If the US wanted to destroy its credibility in Europe deliberately, it could hardly have done it better.
The casual cancellation last week of the long-planned nine-month rotation of a brigade combat team (BCT) to Poland exemplified everything that European allies find baffling and repellent about the Trump administration.
No warning. No consultation. Not even a cursory explanation, from the Pentagon or from American officials in Europe.
At the Lennart Meri Conference in Tallinn this weekend, a big security shindig, I watched an excruciating performance by a supposedly senior US official, Thomas DiNanno, who merely blathered when asked about the move.
I think he said that the presentation could have been better (note to the organisers: next year can we please have simultaneous translation from Trump-speak into English?).
Asked flatly by a senior Latvian politician, Artis Pabriks, whether the US would defend its Baltic allies if Russia attacked them, DiNanno declined to give a straight “yes”.
Even our poker-faced Estonian hosts looked dismayed.
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