Trump’s policies and pronouncements are completely unpredictable, so there is no telling what he will do

Adam Michnik interviewed by Irena Grudzińska-Gross

Irena Grudzińska-Gross: What was your reaction to Donald Trump’s second election to the US presidency?

Adam Michnik: I was mad at the whole world – really mad. I’ve been reading the twentieth-century American playwright Arthur Miller’s autobiography (Timebends: A Life), which unfolds against the backdrop of an America that I am very much attached to. But the America I saw after Election Day made me furious. And now look at Trump’s appalling nominations to senior positions. We’re going to have a tough four years, and then figures like Vice President-elect J.D. Vance will be there to take up the reins. Black clouds are everywhere – all over the world.

Things Fall Apart

IGG: Let’s look at the implications for Europe. The establishment of the European Union, a democratic federation, is the best thing that has happened on the continent since the end of World War II. Yet Trump’s return threatens to overturn the postwar international order. What future is there now for the EU?

AM: I wouldn’t call the EU a federation, because really it is something sui generis, something specific. And so far, it is working, though it has plenty of problems. I agree that it is the best thing Europe has come up with in the past 80 years. The idea came from Western European elites – Christian Democrats and Social Democrats – and the key to its success has been the Euro-Atlantic bond. But that is now weakened.

Europe is threatened from many directions. Trump’s policies and pronouncements are completely unpredictable, so there is no telling what he will do. He could make a deal with his friend Vladimir Putin; he could drop a bomb on Iran – or even on North Korea. No one knows, and this is not just my assessment. Everyone who has worked with him says the same thing.

A second and related issue is of course Ukraine. Here is how I see it from Warsaw: The outlook is bleak, and all signs point to Trump betraying the Ukrainians to serve his own narrow, personal interests. He is a transactional politician, and he will make any deal that allows him to say he accomplished something. He said during the campaign that he would end the war in a day, and I fear that – in this rare instance – he will keep his word. He also could simply withhold aid to Ukraine and let matters take their course.

IGG: Yes, unfortunately, that is possible. We should note that, on a post-election phone call, Trump reportedly pressed Putin not to escalate the war, even reminding him that America has troops in Europe. But Trump’s statements at any given time are irrelevant. After all, he said that Haitian refugees are eating cats and dogs. (I am laughing, but through tears.)

AM: Yes, of course. Times like these call for gallows humor.

IGG: How do you rate the EU’s response to the war in Ukraine so far?

AM: I view it positively overall. I did not expect such solidarity, such unambiguity. The only exceptions have been Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and people like former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder; but he represents only himself and [Russian gas giant] Gazprom, not Germany.

Still, there are some in the heart of Europe who will break sanctions and make money from Russia. These include not only Orbán but also certain forces in Germany, France, and Spain. Europe’s internal conflicts are as deep as those in the United States, though Europe is not yet ruled by a Trump-like figure. The times are reminiscent of the 1930s. Germany is confronting a brown-red wave of support for anti-European parties like the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance. One relies on post-fascist rhetoric, the other on post-Bolshevik rhetoric, but they have a common goal: the destruction of the EU parliamentary system.

IGG: What do you anticipate next from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky? He seems more prepared to go to the negotiating table, probably having concluded that another Trump administration leaves him no choice. Will Ukraine be split in two, like Korea and Vietnam in the 1950s?

AM: I don’t see a good scenario for Ukraine, though that doesn’t mean there isn’t one. A black swan may appear and turn everything upside down. Until November 5, I believed that Trump would lose. I thought Kamala Harris ran a very good campaign. She was markedly different from Trump, and she showed a different face of America – one that I still believe in. But that America lost. The next four years will be an ordeal. Their impact on Europe will be very bad, benefiting the continent’s most reactionary forces.

IGG: So perhaps we really will have another “Munich” moment, with Europe agreeing to appease a violent aggressor. In 1938, it was Czechoslovakia that was sacrificed; maybe it’s Ukraine’s turn to be sold out by its friends.

AM: That is a possible worst-case scenario, but it is not a predetermined one. Neville Chamberlain returned from his meeting with Hitler with the slogan “peace for our time.” If the British political class had not gotten around to swapping Chamberlain for Winston Churchill, there’s no telling what the rest of the twentieth century would have looked like.

Recall that Edward Halifax, Chamberlain’s foreign secretary who continued in that role for a while under Churchill, pushed for a separate peace, for talks with Hitler brokered by Benito Mussolini. As a man of leftist orientation, I should not love the conservative Churchill. But what can I say? He saved Europe. Moreover, the Labour Party under Clement Attlee entered his government and served it loyally throughout the war, because everyone understood that Nazism was the threat that mattered.

Today, a similar threat is arising before our eyes: a strange mix of Nazism and Bolshevism, or post-Nazism and post-Bolshevism. This is something new, which is why I don’t know what will happen. I can’t anticipate much today. Maybe tomorrow I will be wiser. Today I am terrified – or at least mightily frightened.

IGG: So, what would Trump’s abandonment of Ukraine mean for Poland?

AM: It means that we would have a border with Russia – a revanchist nuclear-armed military power that is openly aggressive, bloodthirsty, and bent on revenge. It means nothing good for Poland. The fact that there are people in Poland who are happy about Trump’s election is simply mystifying.

Trouble on the Home Front

IGG: What would a border with Russia mean for the EU? Walk us through it.

AM: The EU’s future depends on the courage and maturity of European elites. At present, Europe is vacillating between a policy of appeasement toward Russia and firm support for Ukraine. The clearest exponent of appeasement is Schröder, who has become, in the parlance of the Bolsheviks, Putin’s “chain dog.”

On the other side are the staunch defenders of Ukraine. Their project can still succeed if Europe consolidates around it and manages to preserve NATO. We don’t yet know exactly what Trump’s attitude toward NATO will be, because everything he says on the topic is full of inconsistencies and contradictions.

Moreover, while consolidation is possible, Europe is split internally. I see many fractures and fault lines. Just look at France, which is torn between the right, as represented by Marine Le Pen, and the left, as represented by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. In fact, I don’t even know if the words “right” and “left” make sense anymore. I have long had doubts about that, and they are now growing by the day.

IGG: What do you mean?

AM: From my point of view, as a man of traditional values, fascism was never of the right, because it was not a movement of aristocrats and landowners, but rather of plebeians. Likewise, the communists were not of the left, because they were not concerned about human rights. So, today’s division in Europe is not between the right and the left, but between those who want to defend the constitutional order, liberal democracy, and the market economy, and those who want to destroy these values. The latter group includes everyone from the self-described “illiberals” to the admirers of Hamas and supporters of traditional anti-democratic projects like those led by Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua or Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela.

In Europe, decidedly anti-democratic forces include the AfD, separatist forces in Spain, and the movement behind Brexit. There are even anti-democratic figures in power in Hungary and Slovakia, and they remain a potent force in Poland. But Poland is also a bright spot on the map, because pro-democracy parties united to oust the populists. We will have to see how long they are kept at bay. The conflict is ongoing, but I want to be a Polish patriot, so I will say that we have already rejected the anti-democratic and populist forces within our polity. (Laughter.)

Back to Arms

IGG: With the weakening of transatlantic ties, does Europe need its own army?

AM: Yes, I think Europe should have its own military force, and I say that as someone with a pacifist temperament. I abhor war, and I don’t love the military – at least not military culture – but I think that when you are dealing with Putin and a wave of populist and revanchist terrorism, you must prepare a resolute military response.

IGG: Should that response come from NATO?

AM: I couldn’t say. That’s a question for specialists, politicians, and diplomats. However, I can say that since its inception, NATO has passed the test. The loss of NATO would be a gift to autocrats, populists, and dictators. If our defense didn’t come from NATO, we would have to figure out what to replace it with. Either way, Europe must have a force that can efficiently respond to threats.

The crisis in the Balkans in the 1990s demonstrated that some things simply cannot be done without an organization like NATO. Had we not intervened militarily, Slobodan Milošević might still be in power today. Had it not been for European and American aid, Ukraine would not have been able to fend off Russia for the past two and a half years. Who would have known the Ukrainians could resist for so long? No one in Europe or across the Atlantic expected it.

IGG: Can increased military and defense spending be reconciled with the obligations of the welfare state – which is the essence of the European social contract?

AM: Well, if Putin’s armed forces dominate Europe, pensions, health care, and education will have already been lost. I see the risk that you’re talking about, but the stakes here are different. This is a game for the whole pot; without security, you have nothing.

IGG: And then there is the war in the Middle East.

AM: Exactly. Yet another danger for Europe lies in the Middle East. The situation there is tragic and extraordinarily fraught; and I say this as someone who wishes Israel the best. I am afraid that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s government will take things in the wrong direction, leaving Israel with a curse lasting for many years. He is playing for power, he has Trump’s support, and he will be working with a US administration whose senior foreign-policy officials (including Marco Rubio, Elise Stefanik, and Mike Huckabee) fully share his own view. The longer the war goes on, the harder it will be for the Israeli public to remove him from power.

IGG: How do you assess the EU’s position on Israel and the situation in the Middle East?

AM: The situation in Gaza is terrible. This is one of the few issues where I don’t see a positive scenario anywhere on the horizon. Neither the Palestinian nor the Israeli leadership want an agreement, and if there is no force of argument, the argument of force is what remains.

Europe is trying to mitigate the conflict somehow, but so far without success. On one side is Netanyahu and the extreme radical, chauvinist parties that make up his government; they all feed on the rhetoric and realities of war. On the other side, there is what remains of Hamas, as well as the Palestinian Authority, an utterly weakened institution that clings to life thanks to Western support. The way things are going, Hamas will come to dominate the PA as well.

My outlook here is very pessimistic.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2024. www.project-syndicate.org

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