Spheres of Influence
As Poland's borders were breached, Trump had dinner.
September 10, 2025
Will Poland be Trump’s Sudetenland? Or will further incursions lead instead to his Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact?
As Russian drones swarmed across the Polish border, the President and his Secretary of State/National Security Advisor ate seafood a block from the White House, inside a heavily guarded perimeter, in an attempt to demonstrate how safe DC has become. Even the Donald could have cankled back quickly to convene his advisors in the Situation Room. But he didn’t.
The New York Times reports:
Russian drones have crossed into Poland before, including twice last week. But the apparent scale of the incursion and the joint NATO response in the early hours of Wednesday was a startling reminder of the risk that the war in Ukraine could escalate into direct confrontation between Russia and NATO. It was not yet clear whether Russia intentionally sent its drones into Poland, which would represent a clear expansion of the conflict.
As I begin writing, there has been no White House response.
Trump’s endgame, and his understanding of his relationship to Vladimir Putin, is unclear. It is somewhat more obvious what Putin’s goals are. The relationship with Trump is transactional, possibly in the way that blackmail is a transaction. At a minimum, goalwise, Putin’s intent to destabilize democracies is clear; the more that democracy falters, the more it bolsters the case for the authoritarianism that is resurgent around the world, and helps Putin maintain his grip on the Russian state. It also saps resistance to his regional expansionism; it is widely believed that he harbors the hope of rebuilding the Russian empire in eastern Europe. A functional NATO is a locked door to that goal.
But is it more than that? Does Putin work from a conception of a changed world order? Who shares that aspiration, if so?
Back when Trump was fantasizing about returning to the White House to be a literal Imperial President, after taking over Greenland, Panama and Canada, pundits began talking about “spheres of influence.” It hearkens back to the time when European colonizers held sway over much of the globe, and U.S. President Monroe articulated the doctrine that bears his name: countries that exert undue influence in the Americas (our “backyard,” as the formula came to be framed) will be regarded as hostile powers by the United States.
Nineteenth Century spheres of influence pertained largely to the claims staked by European powers, but a modern version would be different. As Trump articulated designs over other sovereign nations in the Americas, the idea came to the fore that perhaps the future was one where the world was divided between three major powers, with the US having domain over the Western hemisphere, Russia “doing whatever the hell it wants” in Europe, and China exerting its authority over East Asia, and perhaps beyond.
Trump’s actions do not inspire confidence that he does not yearn for a more aggressive world order. A number of actions by the Administration signal a hostility to the “rule-based international order,” dating at least to Trump praising the “genius” of Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Trump’s hostility to NATO is longstanding, and I doubt European leaders have much confidence that we will honor the pact if it comes to that, even though the only time NATO came to the defense of one of its own, that one was the U.S.
Meanwhile, China is strengthened perhaps more than anyone by Trump’s actions. The destruction of USAID left China, with its Belt and Road Initiative, the clear winner in the great game to cultivate soft power in the Global South. The recent conference in Beijing that brought Putin, Modi and Kim, among others, was a show of forward-thinking dominance. And it is certain that China is watching how things unfold for Russia’s adventures abroad. If Trump is able to fizzle international efforts to aid Ukraine and end Putin’s war of aggression, it might be time for the People’s Army to cross the Taiwan Strait. There and further into Southeast Asia, the country has been aggressively fortifying its position.
Whether Trump intends to embolden America’s traditional enemies, and to undermine the rules, norms and alliances that have kept war to a simmer for seventy years, he has. He is, and he will. Three quarters of a day after the incident, Trump has finally spoken out about the Russian drones in Polish airspace. “What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!” he said, in the tropes of observational comedy. The headlines and commentary evinced the dismay we all feel at his lack of leadership:
Time Magazine: “Trump Breaks Silence After Poland Says It Shot Down Russian Drones Violating Its Airspace: ‘Here We Go’”
Washington Post: “President Donald Trump has offered an ambiguous initial response to Russia's drone incursion into Poland's airspace.”
CNN: “President Donald Trump reacted Wednesday with a degree of bemusement toward Russia's drone incursion into Poland….”
Here we go.
It is not really possible to know how far Pres. Trump intends to go in his emulation of dictators, strongmen and warmongers; impossible, I think, because he himself does not have a plan, or a strategy that is coherent from day to day.
His ambassador to NATO had strong words, sounding rather like a diplomat, or a Biden spokesman: “We stand by our NATO allies in the face of these airspace violations and will defend every inch of NATO territory.”
But what credibility do our promises have? And what reassurances do they offer Europe or any of us when Trump, through incompetence or deliberation, emboldens those who would take us back to a time when strong nations overran weaker ones – what confidence can we have when, indeed, Trump himself has mused about taking Greenland by force, reneging on our handover of the Panama canal, annexing Canada, when our warships rattle sabers off the coast of Venezuela and shoot small boats out of the water without consideration for international law?
In the end, whether or not the U.S. makes good on its commitment to Europe, NATO will remain, and will be more than a mere speedbump to Putin’s ambitions. Xi’s prospects for global economic dominance will likely keep thoughts of regional military dominance in check. And Donald Trump lacks the constancy to be the head of a genuine invading and occupying army.
But the thing about the rules-based international order is that rules are, as the saying goes, made to be broken – the system that keeps us safe has no hard boundaries, no certainty. It is based on alliances and trust. And the more that current events shake our collective faith in those, the more structural weakness is introduced, and the more likely the system is to fail, down the line.
In the end, the real consequences of Trump’s inconstancy, his disdain for our allies and his idolatry of perceived despots and conquerors may not be the instability we are experiencing now, when a gaggle of drones drifts like Nena’s 99 Luftballons across dangerous borders. It may be that the real damage is measured in the lost lives of our grandchildren thirty years in the future.