Responsible European, just like any responsible state policy at this time, should prepare for the next American administration. For Europe, it is vital to maintain a strong partnership with the USA, whether it is the administration of Donald Trump and J. D. Vance starting in January next year, which currently seems certain, or the Democrats if they manage to retain the White House after Joe Biden withdraws from the presidential race with the likely presidential candidate Kamala Harris. This applies equally or even more so to Croatia. Because the USA still holds the key to regional stability in the Western Balkans, which has become one of the key European crisis and potentially war hotspots due to Russian influence and the ‘Serbian world’ policy as its extended arm, with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and more recently Montenegro as permanent neuralgic points.
Nothing new
When it comes to the overall transatlantic relations between Europe and America, I do not see any shocking changes, no matter how much it may seem in the rhetoric of the election campaign, especially Trump-Vance’s, that drastic changes are coming. The USA has been and will remain, through NATO, the defensive guardian of Europe. However, the trend for the past decade has been for Europe to strengthen its neglected military capacities, to increase military budgets, and to take a larger share in its own defense, so that the USA can focus on the Indo-Pacific region and stop Chinese expansion. This trend of strengthening European military potentials will continue, regardless of which administration is in the White House. Countries that know how to take advantage of this will profit from the development of the military industry.
—
—
However, if Trump returns to the White House, the USA will not exit NATO nor abolish it, but will insist more firmly on financial discipline and contributions from member states. It will not relinquish American leadership in Europe, whose political power was evident when it was necessary to unite NATO and the EU in support of Ukraine. There is no need to fear that Donald Trump will hand Ukraine over to Putin. After all, wasn’t he the one during his presidency who warned about Europe’s gas dependence on Russia, about neglected defense capacities, and pushed the ‘Three Seas’ initiative aimed at strengthening Central Europe and becoming a bulwark against Russian influence? However, Trump has the political strength to become a broker of some compromise and unfinished peace between Russia and Ukraine, a peace without winners and losers, at a time when the situation on the ground has long been frozen, the war actors tired, just like his financiers. And this without the illusion that this ends the politics of creating a ‘Russian world’.
