April 15, 2026 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
23:19
Gilbert Doctorow : Trump Shattering NATO
Gilbert Doctorow joins Judge Andrew Napolitano to dissect Donald Trump's dismantling of NATO and the EU, arguing this marks a Yalta II-style realignment into US, Russian, and Chinese spheres. Doctorow details the destruction of AUKUS, Slovenia's departure from NATO, and plans to close 750 American bases to forge a new security architecture with Russia. Amidst claims that European leaders are warmongers and speculation on Putin freezing the Ukraine conflict along the Dnieper, the discussion concludes that Trump is executing a long-term strategy to replace multilateral alliances with a divided global order. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Geopolitical Time Horizons00:15:09
Undeclared wars are commonplace.
Tragically, our government engages in preemptive war, otherwise known as aggression, with no complaints from the American people.
Sadly, we have become accustomed to living with the illegitimate use of force by government.
To develop a truly free society, the issue of initiating force must be understood and rejected.
What if sometimes, to love your country, you had to alter or abolish the government?
What if Jefferson was right?
What if that government is best which governs least?
What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong?
What if it is better to perish fighting for freedom than to live as a slave?
What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now?
Hi, everyone.
Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Today is Wednesday, April 15th, 2026.
Gilbert Doctorow, my dear friend, joins us now.
Gilbert, a pleasure.
As always, thank you for accommodating my schedule.
I want to talk to you about Donald Trump and his relationship to NATO.
But before we get into that, what are your observations from the weekend events in Islamabad.
I thought of you this morning when I read a piece in the Financial Times, the headline of which was Vance Handed a Poison Chalice.
I think that's accurate because he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.
As the vice president, he would be facing a great threat if he came out publicly against Trump on anything, least of all on this high priority issue of destroying Iran.
On the other hand, if he pursues this and is humiliated, as he was in Islamabad, by carrying out the orders of his boss, which could not be executed properly, could not lead to any results, could only be embarrassing, if he pursues that path, he's also damned because he forms a record of failures, which is not the best path to the White House.
Well, he did not have a very good week.
He spent three days campaigning in English.
To Hungarian voters on behalf of Prime Minister Orban, who was soundly trounced.
He had this perform, what I would call performative, I invite you to agree or disagree, performative dance in Islamabad during the course of which he had 11 phone calls with President Trump.
It's not clear who called whom, and one with Prime Minister Netanyahu.
I wonder how many phone calls there were.
From Kushner and Witkoff to Netanyahu.
I mean, Vince was a puppet this weekend, was he not?
Oh, yes, absolutely.
As I said, humiliating because he was on a very short tether.
A person who is the second most important official in the United States to be on such a short tether cannot do his career any good.
Was this a serious negotiation or was it just performative?
From the Iranian standpoint, it certainly was serious.
From the American standpoint, it is part of Trump's singing and dancing, trying to dominate the airwaves and to claim that he is in control of events and everyone else comes around to him and begs for an audience.
This is to cover up the obvious fact that you.
I and a great many analysts of different political persuasions all agree on that this whole venture in Iran has been a political disaster from just a week or so into it, and is today, to anyone looking closely, a loss that he has to extricate himself as best he can.
How can he extricate himself at this point?
What out exists for President Trump?
Well, he will, in any case, whatever happens, as he likes to say, he will claim victory.
And he has points that he can make.
And boy, will he make them.
How many naval vessels of Iran he sent to the bottom, and how many sites, military and police infrastructure in Iran he destroyed, and how they prepared the way for an uprising in Iran.
And if only if the Iranian people were.
Too timorous or too uninformed, or have themselves to blame that they have not freed themselves from this tyranny.
So he will make such very brave statements.
You can be sure he's not going to admit, but we can all see that he lost the war.
So he started a war he couldn't win.
He started a war with objectives he couldn't achieve.
Now he'll take credit for ending the war.
I don't think the American people are going to buy this in November.
Well, I'm not sure, just as looking at the last few interviews you've had since Monday, I'm not sure that he's terribly concerned or worked up over that.
If that were the case, he wouldn't have gotten into this totally gratuitous spat with the Pope.
So I think he has other things on his mind.
But as we go into the issue, which is the title given to our chat today, I think I'd like to explain where I'm coming from and why what I say can be different.
Before you do that, I want to ask one other question.
How does the Kremlin view what we have just been discussing this fruitless, useless, disastrous war?
Well, there are at least two sides to their take on it.
One, considering the great prudence of Vladimir Putin, is the concern that they may be dealing indeed with a madman, and they don't want to.
To inflame him further so they've done something totally irrational and threatening to themselves.
That is one take.
The other take is how we can use it to our benefit because he has backed himself in the corner and he needs help getting out of it.
And that opens opportunities to the Russians to extract concessions from him as the relationship goes forward.
Do now to NATO.
Do NATO leaders expect it to survive without US membership and financing in its present form, in some other form, or to go away?
No, I don't think they expect it to survive.
And there's even Sanchez in Spain was making a very loud statement the last few days that Europe desperately needs an army.
And in saying that, of course, he is rejecting NATO.
But before I proceed, I'd like to just take one step back.
Where I'm coming from, and what perspective I'm bringing to this time horizon.
That is critical.
Just as I've said repeatedly, who is responsible for a war, or whether it is provoked or not provoked, all depends on the timing when you say the relation started.
If it started two weeks ago, that's one explanation.
Who is guilty, and if it started 10 years ago, it's a difference.
So here it is with looking forward, the same issue comes up.
What is your time horizon?
Journalists usually have a time horizon like two weeks back and maybe two weeks forward.
People, geopoliticians or political scientists, may have a time horizon of months to a few years.
Historians, to their discredit, may have a time horizon of 600 years, which is utterly ridiculous for purposes of geopolitical analysis.
But they certainly have a long time horizon, both looking forward and maybe counterintuitive, also looking forward.
Historians also can look forward.
I am by training a historian.
I have by nature a longer time horizon than almost all of my peers, and certainly than all journalists in Main Street.
But surely your time horizon is shorter than 600 years.
10 years.
I say 10 years from now, what we'd make of all this will look very, very different.
I conceive the fact that my colleague Ray McGovern said on your show on Monday that Trump has lost it.
That he really may be wandering off into dementia or into some delusional state.
I don't deny that as a possibility.
However, in his madness, there was a method.
The method goes back way before Mr. Trump became of questionable sanity and competence.
And that goes decades, taking this back decades, we see that what he's achieving, both by will.
Both by subjective factors and by objective factors, that's by what he wants and by what he actually does and achieves, is implementing, is realizing his decades long desire to smash NATO,
to smash the EU, to smash other multinational, multilateral alliances and organizations, and to bring forward to the first space, to the first place on the stage, the nation state.
And that makes him a realist.
There is a logic to it all.
I'm not saying that he is in perfect mental condition to defend that logic today, but de facto, what he's doing, he has destroyed the AUKUS, the Australian based defense in the Pacific to contain China at sea.
He has destroyed the relationship with India that took 20 years to cultivate so they would.
Form the Indo Pacific retaining wall against China.
He has shattered NATO, which is falling apart in front of our eyes.
He will not have to ask Congress for permission to leave it because the Europeans are leaving it first.
Slovenia is going to hold a referendum now on leaving NATO.
That tells you which way the wind is blowing.
So he is destroying these, and you say, well, what's going to fill it in?
It'll be chaos.
Wrong.
His idea was and is a Yalta II.
A world that Henry Kissinger would understand at once, where the three major powers in the world, the United States, Russia, and China, divide up spheres of influence, look after the major issues in their domain, and allow the small guys to settle their differences among themselves without intervention.
That also assumes the end of the 750 American military bases abroad.
So there is a logic to it all that will come out 10 years from now, just as when I went to see the opera Nixon in China.
By John Adams.
What I saw of Nixon was certainly not the Nixon that we saw, you and I saw, in the days of his resignation after Watergate.
It was a far more favorable vision of the man and of his genius than anyone would have ever admitted back then.
So it is with Trump, even in these days when I won't call him a genius anymore.
But nonetheless, what he's doing is very positive.
What will the Germans, the Hungarians under their new government and the Poles do, Polish people, without NATO.
They'll look to the East and they'll understand that they are naked and they'll do what you should do in that situation.
Wisen up, come to your senses, and sit down at the table and talk.
That is all they have to do.
I've said for years now Europe does not need an army, Europe needs a new foreign policy.
And that's all it will take.
The Russians are ready to sit and talk about making amends, about bridging the gap between themselves and Europe.
In a common security architecture that protects everyone, not just one side.
Here is someone who is dead wrong in my view and profoundly disagrees with you.
I don't know where her political career is going to take her.
I hope nowhere.
This is the Commissioner for Foreign Affairs.
I don't even remember her first name.
Her last name is Kaya Kalas, the former head of the government in Estonia.
She's the Commissioner for Foreign Affairs.
of the EU two days ago here in New York before the Security Council of the United Nations.
Chris, cut number 10.
And today we are witnessing the gravest violation and breakdown of the international law since the Second World War.
As a result, peace and security are in demise.
The breakdown of international law is evident in today's two preeminent global crises, Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine and the war in the Middle East.
Russia is executing one of the most outrageous breaches of the international law in the United Nations history by invading a sovereign country and turning its back on its obligations as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
The war in the Middle East has caused immense instability and cost far too many lives.
It is no longer regional or simply about the security in the region.
It affects Ripple worldwide.
Of the CIA MI6 coup against Viktor Yanukovych in 2014.
No mention of the United States and Israel engaged in naked aggression.
Europe's Regional Instability00:07:16
I guess she's campaigning for something.
Maybe she wants to head the World Bank or the IMF, or she wants to succeed Vanderlyn, or maybe she wants to run the UN.
Who knows?
But she has things in reverse.
Well, she's a hopeless case.
She is an incarnation of everything is wrong with the EU institutions.
Totally irresponsible person.
She was brought in together with the other Baltics politicians by von der Leyen because von der Leyen wanted non entities.
She wanted people whom she could dominate since she is an authoritarian, dictatorial personality.
So Kai Kalas came in, and unfortunately for her, von der Leyen didn't appreciate what a backstabber she was bringing in.
Nonetheless, you've mentioned two outstanding.
Points of the present day which were missing from the speech.
But we want to speak about naked aggression and my goodness, going after a sovereign state.
It would happen to Hungary in 1956.
What happened to Czechoslovakia in 1968?
Somehow, well, as I said, politicians tend to have very shallow memories.
So I leave it at that.
She has no memory.
But we, otherwise, particularly in the historical community, we would be remiss if we don't look back more than two weeks.
Wow.
Here's Chancellor Mers two days ago.
Chris, number 14.
We'll be coordinating closely when it comes to Ukrainian citizens who have sought refuge in our country and will make it easier for them to return home.
The efforts of the number of Ukrainian men who take refuge here is something We'll be working with Ukraine to limit because it is crucial that these men are there to help their country.
Sounds like he's going to expel Ukrainian men who have escaped Ukraine in order to avoid the draft.
I won't mince words, Andrew.
He is a Nazi.
And this is one of the tragedies of present day Europe.
The very few people.
Call out.
We have been, since the middle of Angela Merkel's tenure as Chancellor, Europe has been run by the Germans.
I mean, Hitler would be smiling wherever he is, probably down in hell, but he's smiling at what he sees up here because Germany has taken over.
Germany has the biggest party within the European People's Party, that is the CDU, of which Merz is a member.
Runs the European People's Party, which runs the parliament, which elects the commission, which installs the warmongers, von der Leyen and Kallas.
The Germans are calling it all.
And he, Mr. Metz, by his befriending Zelensky for purposes of putting in German manufacturing on behalf of Ukraine, entering into military cooperation closely with Ukraine.
He is a warmonger and he is a true descendant of his father and grandfather, Nazis in World War II.
He is a revisionist.
That's our tragedy.
Is he in danger of being replaced by whoever's the head of AFD?
No chance in the world.
And AFD is in its own crisis because they have a West and an East.
Weidel is representing the West, the dominant side.
And she has been.
Making little baby steps towards NATO and away from Russia.
Let's be honest about it.
I think that those among us who are seeing the praise of the Alternative Deutschland are missing the subtlety, which isn't so subtle.
The eastern branch, which is the core population of the Alternative Deutschland, they are Russia friendly.
They, in their upcoming regional elections, are calling for setting up exchanges of.
Of students between Germany and Russia.
They are Russia friendly.
The AFD led by Weidel is now NATO friendly.
Let's not make mistakes about this.
Let's, before we conclude, go to one of your favorite topics, President Putin.
What is the pressure like on him now to bring the war to an end or to leave the scene?
Enormous pressure.
Leave the scene is improbable, but that he will change direction.
He is a consummate politician, after all.
He just has to do what the rules of the game tell you.
If everyone's going against you, then you change your direction.
And if he does that, then the war can end once.
Every evening on state television, there are calls for the war to end quickly.
Now, he cannot remain resistant to that.
When you say on state television, does that mean he is aware of these calls and his government has authorized them?
And if the answer to those two questions is yes, what is the purpose of that?
To acclimate the public to a massive crushing of Kyiv, military crushing of Kyiv?
I believe so.
And he doesn't have to watch his own television.
He can watch your show, as he probably does, because it's in, after all, your appearances with Mitri Simes on The Great Game.
Of course, they watch that in the Kremlin.
So, of course, they're aware of what we are saying.
And our programs are going onto Routube, where maybe they don't have 100,000 viewers, but I think the viewers are pretty important folks.
Well, what do you think will happen in the special military operation in the next five or six months?
I think it will end.
I think it will end.
Certainly, this war is not going to go beyond this calendar year.
And it most likely will end by the Russians declaring it's over, they've won.
I think they can take a page out of Donald Trump's book.
All they have to do is to say that it's now a frozen conflict.
That's once they reach the Dnieper River after they've taken Odessa, which is certainly feasible within six months.
And so they have no peace treaty.
So what?
All they have to declare is any foreign troops or installations that try to enter with the rump Ukraine will be blown up at once.
That's all the problem.
Wow.
Frozen Conflict Strategy00:00:50
Good, but Dr. O, thank you.
A fascinating conversation from my perspective, and I can tell from the perspective of the audience and the comments so many of them have made.
We've been across the board here, and I love being able to pick your brain on all these topics.
Thank you, my dear friend.
We'll look forward to seeing you next week.
A great pleasure.
Thank you.
We have an interesting day coming up for you.
If you're watching us live in 35 minutes from Tehran, Professor Mohamed Morandi, 9 o'clock Eastern.
At 1 o'clock this afternoon, not sure where he is, but he'll be with us, Pepe Escobar.