Among the many issues at stake in the US election in November is the future of Nato – the highly successful Atlantic Alliance that was founded at the start of the Cold War, saw the collapse of the Soviet Union as it ended, and for which Donald Trump has been a uniquely disruptive American president.

 If Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate, fails to defeat the current occupant of the Oval Office, other leaders and former US defence officials fear that Trump will deliver on his - so far - private threat to withdraw from Nato and produce a stunning win for Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

 "If I lose and he gets elected, you will remember the things that I said will turn out to be right… and that is, if he gets elected, there will be no Nato,” Biden said in June. Earlier he accused Trump of treating the alliance “like a protection racket.” He also released a viral video of several leaders appearing to chuckle at Trump, saying that the “world is laughing at the president.”

 This election comes at a moment when America’s global dominance is fading even as it remains the pivotal power in shaping a new security order. It has added to uncertainty about the direction the US will take in the face of rising geopolitical competition and conflict.

 Alarm was fuelled by the bombshell memoir published in June by John Bolton, the president’s hawkish former national security advisor, in which he described his boss as repeatedly saying he wanted to quit Nato. Bolton also warned last December, on the eve of the London summit celebrating the 29-member alliance’s 70^th birthday, that Trump could “go full isolationist.”

 Over the last three years the Twitterer-in-chief has repeatedly boasted that he would get other allies to “pay their fair share” –showing ignorance of the principles behind national contributions, which are based on commitments to spend on their own military resources. He has also cast doubt on US commitment to its obligations under article 5 of Nato’s founding document, the Washington Treaty, under which an attack on one ally is considered an attack on all allies. 

 The most recent example of this fractured relationship was the sudden decision to withdraw 9,500 U.S. troops from Germany, a move that shocked Nato. Bolton’s successor as national security advisor,  Robert O’Brien, justified that by citing Berlin’s lack of defence spending. “It is time … for all European nations to contribute their fair share in defending their homelands,” he wrote.

 Another took place last autumn - removing US Special Forces from northern Syria after Trump consulted President Recep Tayip Erdogan by telephone. That left Kurdish forces exposed and caught Europeans off guard. It also made Emmanuel Macron, the French president, furious that Trump had not consulted allies, declare that Nato was “strategically brain-dead.” And Turkey itself, pursuing aggressive foreign and security policies, is another problem. Yet another issue was the collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

 But there may be worse to come – and Nato has of course become part of the divisive character of this ugly battle for the White House:  “Withdrawing from Nato would be nothing short of catastrophic and further highlights the historic importance of this election,” declared Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire and a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee. “President Trump has undermined trans-Atlantic relations from day 1, and the only one reaping the benefits is Vladimir Putin. Speculation of a future withdrawal is in itself a victory for the Kremlin and beyond Putin’s wildest dreams.”

 US opposition to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran has also been an irritant in relations with Nato, as has the decision to kill the commander of the Revolutionary Guards Quds Force Qassem Suleimani in a drone strike in January. Trump’s recent announcement of the Abraham Accords – the normalisation agreements between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain – has done nothing to resolve the world’s most intractable conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Whatever the spin, It was transactional rather than transformative.

 In the wake of the Soleimani killing, Trump suggested to Jens Stoltenberg, the alliance’s Norwegian secretary-general, that Nato should expand its activities into the Middle East.  “Nato, right, and then you have M-E, Middle East,” he told reporters excitedly, writing in the air with his fingers. “You call it Nato-ME. What a beautiful name. I'm good at names.”

 If Trump were to defeat his democratic rival it would doubtless produce panic. Congress would oppose any plans to leave Nato, but even if that does not take place it will likely continue to erode confidence in US leadership – as well as signalling to authoritarians, including Russia, that this alliance is not what it once was.

 “The greatest fear is what he would do in a second term. He would be more free from constraints,” an anonymous Nato diplomat said, adding that he was under pressure from his capital to assess what a second Trump term would mean for the alliance. “It is impossible to predict.” But its survival would clearly not be taken for granted.

IAN BLACK