EDWARD LUCAS: If Trump and Vance win, don't expect them to ride to the rescue if Putin turns his guns on Europe
Was it terrifying ignorance or outrageous cynicism? Either would explain the recent remark by JD Vance, Donald Trump's new pick for vice-president, that Britain is now effectively an 'Islamist state'.'
What is the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon?' Vance wondered, during a speech at the National Conservatism conference in Washington DC last week.
His answer was the UK, now that Labour has won power.
It seems scarcely plausible that this bright graduate of Yale Law School actually believes that Sir Keir Starmer's victory this month puts us on a par with Iran, Afghanistan or Pakistan.
But Vance's remarks are not based on fact. They reflect prejudice, partly recycled from hard-Right scaremongers in Britain, and partly designed to appeal to similar sentiments in the U.S.
They also fit squarely into the Trump campaign's 'America First' worldview, in which allies — even Britain — are seen as unreliable freeloaders.
Rather than expecting leadership and protection from the United States, the message goes, these countries should look to their own security.
Fix your borders. Sort out your defence. Don't expect us to bail you out — or protect you when the invaders come knocking.
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump appears with vice presidential candidate JD Vance on Monday
People clear rubble at the building of one of the largest children's hospitals of Ukraine earlier this month
Russia's president Vladimir Putin (pictured)
Trump and his team see the world in bleak, dog-eat-dog terms. Every country should put its national interest first.
Every dollar or bullet that goes to allies is one less for the vital task of defending the U.S.
Make no mistake, Vance's appointment is a black day for European security and bad news for the rules-based international order.
Trump's new running mate likes to highlight the principle of 'scarcity': America does not have enough weapons for its own defence, he told a stunned audience at the Munich Security Conference earlier this year.
It, therefore, cannot afford to send any more to Ukraine, which is fighting what he calls a 'border war' where no American interest is at stake.
Vance sees the conflagration in Ukraine as an unwinnable distraction. That beleaguered country will pay the most immediate price if Vance and Trump win the White House in just over 100 days' time.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event in Butler on July 13
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump appears with vice presidential candidate JD Vance
An attendee wears pants featuring the face of former US President and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during the second day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Signs in support of Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump
Vance, pictured with his wife, Usha, on the floor during the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention
But we in Britain will be living in a much more dangerous world, too.
The Atlantic Charter, forged between U.S. president Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in the darkest days of World War II, and exemplified by the D‑Day landings of 1944 and the Berlin Airlift of 1948, has kept us safe for decades.
We have benefited hugely from our position as America's closest military ally, on everything from access to high-tech weapons to intelligence sharing.
While we have a nuclear deterrent, we have scrimped on defence, like most other Nato countries, knowing that in a crisis Uncle Sam will have our backs.
That looks unlikely now. The dithering of President Joe Biden's administration and last year's political deadlock in Congress over aid to Ukraine have undermined U.S. credibility.
Attendees hold signs during the second day of the 2024 Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee
An attendee at the Trump convention walks through the lobby of the Fiserv Forum
US Senate candidate from Pennsylvania Dave McCormick speaks during the second day of the 2024 Republican National Convention
Trump is ready to wield the death-blow. If he wins on November 5, America could abandon its role as the world's policeman and champion of freedom and democracy in every hemisphere.
What might that mean in practice? Assume that Vance gets his way and Vladimir Putin bludgeons Ukraine into accepting a ceasefire.
According to intelligence estimates, Russia would be ready to wage a new war against a Nato country within as little as two years.
The bleak truth is that the 32-country alliance, which has just celebrated its 75th anniversary, can defend itself only with the support of its biggest member, the U.S.
True, many Nato allies have state-of-the-art fighter jets and warships to resist an onslaught from the East.
But these weapons will be useless once their high-tech munitions run out. The Kremlin may hope that Russia can win a war with the West once it has withstood the early barrage.
Worse, most Nato countries lack air defences to deal with the bombs and missiles now raining down on Ukraine. Britain's 1,000-strong force in Estonia, for example, is a sitting duck if Russia chooses to target the Baltic states.
An attendee wears a Wyoming Trump Country hat during the second day of the 2024 Republican National Convention
An attendee wears Trump earrings outside of the Fiserv Forum on the second day of the 2024 Republican National Convention
Attendees hold signs supporting Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump and Republican vice presidential candidate, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance
If Putin tries to menace Britain, we are vulnerable, too. A recent report described our air and missile defences as 'negligible'.
If any of our Type 45 destroyers are working and in home waters, they might be able to protect London. Our six Sky Sabre short-range systems could defend a handful of vital military and infrastructure targets.
Beyond that, we would suffer the same, or a worse, fate than Ukrainian city-dwellers.
The picture across our conventional armed forces is dismal. For all the brass-hats' bravado, they are under strength, ill-housed, under-trained and poorly supplied. Our planes lack pilots. Our ships are shamefully unseaworthy.
Our shrivelled Army cannot even deploy a single war-fighting division.
Our security relies too heavily on our last-ditch nuclear missiles: doomsday weapons that we would use only after the country was already devastated.
That is why this isolationist shift in American politics is so desperately worrying.
A delegate places hand on heart during pledge of allegiance on the second day of the 2024 Republican National Convention
Donald Trump Jr., Vice President nominee JD Vance and Kimberly Guilfoyle stand on the stage ahead of day two of the Republican National Convention
For now, the U.S. plugs the gaps in Europe's defence and deterrence. On a recent visit to Poland and Lithuania, I saw scores of men and women in U.S. Army fatigues. They are part of a big American force in Poland — a country fast emerging as Europe's real military heavyweight. Warsaw spends 4 per cent of its GDP on defence, double the Nato benchmark, and is ready to raise it further.
Shamefully, a third of alliance members fail to meet even a puny 2 per cent target.
In any case, 2 per cent is not nearly enough to upgrade members' armed forces after years of neglect, let alone to fight a hot war with Russia, to say nothing of China.
And bridging the deficit left by American withdrawal from Europe would require more.
Understandably, European stinginess infuriates the Americans. For decades, Washington has been warning its allies to spend more.
Rather than do that, we paid our dues by sending our armed forces to fight and die in U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But the Trump team has no truck with this. It regards those wars as costly failures. It feels no moral obligation to us for our part in them.
The big question now is how far a Trump-Vance administration would actually follow up on its isolationist, protectionist rhetoric.
In truth, and wiser heads on Capitol Hill and at the Pentagon know this, America needs allies. Its ability to constrain, compete with and confront Beijing depends on Washington's international credibility.
Sacrificing decades-old security ties with Europe is unlikely to impress nervous regional allies like Japan and South Korea.
A nuclear free-for-all — in which both friends and foes scramble to acquire atomic weapons in the wake of an American retreat — would make the world a far more dangerous place.
Our best hope is that Vance, like Trump in his previous administration, believes that tough talk will finally make the Europeans shape up.
If our foes have not scared us into taking defence seriously, then perhaps our biggest ally can.
How shameful and dangerous that Britain's safety and freedom should rest on such a fragile assumption.
Edward Lucas is the author of The New Cold War: Putin's Threat To Russia And The West.
