Hall Gardner is emeritus professor of international politics at the American University of Paris. This is the second in a two-part series on the project of NATO enlargement.
The Death of Arms Control
Much as the critics of NATO enlargement forewarned, nearly all US-Soviet-Russian arms control accords are now dead or dying―including the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe; the 1987 INF Treaty that Paul Nitze had helped to negotiate; and, perhaps most ominously, the New START treaty―which is set to expire on February 5, 2026.
The first Trump administration scuttled the INF Treaty on the advice of neoconservative national security adviser John Bolton. At the time, Trump accused Moscow (correctly) of developing a new intermediate range missile that violated the treaty. Trump then opted to tear up the INF Treaty instead of trying to revise it―in part because the treaty did not include the intermediate range missiles of North Korea, Iran or China. China’s missiles were increasingly seen by the Pentagon as a major threat―as China is now seen as a “peer competitor” with the US. Just after Trump’s decision to dump the INF Treaty, the Pentagon began testing new land based mid-range missiles using Mark 41 missile launchers.
By November 2024, in a major escalation of the Russia-Ukraine war, Moscow targeted its six-warhead intermediate range hypersonic Oreshnik missile (a weapon probably derived from the three stage RS-26 Rubezh) at facilities in the city of Dnipro. Ironically, Dnipro had been a center of Soviet missile production during the Cold War. Putin ordered this strike after the Biden administration had given into Ukrainian demands to use the US Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), a short-range ballistic missile, to strike targets on Russian territory―breaking yet another Russian “red line” at the risk of major power war.
Once it was clear that Moscow had begun to deploy land-based intermediate range missiles, thereby violating the INF treaty, the Biden administration , in conjunction with its partners in Berlin, planned a counter-deployment of conventionally armed ground-launched intermediate-range missiles in Germany, which will take place on a rotational basis beginning in 2026. These weapons are expected to include Tomahawk cruise missiles, the Standard Missile-6 (SM-6), and new classified weapons, such as Dark Eagle, that possess a significantly longer range than the ATACMS. American weapons will be replaced by similar Euromissiles sometime in the future: France, Germany, Italy and Poland have agreed to jointly develop a long-range missile system, called European Long-range Strike Approach (ELSA).
Biden’s Nuclear Employment Guidance had spoken of “the need to deter Russia, the PRC (China) and North Korea simultaneously.” This meant that the US not only planned to deploy war fighting intermediate range missiles in Germany, but in the Philippines and Guam (in order to target China and North Korea) as well. Russian positions in the Indo-Pacific likely also played a role in the deployment.
After Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s trip to Asia in March 2025, the Trump administration appeared to be following Biden’s missile deployment plans in the region―especially given the decision to deploy a second Typhon missile system in Philippines (with a range of 500 km to 2000 km) that is thought to be effective against China’s Dong Feng carrier-killer missiles (ASBM). In addition to the B-2 Stealth bomber deployments in Diego Garcia aimed at Iran, the Trump administration is also deploying F-35 and B-1B bombers in Japan.
If the Trump administration and the Europeans follow through on Biden’s intermediate range missile deployments in both Europe and the Indo-Pacific, the world may soon witness a new Euro-Indo-Pacific missile crisis even more dangerous than the Euro-missile “Butter Battle” crisis that took place in the early 1980s. At that time, NATO’s Able Archer maneuvers―coupled with the deployment of US Cruise and Pershing missiles in 1983 that were intended to counter Soviet deployments of the intermediate range SS-20s―came very close to accidentally sparking a nuclear conflict.
Trade Conflicts
In addition to Russian and Chinese fears of “encircling” alliances, and of a new conventional, unconventional and nuclear arms race, Trump’s globalized tariff scheme, which initially resulted in the record crash of $6.6 trillion in stock values in early April 2025, has already begun to exacerbate global geopolitical, financial and political economic tensions with Russia, China and the Europeans―resulting in much lower Russian energy prices, for example, while resulting in a trade war with China.
If Trump can not achieve the major trade deals that he hopes to obtain, the risk is that Trump’s neo-mercantile protectionism may prove even more destabilizing than the American 1930 Hawley-Smoot tariff scheme. This appears true given the fact that now, as opposed to then, the US possesses global military predominance and hegemony―so that its protectionist actions shake up both economic and strategic relationships.
Moreover, by bolstering “America First” defense measures by 13 percent for fiscal year 2026, thereby raising the budget plan over $1 trillion for the first time ever, Trump may make it even more difficult for Washington to coordinate creative, yet realistic, non-doctrinaire foreign, defense and sustainable development policies with US allies, while implementing and sustaining international peace accords with US rivals. Such a major augmentation of defense spending will work to the detriment of international diplomacy―along with massive cuts in funding for US soft power.
At the same time, there are already signs that both US allies and US rivals are beginning to seek out new political and economic linkages. While the UK and US appear to have reached some kind of deal, the Europeans and Japanese appear to be looking toward China, for example, for trade deals in opposing US tariff policies. Contrary to Trump’s intentions, his tariff and neo-containment defense policies appear to be pressing China and Russia even closer together―upon the threat of war with China. Closer Chinese-Russian ties were illustrated by Xi Jinping’s appearance at the May 9th celebrations in Moscow during which Xi thanked Russia for supporting Taiwan’s reunification with mainland China.
Yet even if Trump can make a “deal” with China, the issue of China’s claims to Taiwan and the South and East China Seas will not go away until the US and Beijing can reach a rapprochement and begin to actively cooperate.
A European Nuclear Build-Up
European fears of Russia are also driven by worst case fears that the Trump administration will not back European states should they invoke NATO’s Article V guarantee. Ironically, NATO expansion had helped to secure European Union expansion―but without the US strongly backing European efforts to adequately develop more autonomous defense capabilities in cooperation with NATO.
By upgrading Olaf Scholz’s 2022 security policy of Zeitenwende (turning or inflection point) by boosting German defense spending in a purported quest to put the Ukrainian army into a better position, the new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has threatened to deploy German Taurus cruise missiles in Ukraine that need German assistance to operate.
Merz has even gone a step further than that by raising the possibility that Germany would back Kyiv’s destruction of the Crimean Bridge―a key geo-strategic link between Russia and the Crimean peninsula where Moscow deploys its Naval fleet. Such an action would in effect undermine Russia’s efforts to control the Sea of Azov, southeastern Ukraine, and open the door for NATO and Ukraine to further destabilize Russia.
For his part, French President Macron has agreed to deploy nuclear-capable multirole Rafale aircraft in Germany, while signing a new defense pact with Poland with a clause that commits both countries to mutual support in case of an attack by an aggressor. For its part, Warsaw is significantly expanding its own military capabilities by spending 4.7 percent of its GDP on defense. After initially urging dialogue with Russia, President Macron has come to the conclusion that Europe can only deal with Putin from a position of strength in the next five to ten years. Macron has accordingly threatened a new nuclear weapons build up that would expand France’s nuclear umbrella to all of eastern Europe.
If tensions with Russia continue to mount, the risk is that such a policy could become a new nuclear “Maginot line” in an age of cyber and hybrid warfare.
The Hardening of European Political Strategy
Given the historical rivalry between the major and regional powers in central and eastern Europe, Nitze and Chandler argued that bringing Poland into NATO would be seen by Moscow “as a particularly hostile act by the West in general and by the United States in particular.” By ignorantly expanding NATO into eastern Europe, the US has opened a Pandora’s Box of rival irredentist claims―in which Moscow is not the only culprit.
Moscow has accordingly depicted the US and NATO as backing an irredentist “Baltic-Black Sea alliance” of the three Baltics states plus Poland, Romania, Ukraine, Sweden, and Finland. Moscow’s fear is that the US, Europe and NATO will seek to break up the Russian Federation―much as Karl Marx had urged during the Crimean war (1853-56) when he wrote that Britain, France, Prussia, Austria, and the rest of Europe, including the Finns, to forge a stronger alliance against Tsarist Russia.
Ironically, much like Karl Marx, Europeans are presently taking a much tougher stance against Moscow. The contemporary concern of US and European super-hawks is that Putin, or a future Russian leader, could attack or attempt to destabilize Europe in a few years.
In an effort to speed the build up and unification of European defenses by working with France and the UK, German defense minister, Boris Pistorius, has warned of a possible conflict with Russia by the end of the decade given the perceived threat Russia poses to the Baltic states, Georgia, and Moldova—in addition to the ongoing threats of hybrid warfare and cyber sabotage inside Europe. Other superhawks are claiming that Moscow might attack vital European interests―unless the UK, France, Germany and Poland unify their conventional, unconventional and nuclear defense capabilities.
European super-hawks fear the possibility that Moscow could continue to extend its territorial gains in southeastern Ukraine, possibly seizing Odessa. It is also feared that Moscow might opportunistically capitalize on the complaints of discrimination by a “fifth column” of ethnic Russian populations that live in Estonia and Latvia, for example, thereby creating tensions in the European Union. It is likewise feared that Moscow could also support ethnic Russians living in Transnistria in Moldova and lend support to pan-Serb movements in Kosovo, while concurrently pressuring Georgia by backing pro-Russian movements in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The dilemma, however, is that most of the above socio-political disputes can not be resolved by military action which is likely only to exacerbate, rather than solve, these problems. What is needed is concerted diplomacy.
Moscow’s Response
It thus appears that the Europeans, with or without US backing, intend to support Ukraine’s efforts to roll back Russia’s territorial gains at the risk of escalating and widening the conflict. The danger, however, is that the more Russia fears the possibility of breaking up, as it did during World War II, the more dangerous it will become.
Nitze and Chandler recognized that Russian threats might be exaggerated and hyperbolic; yet they also argued that the US should be aware of the possible dangers should a Russian revanchist movement come to power, as was the case with Imperial Germany after it was humiliated by the 1919 Versailles treaty―as forewarned by John Meynard Keynes, among others.
Yet such a scenario could only become feasible if Moscow (and its “no limits” strategic partner, Beijing) continue to see themselves as “encircled” and “contained” by the US/NATO plus a more powerful Japan and an Australia allied with the US and UK through the AUKUS pact. Moscow and Beijing would also react negatively if neutral India, which is a member of both the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICS+, shifts against China and joins the US-led alliance given its conflict with Pakistan, which has been backed by China.
The fact of the matter is that Moscow reciprocally fears US, European and Ukrainian acts of hybrid warfare against Russia and its allies.
Moreover, the membership of Sweden and Finland in NATO not only raises Russian fears of NATO support for Finnish irredentist claims to Karelia, for example, but it also places NATO military capabilities closer to Russia’s nuclear missile, air defense, and naval and submarine defense military-industrial complex at Murmansk. This very sensitive Russian region has been subject to increasing NATO surveillance and Ukrainian drone attacks. Yet to counter these threats, Moscow possesses the ultimate nuclear counter-force threat—the Poseidon robot submarine―that can carry a 100-megaton warhead into the harbors of U.S., European, and east Asian cities.
The possibility of unexpected conflict over the Suwalki gap between Poland and Lithuania―that is the only land route that links Kaliningrad to Belarus―cannot be ruled out. It is possible that Russian demands to create a permanent land link to Kaliningrad―that represents the shortest land path between the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and Belarus after both have been absorbed into Moscow’s nuclear defense network―could spark war between Russia and NATO countries.
If these general disputes throughout eastern Europe cannot be carefully negotiated in the near future, conflict along the Suwalki corridor represents just one major focal point of conflict, among many, that could spark a major power war, whether by accident or accidentally on purpose―in a geopolitical configuration that can be compared and contrasted with each of the situations that helped cause the 1853-56 Crimean War, the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War, as well as both World War I and World War II.
Peace through Strength? Or World War Trump?
Because the possibilities of wars between NATO and Russia, the US, Israel and Iran, and the US and China are all too real, the Trump administration is right to try to curb tensions with Moscow and wind down the war between Russia and Ukraine as soon as possible. Yet Trump also needs to tamp down burgeoning European-Russian tensions as well. Yet in the four months since Trump returned to power, he has clashed with Britain, France, Germany, Poland and Ukraine as to how to best deal with Moscow.
In resurrecting the ghosts of the past, European super-hawks have seen Trump as a Neville Chamberlain who wants to “appease” Moscow’s claims to Crimea and Novorossiya. Yet just because “appeasement” failed with respect to Nazi Germany in the 1930s, does not necessarily mean that Trump’s effort to compromise with Russia will fail to establish “peace in our time.” After all, the conflict in Ukraine is taking place under very different contemporary geopolitical circumstances with very different actors.
From this perspective, the US will first need to engage in the difficult process of achieving a permanent ceasefire leading to a sustainable peace in Ukraine, much as has been proposed by the Trump administration. Thus far the US has proposed recognition of Russian control over Crimea, while the Ukrainians are expected to cede the territories in southeastern Ukraine that Russia actually occupies, but not formally recognize those territories legally. How much territory Russia will take or continue to hold will depend on prospective peace talks with Ukraine to begin May 15th. At a later date, if and when political tensions begin to calm down, Moscow and Kyiv could engage in joint ventures in these regions―possibly in association with the US and Europe with respect to developing rare earth and critical raw materials, agriculture, as well as Black Sea energy deposits and other resources.
How the forthcoming bilateral talks in Turkey between Kyiv and Moscow will progress remains to be seen. On the one hand, speaking for France, Germany, the UK and Poland, French president Emmanuel Macron threatened "massive" and "coordinated" sanctions―if Russia refuses or violates a proposed 30-day truce. On the other hand, in speaking on the phone with Macron, who was in Kiev to support the proposed European 30-day ceasefire proposal (a proposal that Putin had yet to accept) Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan nevertheless declared on May 11, that a "historic turning point" had been reached to end the war in Ukraine. Putin and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy have scheduled to begin bilateral talks on May 15―that is, if nothing goes wrong!
Yet even if a ceasefire leads to a sustainable settlement―and that such a settlement does not lead to a bitterly contested partition of Ukraine―the US and Europeans will need to reach out to Moscow to establish a new European security order and a more general European peace settlement―in order to negotiate arms disputes between NATO and Russia.
These talks not only need to negotiate NATO-European-Russia arms reductions/eliminations, but the US, Europeans, Russians, along with neutral parties, will also need to negotiate irredentist claims and disputes between Russia, Germany, Poland and Lithuania over Kaliningrad, as well as ongoing disputes between the three Baltic States, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, among other disputes between Moldova, Georgia and Russia, and between Kosovo and Russian and Chinese ally Serbia. This is not to overlook the fact that disputes between NATO members Hungary and Romania with Ukraine, and Romanian disputes with Moldova and between Moldova, Transnistria and Russia also need to be addressed before new conflicts arise.
Here, in reviving the Partnership for Peace (PfP) initiative in new geopolitical circumstances, neutral international peacekeepers could be deployed along lines of demarcation in eastern Ukraine, and possibly in the three Baltic states. Such international forces could still be supported by the US and a more autonomous Europe―but in the background.
PfP forces could also be deployed in other potential conflict zones throughout eastern Europe, and could serve to provide reassurance and confidence building measures in an effort to reduce geopolitical tensions―just as international mediators simultaneously seek to resolve geopolitical, military, ethnic and socio-economic disputes between Russia, Ukraine and other eastern European countries.
Under a general UN mandate, these peacekeepers might come from neutral states such as India, South Africa, Brazil, Turkey, as well as from European and other states that remain on good terms with both Russia and Ukraine. The formation of a neutral non-nuclear Ukraine would help reduce tensions between NATO, the Europeans and Russia―with the deployment of PfP forces in agreement with Russia as I have argued.
As a precautionary measure, a more autonomous Europe backed by France and the UK―with or without strong US backing―could build up forces for deterrence in case a ceasefire in Ukraine fails to hold―but such a European force must remain in the background. The US and Europeans have accordingly threatened Russia with “massive” coordinated European and US sanctions if Moscow broke a proposed 30-day ceasefire or if Moscow refused to negotiate in good faith with Kyiv starting May 15th as promised by Vladimir Putin. One concern is that such a “ceasefire” accord could be broken by either Kyiv or Moscow―by or a third anti-state “spoiler” that wants the war to continue for whatever reason.
In effect, the Europeans are proposing a “coalition of the willing” that could possibly deploy as many as 10,000 troops in Ukraine (down from a proposed 30,000 troops) as a deterrent force. France, in particular, is pushing for the deployment of a Europe-led force, with or without US support, somewhere along the Dnipro River in central Ukraine, away from the front line.
The dilemma is that if the Europeans do opt to deploy significant numbers of “European reassurance” forces in Ukraine―but without Russian oversight or a UN Security mandate―then Ukraine not only risks partition, but such a European force could continue to provoke tensions between NATO, Europe and Russia, and perhaps even China as well.
In short, any all-European “reassurance” forces backed by the UK and France should remain deployed outside of Ukraine―unless fully agreed to by Russia with a UN Security Council mandate.
Role of China
Although the Europeans and UK are now focusing on boosting their defense capabilities to deter Russia―if not also the United States—it is nevertheless essential that the US, UK, France and Europeans, and other states including China, India, Hungary and Turkey, work with Moscow in a concerted fashion to implement a peace settlement. Such a strategy would establish a ceasefire leading to a sustainable peace settlement in the conflict over eastern Ukraine―much as the Trump administration has been attempting.
In addition to the need to prevent the Ukraine conflict from escalating, if not spreading, the US, UK, NATO, the EU, Russia and China also need to address dangerous disputes in the Arctic region. Given China’s backing for the development of the Polar Silk Road, and given China’s apparent preference for sustaining more positive relations between Russia and Ukraine and between Russia and Europe, Beijing has a major interest in securing Kaliningrad as a hub in global trade from Eurasia to Russia to Europe. Beijing should accordingly play a role in making Kaliningrad a bridge between East and West.
Both the Biden and Trump administrations have downplayed Xi Jinping’s attempts to play “peacemaker” after Beijing offered to help mediate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, while concurrently assisting Saudi Arabia and Iran to re-establish diplomatic relations. Beijing also attempted to bring Palestinian factions into a more positive cooperation in an effort to eventually implement some form of “two state” solution to resolve the horrific Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Yet instead of interpreting China’s global peace initiative as hostile to US and European interests, the US and Europeans should engage with Xi Jinping in a new multilateral peace initiative by seeking to extend China’s peace proposals—but under the condition that all sides agree to seek substantial diplomatic compromises with respect to their interests where possible.
Most importantly, if China can be drawn into helping to mediate the aforementioned conflicts, it is essential that Beijing and Washington work in good faith to resolve the China-Taiwan conflict that risks imminent conflict. After the May 2025 trade negotiations with Beijing in Geneva, Trump claimed to have achieved a “total reset” with China―even if these talks will require future discussions. Let us hope the “total reset” will also include a US-China compromise over the issue of Taiwan!
The US, Europeans, Russia and China must engage in nuclear, conventional, and unconventional armaments reductions/eliminations, including mutual formal promises not to engage in cyber-sabotage and other forms of hybrid warfare. This is not to overlook the crucial need to engage in step-by-step elimination of economic sanctions that have been placed on Moscow since 2014―but only if there is mutual progress toward a sustainable peace.
Toward a Sustainable Regional and Global Peace
If steps toward a sustainable peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine are not soon taken, much as has been promised by tomorrow’s bilateral talks in Istanbul between Russia and Ukraine, there is a greater chance that the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war will intensify and widen into new regions in Europe, as well as, perhaps, into the wider Middle East and the Indo-Pacific―particularly if Washington does not soon reach peace “deals” between Israel, the Palestinians, and Iran; between New Delhi and Islamabad; between North and South Korea; and between China and Taiwan―perhaps, ironically, with the help of Russian mediation in each case.
It is accordingly crucial for the Europeans to work with the Trump administration, along with Turkey and China, among other states, to wind down as soon as possible the ongoing Ukraine-Russia―while seeking to reconcile the damage done to US-European-Russia-China relations in the aftermath of the uncoordinated NATO and EU “double enlargement” and the failure to establish both a new Euro-Atlantic-Russian and Indo-Pacific security architecture at the end of the Cold War.
Hall Gardner’s books on global politics include Toward an Alternative Transatlantic Strategy (2021) in French and English; IR Theory, Historical Analogy and Major Power War (2019); World War Trump (2018); Crimea, Global Rivalry and the Vengeance of History (2015); NATO Expansion and the U.S. Strategy in Asia (2013); and American Global Strategy and the “War on Terrorism” (2005).
His book, Dangerous Crossroads: Europe, Russia and the Future of NATO (1997) has just been reissued by Bloomsbury Publishing in paperback. Dangerous Crossroads: Europe, Russia, and the Future of NATO: Hall Gardner: Bloomsbury Academic. This article represents a general summary of key points in his forthcoming works in progress, American Myopia: The Risks of the Uncoordinated NATO-EU Double Enlargement, and Reducing the Risks of War Between the Major Powers: Peace through Strength or World War Trump?