The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - The Future of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

Our next Live Q&A on Patreon is here! On April 9, Peter will join the Analyst members on Patreon for question time! In order to get in on the fun, join the 'Analyst tier' on Patreon before April 9.Join the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/PeterZeihanThe Supreme Allied Commander position in NATO allows the US to lead allied forces in wartime. However, the Trump administration is considering withdrawing the US from that position (mainly for cost-cutting reasons).Full Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/the-future-of-natos-supreme-allied-commander

Hey all, Peter Zion, coming to you from a sunny Colorado. Today, we're going to talk about something that is making the rounds within the Trump administration. It relates to the NATO alliance. The idea is that the United States is going to withdraw from something called the Supreme Allied Commander position. Now, the Supreme Allied Commander, as it sounds, in times of war, takes command of all local military forces that are affiliated with the alliance. So in a hot shooting war, the U.S. would take control of the world's third, fourth, six and seventh largest navies and the world's fourth, fifth, sixth, ninth, and tenth largest armies, as well as that of all the smaller members of the European structures. And the question is,

why would you give that up? Well, keep in mind that NATO is the most powerful alliance in human history, and it was founded by the United States, and it was run by the United States. And yes, the lion's shares of the equipment and the troops come from the United States. But since all of the Europeans have regional militaries. While their militaries may be stronger, they're all focused on one area as opposed to ours which is spread out around the world. So collectively, in the European theater, the rest of the European forces actually are on par with what the U.S. can do. So a massive force multiplier there. The Trump administration says that the NATO countries, the European countries, have been taking advantage of the United States and trade. They need to defend themselves.

But giving this up would be a big deal. It would be the end of American ability to project power throughout all of Europe. You see, unlike the other NATO countries who can sublimate their military commands to American authority, the reverse is actually illegal here in the United States. So if we give up the ability to command Europe and say a European has to take that position, we're also saying that no American forces are now available for NATO use, and that's functionally leaving the alliance. Now, I personally think that would be a horrible idea, but I think it's going to happen anyway. The Trump administration seems fairly hell-bent on leaving NATO. Three things going on here. Number one, the Trump administration seems

to have a very inaccurate idea of how militaries work. Because in a time of war, when you need the help to be able to automatically, reflexively, just be able to take control of everyone else's militaries in the alliance and just go? How much is that worth to you? How much is it worth? How much is it to have that on standby the whole time. It's worth the cost of a trade deficit, in my opinion. The second issue is that Trump doesn't really have anyone in his circle telling him otherwise or correcting him on these things. One of the weird things about the Trump administration is, you know, normally when you lose an election and they're out of power for a few years, you try to learn from your past mistakes. You try to build a team that is competent that

fills in the gaps with the things that you don't know, and you get people who are experts in legislation so that when you come back, you can get everything pushed through Congress as quickly as possible. Codify what you want and have it outlive you. Trump's taken the opposite lesson, and he's removed everyone from his circle who knows anything about anything because people who know things tend to say that they know things, and that means that Trump is not always the person who appears as the smartest one in the room. It's the difference between a good leader and a bad leader. That means that Trump is making decisions based on the advice that comes to him from a handful of people he trusts, and the people he trusts aren't honest with him, which has bring us to the third

problem. Russian propaganda has penetrated up to and including the White House. Last week, we had Donald Trump repeating some particularly interesting propaganda. Notice he was saying in truth social posts and in interviews that the Russians had surrounded several thousand Ukrainian troops and he was pleading with the Russians to not kill them in what would be a bloodbath. Here's the thing. That never happened. In fact, that didn't even occur in Russian propaganda in American political circles. That was Russian propaganda for Russian citizens to try to convince the Russian citizenry that the war in Ukraine was going very well. Somehow, that little bit got lodged in Trump's mind, and it didn't come from the CIA or the FBI or the Defense Department. It either came directly from

Vladimir Putin or through one of the other vectors that the Russians have been using to influence administration. So we have a White House that is making public statements and policies basing on an internal Russian propaganda now. And if I could think of one thing that the Russians want in the short term from this administration, it's to destroy the NATO alliance, which was always formed to contain Russian aggression. And here we are.