Trump may not be in power, but his Ukraine rhetoric has spooked Europe

Republican presidential nominee can still undermine trust in US global leadership and is reminiscent of the GOP in the 1940s

Amid the grandiose surroundings of the Bayerischer Hof hotel in Munich's historic old town, previously cautious and low-key German politicians were in such a state of alarm about future US commitment to Nato that they were discussing how Germany might acquire an independent nuclear deterrent, potentially overturning decades of national defense doctrine.

The setting was the annual Munich security conference in April and the talk among statesmen and officials gathered in the Bavarian capital was dominated by the ad-libbed threat from Donald Trump days earlier to encourage Russia to do what the hell they want" with European alliance members supposedly derelict in paying for their own protection.