President Trump is unlikely to fulfill the promises of candidate Trump

Gabor Horvath

Considering the statements of the newly elected US president, Newssky correspondent asked the deputy editor-in-chief of the Hungarian newspaper Népszava, Gabor Horvath, whether Europe, together with Great Britain and Canada, can manage its security separately from America and how.

What is your opinion, foremost, on the adequacy of Donald Trump’s campaign promises?

It is highly unlikely that President Trump will go ahead and try to fulfill all or even most of the foreign policy promises made by candidate Trump. Since the Korean War, many US military actions have been accompanied by strong support from the armies of other advanced democracies. America First does not and should not mean a lonely America, deprived of its natural and proven allies.

What is the current situation of the Russian army?

However, if we think about such an idea, we should start with the fact that Russia has already lost the army it had on February 24, 2022. The one which is fighting now is much weaker. Russia has lost hundreds of pilots, thousands of officers, and tens of thousands of trained and professional military personnel, including tank crews, and missile and other artillery personnel. It takes years to train a pilot, an officer, a military engineer, or ordinary paratrooper. Russia has lost most of its tanks and armored vehicles, many aircraft, and a significant part of its pre-war missile stockpiles.

The Russian Black Sea Fleet was driven out of Crimea by an almost imaginary Ukrainian fleet – hardly a good sign for Moscow when it comes to naval battles in the Baltic or Pacific arenas.

Russia has indeed gained valuable experience in conducting modern military operations, including drones, over the past three years, and its economy has been reoriented to meet the needs of the military. Nevertheless, the Russia of 2025 poses less of an international threat than Russia of 2022. (The exception, of course, is its nuclear potential, which has remained about the same, but as all the empty threats of the past three years show, this is not a conventional military tool that can be deployed simply to solve land or sea battles.)

It will take years and enormous efforts for Russia to acquire a conventional military force that truly threatens Europe.

As for Canada, the prospects are even worse, since the defense of the second-largest country in the world is closely integrated with that of the United States — it is enough to recall the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), whose capabilities are not limited to tracking Santa Claus at Christmas.

So, in your opinion, will the democratic world be able to put itself together?

All of this means that, if necessary, Europe (including the UK) and Canada will have plenty of time to adapt to the new reality. Their combined populations and economies are many times larger than Russia’s. Mobilizing these resources may indeed be more difficult in democracies, but history shows that it is not an impossible task, especially if there is a real and imminent threat of foreign occupation.

It is worth noting here that the experienced and motivated Ukrainian armed forces are a particular asset. In the very theoretical situation of being abandoned by the US, Europe and Canada should quickly form an effective military-economic alliance and successfully fight the aggressor. Of course, it is a different, albeit closely related, question of whether the US is ready and able to fight China alone.

Deputy Editor-in-Chief (Central Europe and Canada) and Project Manager at V5 Media, Maryna Kovalchuk, contributed.

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