Two North Carolina Republicans who play significant roles in the national security arena are working to strike a balance in supporting a GOP presidential nominee who has threatened to abandon NATO allies, asked Russia to find his political opponent’s emails and used his Twitter account to bash a seasoned four-star general.
Republicans Sen. Richard Burr of Winston-Salem and Rep. Robert Pittenger of Charlotte publicly endorsed Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump after he visited Capitol Hill in early July to drum up support for his campaign, but neither one of them wants to see the strategic relationship between the United States and its allies trivialized just as they are preparing to work together to track Islamic State activities in Iraq and Syria.
Burr is the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman and Pittenger is the chairman of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare and the vice chairman of the Task Force to Investigate Terrorism Financing.
Trump said in an interview with The New York Times that he would prefer for the United States to continue having a positive relationship with all 28 NATO members but that he was also prepared to cut ties with nations that failed to contribute to the alliance the 2 percent of gross domestic product that members are expected to spend on defense. Trump said he was prepared to tell those countries: “Congratulations, you will be defending yourself.” The interview was made public July 21.
North Carolina’s top two national security figures have defended the U.S. relationship with NATO and, also, Trump.
“NATO remains critical to the security and stability of Europe, and member nations continue to play important roles in the fight against (the Islamic State) and global terrorism,” Burr said in an email statement. “The navies and air forces of NATO also play crucial roles in guaranteeing freedom of navigation in Europe and beyond.”
“The alliance is important,” Pittenger told The Charlotte Observer, a McClatchy publication. “It supports our economic interest, certainly, and Russia right now is seeking to divide Europe and divide NATO, and that is the strategy of Mr. Putin. So he has sought division in any way possible that he could, and our particularly the Baltic state allies are greatly threatened.”
Pittenger explained that Trump was signaling allies that they should not take their commitment to the alliance lightly. The candidate was simply trying to use his skills as a businessman to negotiate a better financial situation for the United States, Pittenger said.
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Trump’s NATO rhetoric endangers some of the Baltic states, which “spend way less than the 2 percent of GDP goal” and “presumably wouldn’t qualify for U.S. support under the Trump doctrine,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington, a research center. Instead of threatening not to defend alliance members, the presidential nominee should give member nations three years to approach the 2 percent target, O’Hanlon said.
“If that were Trump’s idea, I’d still oppose it but I could respect it – and wouldn’t consider it the equivalent of strategically suicidal behavior,” O’Hanlon said.