Will World War III be NATO against Russia or just Europe against Russia?
Donald Trump loves Vladimir Putin
See update for June 1, 2025, at end of post.
When Vladimir Putin made it clear he was seeking to emulate Peter the Great,[1] the obvious implication was that he had no intention of stopping with Ukraine. I had already taken a screenshot of a map of the Russian Empire from the New York Times in 2014.[2] So it’s interesting now to see a former Central Intelligence Agency director warning that, indeed, Putin intends to continue on beyond Ukraine—Lithuania might soon be his next target.[3]
The map in my screenshot actually shows the extent of the Russian Empire in 1880,[4] when Alexander II was tsar. But if there’s a reason to imagine that Putin is any less ambitious, I’m unaware of it and the logic of Putin’s assertion that he is ‘reconquering’ Russian lands[5] seems inescapably to point in that direction. And yes, as the former CIA director observes, this includes North Atlantic Treaty Organization territory,[6] not just Lithuania, but Estonia, Latvia, Moldava, the majority of Ukraine, and a significant chunk of Poland.
This is why, after Putin began his second assault on Ukraine in 2022 and he made this bald claim, I assumed war with NATO was inevitable and figured we might as well get on with it. It was also a lot less clear at that time that Ukraine would prove as resilient as it has and I never imagined we might reach the point of possibly imminent Russia-NATO war[7] with Donald Trump back as president.
“In Donald Trump, America has a rogue president who has a 30-year track record [as of 2017] of opposing key elements of the [international] order, including free trade and alliances. Vladimir Putin wants to overthrow the order because he believes it poses a direct threat to his regime.” Trump was somewhat restrained in his first term by “the adults in the room”—chief executive officers and military generals he relied upon,[8] but in his second term, he has surrounded himself with “loyalists”—sycophants. And Trump’s affection for Putin hardly needs mentioning. Putin appears to reciprocate,[9] but in his actions, it seems to me much more like Putin neither respects nor fears Trump.
Trump appears—much too slowly—to be realizing that Putin has been playing him “like a fiddle.”[10] Whether that translates into action remains to be seen but a significant chunk of Trump’s white Christian nationalist support incorrectly sees a fellow traveler on “traditional values” in Putin’s Russia.[11] For these white Christian nationalists, cosmopolitan Ukraine is the enemy, not Russia.
It’s hard for me to imagine that our delusional raging narcissist-in-chief will abandon his hope for a negotiated peace. He covets a Nobel Peace Prize, at least in part because Barack Obama (whose legacy Trump sought to erase in his first term) won one.[12] And Trump has repeatedly demonstrated that while he thinks criticizing Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a cool thing to do (at least for his base), Putin should be handled with kid gloves.
So it becomes a serious question whether Trump, with his disdain for alliances,[13] would indeed respond to a Russian attack on NATO territory as that former CIA director implicitly expects.[14] If Putin does indeed attack NATO territory, it might be Europe alone responding.
Update, June 1, 2025: German General Carsten Breuer echoes former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency director David Petraeus, warning that Russia is building tanks and preparing munitions not only for Ukraine[15] but also for “new military structures always facing the West,”[16] likely in the Baltics. “Gen[eral] Breuer singled out the so-called Suwalki Gap, an area that borders Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Belarus, as one of the most vulnerable.”[17] Petraeus had also mentioned Lithuania.[18]
[1] Julian O’Shaughnessy, “I’m reconquering just like Peter the Great, insists Vladimir Putin,” <i>Times</i>, June 10, 2022, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/president-putin-creates-police-department-to-impose-martial-law-xqhlt79fn
[2] New York Times, "Ukraine Crisis in Maps," n.d., http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/02/27/world/europe/ukraine-divisions-crimea.html
[3] Joshua Nair, “What would happen if Russia invaded a NATO country as former CIA boss reveals where he thinks Putin will attack next,” LADBible, May 30, 2025, https://www.ladbible.com/news/world-news/russia-war-nato-countries-cia-boss-vladimir-putin-880238-20250530
[4] New York Times, "Ukraine Crisis in Maps," n.d., http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/02/27/world/europe/ukraine-divisions-crimea.html
[5] Julian O’Shaughnessy, “I’m reconquering just like Peter the Great, insists Vladimir Putin,” <i>Times</i>, June 10, 2022, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/president-putin-creates-police-department-to-impose-martial-law-xqhlt79fn
[6] Joshua Nair, “What would happen if Russia invaded a NATO country as former CIA boss reveals where he thinks Putin will attack next,” LADBible, May 30, 2025, https://www.ladbible.com/news/world-news/russia-war-nato-countries-cia-boss-vladimir-putin-880238-20250530
[7] Joshua Nair, “What would happen if Russia invaded a NATO country as former CIA boss reveals where he thinks Putin will attack next,” LADBible, May 30, 2025, https://www.ladbible.com/news/world-news/russia-war-nato-countries-cia-boss-vladimir-putin-880238-20250530
[8] Thomas Wright, “In the age of Trump, maybe it gets worse from here,” Irish Times, November 4, 2017, https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/in-the-age-of-trump-maybe-it-gets-worse-from-here-1.3278884
[9] Keir Simmons and Alexander Smith, “Friends without benefits: How the long-running Trump-Putin bromance is still not delivering,” NBC News, May 20, 2025, https://www.nbcnews.com/world/russia/trump-putin-russia-ukraine-war-ceasefire-talks-zelenskyy-turkey-rcna207903
[10] New Republic, “Vladimir Putin Is Playing Trump Like a Fiddle,” May 29, 2025, https://newrepublic.com/post/195859/vladimir-putin-playing-trump-like-fiddle
[11] Adrian Karatnycky, “Russia Is No Conservative Haven,” Foreign Policy, September 6, 2024, https://apple.news/AlQ6AGv8_SJ-uR7Xn3atQkA
[12] Peter Nicholas, “Trump still really wants to win a Nobel Peace Prize,” NBC News, March 1, 2025, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-really-wants-win-nobel-peace-prize-rcna193330
[13] Thomas Wright, “In the age of Trump, maybe it gets worse from here,” Irish Times, November 4, 2017, https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/us/in-the-age-of-trump-maybe-it-gets-worse-from-here-1.3278884
[14] Joshua Nair, “What would happen if Russia invaded a NATO country as former CIA boss reveals where he thinks Putin will attack next,” LADBible, May 30, 2025, https://www.ladbible.com/news/world-news/russia-war-nato-countries-cia-boss-vladimir-putin-880238-20250530
[15] Frank Gardner and Tessa Wong, “Russia may attack Nato in next four years, German defence chief warns,” British Broadcasting Corporation, June 1, 2025, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62v63gl8rvo
[16] Carsten Breuer, quoted in Frank Gardner and Tessa Wong, “Russia may attack Nato in next four years, German defence chief warns,” British Broadcasting Corporation, June 1, 2025, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62v63gl8rvo
[17] Frank Gardner and Tessa Wong, “Russia may attack Nato in next four years, German defence chief warns,” British Broadcasting Corporation, June 1, 2025, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62v63gl8rvo
[18] Joshua Nair, “What would happen if Russia invaded a NATO country as former CIA boss reveals where he thinks Putin will attack next,” LADBible, May 30, 2025, https://www.ladbible.com/news/world-news/russia-war-nato-countries-cia-boss-vladimir-putin-880238-20250530