Conservative columnist David Frum was horrified by Donald Trump's comments about NATO that appeared in a NY Times interview and said this could lead to a war with Russia.
Donald Trump has shook up our foreign allies by saying he may not support NATO if they haven't paid the vig.
In the interview, the New York Times’ David Sanger asked Trump if he would defend our allies in NATO and East Asia. Trump said he wasn’t sure, that he would only be certain to defend countries that he thought had paid the United States enough money.“If we are not going to be reasonably reimbursed for the tremendous cost of protecting these massive nations with tremendous wealth … Then yes, I would be absolutely prepared to tell those countries, ‘Congratulations, you will be defending yourself,’” Trump told Sanger.
These remarks has sent shock waves throughout the world and here at home.
CNN's New Day broached the topic earlier this morning and when David Frum weighed in.
FRUM said, "He just created ambiguity. History-minded viewers will remember that Dean Acheson, who was secretary of state in the 1950s, gave a speech creating some ambiguity about whether the United States would defend Korea. And that triggered the aggressive Soviet Union, the aggressive North Koreans, to think, “Hmm, maybe we can get away with this.” It is an invitation to war, to open any uncertainty about the validity of America's treaties.
If the next president, let's hope it's not Donald Trump, but if any president ever has some question about whether NATO has outlived its usefulness, you do that from -- first you renegotiate NATO, then you express the doubt. I hope that would never happen, but the idea you express the doubt first at a time when Russia is on the rampage, that is so dangerous. And it is right for Ted Cruz -- he didn't know that at the time he spoke, but he knew enough else to say, you know, this man cannot be conscientiously supported. [CNN, New Day, 7/21/16]
David Frum just said what we all know. The world will be remarkably and insanely unsafe if Donald Trump is elected President. It's a shame that the rest of the panel has the job of continuing to make this election a horse race.
