NATO Summit Eve and I am the most pessimistic?

I didn't realize that the Foreign Affairs insta poll of "experts" about NATO's future would be published the day before the NATO Summit.  It is a bit embarassing for me, as, well, I got asked whether NATO could survive another Trump administration, and I was alone holding down the extreme end: hells no.

The story is here.  Note that a bunch of people on the positive side basically say that it would be on paper only.  Which actually puts them with me.  

The story contained some explanation/elaboration from some folks but not me.  My email apparently my email with the Foreign Affairs staffer wasn't that interesting.  So, let me explain why I think NATO can't survive another Trump Administration, focusing on three aspects: deterrence/credible commitment, logistics and mass, and European politics.

Before getting into it, let's just postulate a few things about a second Trump administration and about Trump:

1. Trump thinks that any deal he does not make is exploitative since he projects from his own behavior and outlook--that he wants to rip off any one he makes a deal with.  NATO, thus, is a ripoff since he didn't make it.  Sure, we could imagine a new bargain, a new organization with a new name that does not really change things much like how NAFTA is now USMCA at least to the US.  To Canadians, it is either NAFTA 2.0 or just NAFTA.  
2. Trump will not have many fans of NATO in his administration.  One of the iron laws of his last administration is that he did actually learn some stuff.  He didn't learn that 2% standard of NATO is not about tithes or protection money, but he almost always replace someone he fired with someone worse.  As the project 2025 stuff indicates, the next Trump crew would be more awful, and in this case, more unilateral, more opposed to NATO, etc.
3. The GOP will not restrain him since the GOP is now thoroughly his party, and they are craven.

Ok, let's get to NATO:

• 
  The most important thing the US brings to NATO is the credibility that it is willing to risk its own destruction to deter attacks on allies inside the alliance.  There is one reason why Putin has not dared attack any NATO member.  The US spent much of the cold war trying to convince everyone that this promise would be kept.  Trump doesn't keep promises, and has already said that Putin can attack those who don't pay 2%--so much for an attack upon one equals an attack upon all.  This, the heart of nato, would beat no longer.  Why not? Can't the Europeans do it?  Nope.  More on that below.
  
• While many countries provide heaps of capabilities when NATO operates, NATO has very little of its own stuff.   And when it comes to logistics and high tech and the stuff needed to support modern war, the US has a heap of that stuff, and the allies don't have much.  So, the actual capacity to fight would be much, much less if the US either pulled out of Europe or simply stood aside when a crisis develops.  Trump doesn't have to act, he can just not act.  
• How about the Europeans take over NATO and supplant the US?  Um, sure.  Who is going to do that?  France?  Its ambivalent relationship goes back decades, and the French would prefer for the EU to take over.  Maybe that urge would decline with the end of the US involvement in NATO, but maybe not.  One thing for sure: the French have long said that their nuclear force is not for extending to deter attacks on others.  How about the UK?  While they have a new government, they have much work to do to build bridges with the rest of Europe.  Yes, they have nukes, but would the Poles count on the Brits to deter an attack or respond to one?  They still remember 1939.  Germany? Ha.  Sure, there was a lot of talk of zeitenwende--embracing the watershed moment and revising the outlook and strategy, but that met a brick wall--a law limiting deficit spending.  So, don't count on the Germans to invest so much in their armed forces that they could replace the missing Americans.  Thus far, European attempts to manage their own security have largely failed.  The EU tried to stop the wars in the Balkans, but that required the US and NATO.  

So, no, if Trump becomes president the heart and nervous system of NATO will largely be ripped out with no immediate replacement.  Maybe the EU would eventually develop its defence effort into something capable, but it would not have the strength of NATO.

Repeat after me: a second Trump administration would be catastrophic.  Not just at home but abroad.  

I would love to be wrong about this.  Of course, I would love even more if this argument is never tested.