Trump Takes Back Insults To Britain’s War Dead

By now the world has become used to US President Trump’s outlandish, bombastic, and usually unfounded outbursts on all sorts of topics as he plies his transactional politics on us all. Anyone with any sense ignores them and shrugs them off.

However a new nadir was reached with his comments on the Afghanistan imbroglio when he stated that the US’ NATO allies in that theatre “stayed a little back, off the front lines”.

This was a very silly thing to say, and only a moment’s research would have shown him that his comments were very wide of the mark. Far from being “off the front lines”, many of the US’ allies suffered proportionally around the same level of casualties as the USA, and in the case of Denmark a higher one.

Britain, for example, suffered a total of 457 dead in the twenty years that UK forces were deployed there. Four hundred and four of these were classified as “killed as a result of hostile action”. Clearly not “a little back” then.

Unsurprisingly there has been a tsunami of outrage from every country that committed its national forces to the American-led operation. Even the UK’s normally mealy-mouthed Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer summoned up the gumption to speak out, saying that Trump’s words were “insulting and frankly appalling”.

Faced with such global condemnation Trump has rowed back on his opinion, as he so often does when faced with collective resistance. Never one to apologise directly, no doubt in case it is taken as a sign of weakness, the President nevertheless acknowledged the contribution made my British troops.

He wrote amongst other things on his Truth Social platform: “The great and very brave soldiers of the United Kingdom will always be with the United States of America … it’s a bond too strong to ever be broken”.

Honour satisfied and British pride restored? Perhaps, but why say it in the first place?

The answer would seem to be that this is just another step in the process of decoupling the USA, militarily, at least, from its European NATO allies. It’s no secret that Trump has long been critical of European nations not pulling their weight in defence and security terms – and in this he is correct – and this is just another iteration of his “America is no longer going to do it all” schtick.

And, to be fair, in this he has been successful. Alliance nations have been dragged screaming and kicking into the brave new realpolitik of paying properly for their security, and there is a general scrambling among them to up their defence budgets and rearm. Here in the UK we’re committed – I would take that word with a pinch of salt if I’m being honest – to increasing our defence budget to five per cent of GDP by 2035.

Now, we all know that this is neither a big enough increase nor is the timeframe acceptable, but at least it’s a start in the right direction. But Labour will not be in power come the next General Election and there’s no guarantee that the administration which succeeds them (Reform?) will be bound by previous pledges. That said, and looking on the bright side, perhaps they will seek to do better!

When the dust has settled this minor farrago will come to be seen for what it is – another example of the Trump-style transactional approach to politics. He always enters with a preposterous opening gambit and then settles for much less than he asked for, and sometimes for nothing at all. It’s the way he does it and the others are now wising up.

There is a new acronym in town; TACO, as in ‘Trump Always Chickens Out’. We have seen it in his approach to Ukraine, Gaza, and now Greenland. The only time he has followed through has been in Venezuela and that was an altogether easier nut to crack.

European politicians need to deal with Trump for what he is, a boastful, blowhard, narcissistic bully. The rest of the world will thank them in due course.

Lt Col Stuart Crawford is a political and defence commentator and former army officer. Sign up for his podcasts and newsletters at www.DefenceReview.uk

Lt Col Stuart Crawford’s latest book Tank Commander (Hardback) is available now

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