Within weeks of taking office, Trump had rewritten the playbook of international relations, snatching away military support from Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia and seemingly cosying up to Vladimir Putin
Donald Trump’s cavalier approach to international relations could see the world plunged back into a “WWI-type scenario”, a former advisor has said. Former White House Russia adviser Fiona Hill – who worked for Trump during his first term – says the president’s attempts to isolate the US could lead to catastrophic consequences across the globe.
Within weeks of taking office Trump had rewritten the geopolitical playbook, snatching away military support from Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia and seemingly cosying up to Vladimir Putin as he pushed for peace at all costs. One of Trump’s leading campaign pledges has always been removing US involvement in other parts of the world, a policy which seems muddied when he pledged to “rebuild Gaza” and pummelled Yemen’s Houthi Rebels in recent months.
But Trump’s plans to reverse the US’ role as the world’s policeman could see us plunged back decades to the types of conflict many had hoped had become a thing of the past.
Ms Hill explained: “I worry a lot about a kind of WW1-type scenario, in which the prevailing system is broken down, and you get a whole outbreak of conflicts that meld together.”
Ms Hill was referring to the relative global security seen during the Cold War. While the Cold War created a sense of fear across the world, the idea of mutually assured destruction created a relative stability, she said.
“We’ve got conflicts breaking out all over the place because of this breakdown in the system. Because during the Cold War we had a pretty clear sense of deterrence, it was that sort of nuclear wall that kind of kept conflicts somewhat constrained,” Ms Hill explained.
But without the deterrent, there are new types of conflict developing that are causing “immense” levels of “human suffering”. Speaking to The Guardian, Ms Hill was also asked what it was like advising a character like Donald Trump.
She revealed: “Trump, really, came into office thinking he was essentially the equivalent of a constitutional monarch.
“He found the US constitution at that point constrained him immensely so he’s now trying to destroy the state and the functions of the state, the institutions of the state, and trying to create basically a court around himself at Mar-a-Lago.”
Ahead of the 250th anniversary of American independence from the British Empire next year, she believes we’ve “come full circle from King George to King Donald – and that’s how he thinks about it as well”.