A year ago Donald Trump, who had not yet become US president for the second time, promised an enthusiastic crowd that his landslide election victory would mark the beginning of a new"golden age" for America. But while he was basking in his resounding victory, a"chorus of gloomy voices" foretold that the rest of the world was entering a nightmarish age of darkness, especially dangerous for America's allies in Europe, writes The Telegraph.

For months, Trump's campaign rhetoric has painted a bleak picture of what he intends to do to countries that have been friends of the United States for generations. If other NATO allies don't start spending more on their own militaries, Trump will not only refuse to honor U.S. treaty obligations to protect them, but will also"encourage" the Russians to "do whatever they want," the media wrote.

He promised to end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours, which raised speculation that America might team up with Kremlin dictator Putin to force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to agree to Russia's terms and choose surrender as the quickest way to establish peace, while also giving Israel complete freedom of action to wage war in Gaza.

And by imposing punitive tariffs, Trump would inflame America’s rivalry with China, risking an uncontrolled escalation between the two Pacific powers. But after a year of noise and fury, the truth is that none of these Trumpist nightmare scenarios have materialized, the article says. Trump has demonstrated a capacity for real foreign policy success.

Strategy of uncertainty regarding Ukraine and Russia

Uncertainty can work both ways. By keeping everyone constantly in a state of imbalance, Trump can also convince an aggressor that the consequences of testing America are too unpredictable to risk.

And if there is a guiding principle for Trump’s foreign policy, it is one of radical uncertainty. By forcing both friends and adversaries to play a perpetual game of guessing whether it is rhetoric or reality, Trump seeks to bend them to his will.

No one felt this more than Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who faced Trump’s wrath in the Oval Office in February. America temporarily withheld intelligence sharing and arms supplies, with the apparent goal of breaking Zelensky and forcing him to capitulate to Putin.

However, by September, Trump had made a complete U-turn and declared that Ukraine could not only defeat the Russian invasion, but also return every inch of the occupied territories and"reconquer all of Ukraine in its original form."

If Putin believed he was somehow exempt from the rule of radical uncertainty or had a privileged understanding of Trump’s decision-making, recent events have come as a rude shock. On October 22, Trump abruptly canceled a summit with Putin and took steps to strangle Russia’s oil revenues by imposing sanctions that cripple Rosneft and Lukoil.

Amidst all the zigzags, Trump’s policy toward Ukraine seems to have acquired several consistent threads: America will not simply let Russia win, but Congress will not ask for new multibillion-dollar aid packages either. Trump will expect Europe to shoulder the lion’s share of the costs of supporting Ukraine; any American weapons will not be given as gifts, but will be sold to Kyiv on commercial terms.

At the same time, the latest sanctions show that Trump is willing to put more economic pressure on Russia than Biden ever did.

"Trump has realized that he cannot allow Ukraine to lose, especially if the responsibility is placed on him. He is doing everything to put maximum pressure on the Europeans to close the financial holes," noted former British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who dealt with Trump during his first term.

Given that Ukraine is the largest country in Europe after Russia, it is not unreasonable to expect European governments to foot the bulk of the bill for supporting Zelensky. And so for now, Trump is unlikely to run away from Ukraine or any other international crisis.

What about Europe itself?

Trump has reportedly even strengthened NATO over the past 12 months, intimidating European allies into spending more on their own defense. And he has struck at Putin’s “carotid artery” of revenue in a way that President Biden never did, by imposing U.S. sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil.

To understand the scale of NATO’s transformation, journalists suggest recalling that when Putin first invaded Ukraine in 2014, only two European allies – the United Kingdom and Greece – were spending more than 2% of GDP on defense. Even when Putin launched a full-scale offensive eight years later, in 2022, only six European states were meeting the 2% target.

This year, by contrast, all 32 NATO members will reach this level, and five European countries - Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Norway - will go further and spend more on defense (as a share of GDP) than the United States.

"The sobering truth is that even Putin's aggression alone would not have been enough to unleash the 'supertanker' of European defense spending - it also required Trump's threats to leave the alliance," the article states.

At the NATO summit in The Hague in June, Trump managed to convince allies to raise their defense spending well above 2% to 3.5% of GDP, plus another 1.5% on top of that for national security infrastructure. In exchange for this commitment, Trump agreed to reaffirm “the unwavering commitment to collective defense enshrined in Article 5 of the treaty — that an attack on one is an attack on all.”

That is why Putin now faces a Europe that is rearming faster than anyone could have imagined just three years ago, while Trump has publicly reaffirmed America’s readiness to defend its allies. On paper at least, such an achievement should make Europe safer.

Other interesting news about Trump's policies

UNIAN previously reported that the American president recently responded, Will Orban be allowed to continue receiving sanctioned oil? Russia. He confirmed that the Prime Minister of Hungary had indeed approached him on this issue, but was refused.

In addition, we also reported that Trump's claims to Greenland brought results Denmark has begun working to truly protect the island.