Fiona Hill: The world is going nuclear

They don't know what they're doing. Do you understand that? They see him as taking action. He is definitely decisive. So, there should be pause there for anyone who's thinking about crossing the United States. We've got this breakdown of the global order. At the press conference with him, he says, "Sometimes daddy needs to intervene." And then daddy has to sometimes use strong language. He did. He did it very affectionately. "Daddy, you're my daddy." After 80 years of, you know, relying on daddy or living in daddy's basement, it's time for Europe really to step up. We're in a rapidly changing, very challenging, very threatening world.

Thank you, Freddy. Great to be with you again.

I mean, the only person who called it a 12-day war was President Trump himself. He obviously intended to echo the Six-Day War. I mean, there's all kinds of terminology that goes around the number of days of a conflict. We have, you know, from the famous period of the Bolshevik Revolution, the Ten Days That Shook the World. One might call this 12 days that certainly shook the Middle East. But this seems to be more of yet again another phase in what is a long-drawn-out and very protracted conflict. And even Trump himself has started to reflect on that, talking about how Iran and Israel have been confronting each other and engaged in a conflict, much of it obviously in the shadows, for quite a long time, for an extended period. So I doubt very much that this is the end of everything. But it also, I think, really underscores how Trump himself sees these kinds of episodes of conflict. First of all, he moved the United States in what he sees as a very quick, sharp shock with a bombing campaign, and then pulls out immediately as quickly as he can to try to limit the US exposure. He is the person who pushed and goaded both Iran and Israel into a ceasefire. And so, you know, let's see how that goes. Of course, he did that with Israel and Hamas, and he's been calling for a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, not to any greater avail for some time now. But he seems to have actually bullied both Israel and Iran into a ceasefire at the moment. But it also becomes quite clear that he thinks of a ceasefire as peace, you know, rather than basically a long negotiated agreement. And he's even saying now that he doesn't really care whether there is an agreement or not with Iran, despite the fact that in the first Trump administration, after he tore up the JCPOA, the joint agreement on Iran's nuclear facilities which had been worked out with great diplomatic effort by the United States along with the Europeans, his intent at that point was to get a new agreement, and he constantly talked about sitting down again with the Iranian leaders and reaching some new agreement. And of course, that's where he was headed for the weeks preceding this intervention. It's definitely moved the dial. And then the question is really going to be, as you've, you know, been laying out here, whether the Iranians double down here, whether Israel sees this as actually kind of a moment to make an agreement, and whether Trump's going to stay the course diplomatically and in terms of his attention.

Well, it certainly seems like a win for Trump. And again, you know, if the ceasefire holds and then there is a negotiated phase again with really intense diplomacy, that could, you know, come from other quarters as well. I mean, obviously the Europeans have been watching all this and do have a vested interest. Missiles from Iran could easily hit European capitals, not just Israel, for example. And Iranian diasporas are prevalent across the whole of Europe, especially in places like Germany, but also in London and elsewhere. It's not just in the United States. So, you know, there's a great deal of concern to how this could reverberate in Europe as well as in the Middle East. And I think, you know what, again, let's go back to what you just said here about the restrainers in the MAGA world. They are very concerned, and rightly so, about the United States being dragged into conflict, as what we've seen in American interventions time and time again. Think about Afghanistan and Iraq, you know, for example, and Syria in the anti-ISIS campaign. But we've also seen the United States make these strikes, these surgical strikes. Trump took out Soleimani previously, and he probably sees the bombing of the nuclear plants in the same vein as, you know, something that's a quick surgical strike and moving out. Now, the first time around, he wanted to do this. He did want to take action against the nuclear sites, and of course the Israelis were really trying to push him to do so back then as well. But he was himself restrained by the idea, just as is playing out now in all of the debate about it, that this would not be as effective as everybody wanted it to be because of the risks that you would do some damage, but you would only actually set back Iran's nuclear ambitions and capabilities by a matter of months, perhaps, you know, a year or so at best, but you wouldn't be able to absolutely destroy it. And so, you know, we are where we would have been perhaps in the first administration if he'd done a strike. But I think he's made it very clear that he doesn't intend to do a lot more. So in a way, this might be the opportunity for the MAGA restrainers, which JD Vance and others and Hegseth would have been in, to have their cake and eat it. But again, it all depends on what really happens next. Depends on whether Israel feels that this is sufficient, and they may well not, and really where the Iranian regime finds itself. And we're already seeing signs that they are planning on and already are clamping down. And I mean, that's really the fear that people have, that the regime strengthens itself on the back of this assault and that they use this as an excuse to clamp down even further on domestic opposition because they're in survival mode.

Well, in the immediate sense, yes. I mean, it could well be. But, you know, what's going to happen in the next few weeks and months and, you know, the years ahead is key here, right? Because I mean, Trump is actually very good at these short, sharp actions, and you could say that across the board. I mean, much of the reason that he still retains his base of support is because they see him as taking action. He is definitely decisive, but the question is one of the longer-term consequences and how much staying power will he have. Because we saw him throw himself into the Russia-Ukraine war, and he was saying, of course, that it was going to solve it in 24 hours, and he actually got negotiations underway. Then it was 100 days, and it was going to be by Easter, and of course it proved to be more difficult. He's saying that now, that it was more difficult than he anticipated. So I mean, is this going to be the same situation with Iran and Israel, and, you know, more broadly about Iran's posture in the Middle East? Because the concern was about Iran's nuclear program, it was about its ballistic missile developments, and it was, you know, obviously also the support for the Shia axis across the Middle East. Now Israel's taken care of a lot of that with their actions against Hamas and Hezbollah and taking out a lot of the Iranian leadership. But, you know, the kind of question is really what happens next and how much leverage does Trump and the United States actually have? I mean, there really is something, you know, the demonstration effect of a major US military action, but that's what it is. It's an action. So what happens next is going to be critical, and it could well be that this turns out to be a really decisive moment that pushes things forward. But I, you know, I do have some concerns, I have to say, about the way it's being framed, particularly as Trump talks about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and, you know, saying that this is going to end a war. I mean, that itself is debated, about how much the atomic bombing of Japan really ended the war in the Pacific. And of course, it also suggests to others that taking that kind of dramatic military action is the way that they might want to proceed in their own conflicts, be that Russia and Ukraine, you know, or elsewhere. And it gives a lot of cover, you know, for other countries who decide that they want to go down the same military route of deciding an issue, like China, you know, with Taiwan, etc. So, you know, again, he has to be able to constrain and restrain a whole set of second- and third-order effects.

Well, that's one of the worries that everybody has, if you think about it. From the geopolitical perspective, absolutely spot on that the regime is damaged but not killed. Khamenei, of course, I mean, his days may be numbered just because of his age. So there could become a succession crisis. You know, there could be something else that precipitates a real change there, but it's also very likely that the regime will be doubling down on both the nuclear program, because it is still hell-bent on having it, and also on retaining its grip, because that's a survival issue. And look at what happened in Russia after the insurgency by Prigozhin. You know, we were all talking about, whoa, what does this mean, you know, for Putin and for the stability of the Russian regime there. And of course, it just meant that Putin doubled down, and of course he eventually took down Prigozhin. And it went back to, you know, not business as usual, but actually business is more unusual in terms of the kind of strengthening of the regime's defenses and Putin himself tightening up his inner circle. And that's the kind of thing you might see in Iran as well. So they harden their defenses, and again, it's also a signal to many others. I mean, it's interesting in the fact that I think it does probably give other would-be American adversaries pause because they can actually see, contrary to some of the other accusations about Trump, that he doesn't follow through, that he applies maximal pressure and then pulls back and doesn't do the things. Of course he does. There are times when he actually does take action. He did in Syria against Assad when Obama did not. He did in fact declare tariffs, and he's pulled back somewhat. But there's all kinds of things that he said he would do, and he did do them. So there should be pause there for anyone who's thinking about crossing the United States. I mean, he has in many respects underscored American power and capability and, you know, potential intent to take action. So that might have had a sobering effect on, you know, others.

It's going to be some time. That's the problem again, that you don't get instantaneous evidence of what's happened there because you're not on the ground and you don't actually know what the Iranians were doing in terms of securing all of these facilities beforehand. Iran is now saying, "Look, we don't want to work with the IAEA anymore. We're not necessarily going to give access to them," because what is going to be critical is access to those sites and to see, you know, what has actually happened there. So there's a fear here that you'll have this competition of, you know, who did what and how effective it was. And we're in a phase now where I think a lot of countries are thinking long and hard about acquiring nuclear capability because, frankly, they see what Russia did to Ukraine, and Ukraine gave up a nuclear arsenal. We pushed them to give it up in 1993, 1994, the early parts of the 1990s, along with Belarus and Kazakhstan. And the message from all of this is that they, as a result of that, were invaded for giving this up. You've got the same message from Libya, for example, for what happened to Muammar Gaddafi after giving up nuclear weapons.

I thought it was a mistake at the time, just to be frank, in terms of giving it up with their leverage, and I'm on the record of actually saying that, which wasn't very popular at the time. I mean, I completely understand, you know, why the United States and the United Kingdom, as permanent nuclear powers, pushed Ukraine to do that. There was massive concern about loose nukes back in the early 1990s. But for Ukraine's own sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, having those weapons as leverage, even if in, you know, the immediate term they couldn't use them, would have seemed very important because there were already signs of kind of a predatory behavior on the part of different groups within Russia that were pushing to make sure that Ukraine didn't get away, you know, from its relationship with Russia. So I mean, that's a message to everyone else, there would-be nuclear powers in the world, that look, you have guarantees from having nuclear weapons of not being attacked. And we saw from India and Pakistan that was a quick move to calm that, and in fact the United States played a role in that as well, to quickly calm down that conflict because both of them are nuclear powers.

We have that dilemma that many powers want to have a nuclear weapon for their own security guarantees. But of course, that also goes the other way too, doesn't it? That they may also want to use the fact that they have a nuclear weapon against neighbors that do not. I mean, imagine how the Iran-Iraq war would have played out if Iran had a nuclear weapon, you know, in that instance, for example. And, you know, the idea that Israel itself has a nuclear arsenal also makes Israel a potentially formidable, you know, adversary for other countries. The Turks certainly, you know, would like, for their own purposes, as seeing themselves as a regional power with also global aspirations, to have a nuclear weapon. South Korea's had to be talked out of developing one for the obvious reasons of fears of what North Korea might do. Japan, you know, being the country that actually had nuclear weapons used against it during World War II, has often fretted about its own security and safety and about the reliability of the US nuclear umbrella. And of course, in Europe now, as you've rightly said, there's been a great deal of discussion about whether other European nations should develop a European nuclear security umbrella if the United States is no longer a reliable ally. That didn't really come up in the NATO context. But of course, the United Kingdom has just announced that it will be acquiring F-35As, which are dual-capable aircraft. I mean, they're very good for training purposes and, you know, for use for the Royal Air Force overall, but they are capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons. And of course, that would then mean that that's adding to the capacity of other European countries that already have these, the so-called DCAs. And the United Kingdom has its own sovereign nuclear capability, the continuous at-sea deterrent, submarine-launched nuclear missiles, and of course France has its own sovereign nuclear capability, which has been much more extensive than the UK's. So look, this is a new world that we're in. It's no longer the issue of the United States and the Soviet Union dominating the nuclear discussion. So there's going to be a lot of thinking that has to be undertaken about this new nuclear world that we're in.

Correct. That's highly, you know, likely at this particular moment because we've got this breakdown of the global order that was established by the United States, with the United States, frankly, as the linchpin of this after World War II. And we've got 80 years of really the United States playing that very important role, that is also a role of assurance to other countries that the United States will intervene in some fashion, not just as a policeman, but actually in a diplomatic fashion if, you know, things get out of hand. And Trump is basically saying, look, sorry, this system no longer works for us. You know, we don't want any part of it. And that by necessity then starts to lead to others thinking about, well, how do we establish other orders, not necessarily a global order, that we find beneficial? And China's obviously very interested in having its own regional order and global influence, but without any responsibility. It's not that China is going to pick up where the United States left off. It does not want that role either in foreign aid or in the military or even diplomatic front. China often comes out there and says, yes, of course, it'd be nice to have a peace agreement here, Ukraine and Russia, for example, or, you know, to some degree played that role between the Saudis and Iranians, but it wasn't really very meaningfully engaged in diplomacy. It was more sweeping in when it looked like, you know, kind of there was a vacuum there. So there's no one to fill the US role globally, so you're going to see these regional efforts. And that's why, you know, coming out of the NATO summit, for example, European players have to pay attention to their own regional security or European pillar. You can't rely on the United States anymore in the way that you could before. And you've got to really think about how you produce at least a regional order in Europe that could be a model for other places, but one that deters war. And that's really why Ukraine is so key to this. It is really about sending a signal that war does not work as a tool, and it's much better to have diplomacy and deterrence.

So NATO absolutely still is a useful organization, but it is only reliable if we've really built up the European pillar of NATO, and that requires real dedication and political will on the part of European powers. And we already had Spain basically saying, look, you know, sorry, we really can't afford to build up our defense, and we've had a lot of fudging on this issue of 5%. I mean, I jokingly call it Article 5%, which is, you know, just look, unless you actually pay 5% of GDP towards your defense, there'll be no opportunity of collective defense, and that's certainly the message from Trump. But that's, you know, a pretty tall order for most countries around Europe that are fairly impudent at the moment.

Well, they've got away with it with the European allies who kind of completely and utterly sympathize with them, I'm sure. But they haven't got away with it with Trump. I mean, Trump has actually said, "Right, well, Spain was terrible about this and we'll make them pay." And we're busy, he says, negotiating a trade deal with Spain, and, you know, we'll just make them pay that way, because Trump really does believe that the United States is providing a service to NATO and to European allies in terms of security, and one way or another they need to be remunerating the United States for that service. The more they pay themselves, the less the United States is providing. The less they pay, the more the United States is providing. And then he's going to, you know, take out the payments through trade. And so the Spanish can probably look forward now to a very painful trade set of negotiations.

It is an aberration. He was really upset at the idea that you could sort of leverage trade discussions in a security arena, but Donald Trump doesn't seem to care about those distinctions, and that's where he is. I mean, he sees this all as part of trade transaction all the time. And I mean, they've obviously understood this to some degree, but that's where he is. He's not going to change. He's absolutely not going to change that position. So they're going to have to be very mindful about it.

Look, and I think, you know, okay, it's fudging, but it's also maybe a clever formula to say, okay, it's 3.5% that we're all aiming for in actual fact in terms of the defense aspect of this, equipment and capabilities, but 1.5% that gets us up to that 5% is in actual fact more about looking at resilience. That was a large, you know, element of all of it that is defense thinking, and that's thinking about strengthening your infrastructure, particularly critical national infrastructure, and all of the other defensive issues that really fit into Article Three of NATO, which is about being able to defend your own homeland. So that might play out okay, you know, over the longer run.

But look, there is one element of all of this that Trump really sees NATO, and that's become crystal clear, is the North Atlantic Trump Organization. And just look again at the White House website of his clip from the NATO summit. It's called "Daddy's Home."

First of all, he sent Donald Trump private messages. Suppose we haven't had confirmation that they were from him, but it seems like they were saying, "Donald, you have driven us to a really, really important moment for America and Europe and the world. You will achieve something no American president in decades could get done." And then standing there at the press conference with him, he says, "Sometimes daddy needs to intervene." I mean, the daddy discourse here. Yeah. And I mean, this just feeds into Trump's, you know, kind of whole feeling that it is his organization and that, you know, he is the savior of it all.

I mean, he's not wrong. He is daddy in this family because without him there is no security.

And it's been long past time, and that's going to be the real challenge. They've got away with this. They've got through the kind of performative aspects of this summit. They'd be well advised not to have another one anytime soon. And they would also be even better advised to be focusing on what they're actually going to do to basically build up more European capacities and capabilities, because this dependency on the United States has proven to be a point of failure and real vulnerability, as well as leverage, you know, for the way that the United States can, under Trump, you know, use this in these trade transactions that Macron and everybody else decry so much.

Well, look, it's going to take some time because, as we've already acknowledged, for the most part, the nuclear security guarantee from the United States is pretty critical and very, very hard to replace.