Beau of The Fifth Column
Let's talk about Trump, tripwire troops, talks about Ukraine, and air power....
21 Aug 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Well, howdy there, Internet people. It's Belle again. So today, we're going to talk about Trump, tripwire troops, and talks about Ukraine. When Trump had his meeting with Putin, Putin ordered Trump not to allow Ukraine into NATO.
Chapter 2: What are the implications of Trump's meeting with Putin regarding Ukraine?
Immediately, the promise of what's being called Article 5-like protections was being floated. Article 5 is a clause that would be invoked to bring all of NATO into a fight. Because of broken promises in the past, Ukraine is understandably hesitant to accept promises or guarantees that aren't formalized through NATO. This brought about the discussion of tripwire troops.
Tripwire troops are not something that often gets discussed in the United States, because we as a country like to pretend we'd never do something like this. I've known people who have served as tripwire troops who didn't know that's what they were. If you served in Berlin during the Cold War, you were a tripwire troop. Korea, same thing. Now in theory, the troops are there to act as a deterrent.
The US put troops in West Berlin to tell the Soviets, if you take Berlin, you'll have to go through our forces and it'll start a war. So what's the difference between a tripwire troop and a troop just simply defending the territory? In most cases, the tripwire troops have exactly zero chance of success in holding the territory.
They're there to become casualties in the event of an attack, and therefore the public at home will support the war and counterattack. It's an incredibly cynical theory of deterrence, but it's used all over the world. Just to demonstrate that it isn't just the US that engages in this, and because I know we have a large number of British and Canadian viewers.
Pretty much all of your troops in Germany from 1957 until about 1970 were a tripwire force. The theory at the time had them being destroyed by Soviet nukes within the first 72 hours or so of conflict. Trump has expressed that he doesn't want to put U.S. ground troops into Ukraine if there's a peace, but he seems agreeable to committing U.S. air power to European nations.
The obvious question is why?
It's unlikely that Trump has a problem with tripwire troops as a concept, since Trump dropped troop numbers in Afghanistan to just 2,500 as he was leaving office, turning them into tripwire troops.
He probably doesn't want to commit troops because he wants the ability to simply walk away if Russia was to renew its attack on Ukraine after a hypothetical peace is achieved. Without troops there, he can simply say no. Despite all of the questions on this topic, I feel like I should point out that it's kind of moot.
The Russian foreign ministry categorically rejected the presence of NATO troops in Ukraine. Given Trump's history, he'll probably back away from the whole thing now. But it does make you wonder, right? Why would Putin have a problem with the presence of forces that are too small to adequately defend Ukraine and certainly wouldn't be enough to attack Russia?
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