Is Putin using Trump to kill Nato?

Russia is counting on US President Donald Trump to render the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) meaningless.

Russia appears to have started laying the groundwork for Nato’s demise with military deployment along its border with Finland — the nation joined Nato in 2023.

While the United States had been the driving force of Nato for generations, Trump has essentially withdrawn from the military alliance in his second term. On the campaign trail, he said that he would encourage Russia to invade Nato members and “do whatever the hell they want” if they would not do his bidding.

As Trump remains not just non-committal to Nato but outright hostile, the alliance’s basis of collective defence is under threat. It appears that Russia plans to needle Nato members in the coming years to erode the collective defence principle and render the alliance meaningless.

Russia ramps up military infra along Finland’s border

In recent months, Russia has ramped up military infrastructure and deployment along the 830 mile-long (1,336.75 kilometers) border with Finland, according to satellite imagery obtained and analysed by The New York Times.

The imagery shows row after row of tents, new warehouses for military vehicles, beefed up shelters for fighter plane, and construction at a helicopter base.

Once the intense war with Ukraine ends or slows down, Russia could redeploy several thousands of soldiers along with heavy equipment along Finland’s border to arm-twist Nato, according to analysts.

The Times reported Finnish government as saying that it has up to five years before Russia could amass forces across the border to threatening levels.

Other than the infrastructure described above, the satellite imagery also shows that Russia has also ramped up military presence and infrastructure in the general Arctic region near the border, according to the newspaper.

ALSO READ: 3 years of Ukraine war: Zelenskyy stands cornered and betrayed as Trump mainstreams Putin

Russian helicopters have returned to a base near the Artic port city of Murmansk after more than two decades. Dozens of fighter planes have been deployed at the Olenya air base in the same region. Both of these bases are within 200 kms of the border with Finland.

Another base just 64 kms from Finnish border, at a place called Kamenka, has more than a hundred new tents, as per satellite imagery.

“They are expanding their brigades into divisions, which means that the units near our borders will grow significantly — by thousands,” Emil Kastehelmi, an analyst with the Black Bird Group told The Times.

Can Putin render Nato meaningless with such moves?

To be sure, analysts do not expect Vladimir Putin to make a move now when Russia is completely engaged in the war in Ukraine.

However, once the war ends in Ukraine or goes into a low-intensity mode, Russia is bound to turn its attention to its other neighbours.

Trump has made it clear that he is not interested in a peace deal that ends the war respectably for Ukraine or deters Russia from further military invasions of Europe. In fact, in a call with Putin on Monday, he endorsed the Russian position on the war and, in a blow to Ukraine and its European partners, gave up his own call for a 30-day ceasefire.

It is not just on Ukraine that Trump and Putin are on the same page. They appear to be on the same page regarding Europe and the world at large too.

Putin invaded Ukraine out of his ideological commitment to the restoration of the sphere of influence that was lost with the fall of the Soviet Union. Trump believes in the same sphere of influence concept and the two leaders appear to have an understanding where Trump carves out his sphere in the Americas and Putin carves out his sphere in Europe. Hence Trump has abandoned Nato commitments in Europe and Putin is silent about US expansionism in Americas and Atlantic where Trump has announced he would annex Greenland island, Canada, and Panama Canal.

ALSO READ: In 100 days, Trump jolts settled ties and treaties to sow new global order

There are indications that European nations would hesitate to take military action against Russia without US support — even though the United Kingdom has been working on a ‘coalition of the willing’ to militarily support Ukraine, it has said it would not deploy soldiers to Ukraine without US support. Such US support would not be expected under Trump — or a successor who shares Trump’s worldview.

This would mean that Putin would need to mount incursions into smaller Nato members that share borders with Russia.

If these nations fail to respond on their own or fellow Nato nations fail to mobilise militarily to their defence under the collective defence principle, Nato would be essentially dead as there would be essentially no Nato without the collective defence principle, according to Jamie Metzl, a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council who previously served in the White House National Security Council.

“If Putin gets anything resembling a victory in Ukraine, what he is going to do next is to needle a Nato member, such as Lithuania, and even if Russia goes just 50 feet inside Lithuania, the country is understandably going to invoke Article 5. If Nato fails to mobilise in Lithuania’s support, then the collective defence principle of Nato would be dead and Putin would have defeated Nato with just a minor incursion with perhaps a small contingent of ‘little green men’ that he used in Crimea,” Metzl previously told Firstpost.

The build-up near Finland’s border appears to be a preparation for such needling that threatens to render Nato meaningless.