct that treats distance as defense and history as optional. That is exactly the kind of thinking that leaves allies exposed and adversaries emboldened.NATO Has Moved. Trump Has Not.Burns pointed to something Trump conveniently leaves out: European NATO countries have increased spending on military infrastructure. That matters because it undercuts the lazy caricature of a static, dependent Europe. The alliance has adapted; Trump is the one stuck in a stale script.This is not confusion. It is selective blindness. He talks as if NATO is frozen in the past because that lets him play the strongman in a world he refuses to study.The Real Breach Is PoliticalBurns also noted Trump’s personal abuse toward NATO leaders, including the Italian prime minister, and said no previous American president behaved that way. That is not a minor breach of etiquette. It is an erosion of the basic political work of alliance leadership: credibility, continuity, and restraint.Trump’s insult politics are not accidental noise around policy. They are part of the policy. He substitutes humiliation for strategy, and then calls the wreckage strength.What This Actually RevealsThe deeper pattern is simple: authoritarian politics depends on making deliberate damage look like temperament, and strategic sabotage look like personality. Trump does not need to persuade everyone that Russia is harmless. He only needs to keep turning alliance management into spectacle while he weakens the norms that make collective defense usable.The scandal is not that one former ambassador said Trump was wrong. The scandal is that a president can treat NATO as an object for personal contempt while much of the political class debates tone instead of power. Get full access to Systemic Error at paulstsmith.substack.com/subscribe