 NATO leaders fear that Trump will return with a vengeance and destroy the organization. NATO leaders are war-gaming a potential second term for former President Donald Trump with a former senior member of the organization telling Newsweek that many in its upper echelon sphere he could come back with a vengeance. The runaway leader for the Republican nomination is barreling toward the November presidential election, showing no sign of easing his criticism of the 74-year-old alliance and its European members in particular. Look, NATO has taken advantage of our country. Trump said last week, the European countries took advantage, asked about his commitment to defending NATO nations while in office, Trump replied, depends if they treat us properly. Some NATO officials publicly welcomed such criticism when Trump was in office, crediting the president with pushing national leaders, several of whom chafed at White House coercion closer to agreed defense spending targets. But the majority of alliance members have still not reached the 2% of GDP military spending targets set in 2014. The latest remarks could be considered ominous given Trump's past assertions that NATO is obsolete and his reported threats to pull the US out of the alliance unless other members rapidly expanded their military expenditure. Such criticism came before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine revitalized the trans-Atlantic bloc. But many in the NATO establishment fear President Vladimir Putin's historic gamble has not necessarily swung Trump behind the trans-Atlantic cause, not least because of the former president's repeated calls for Ukraine to make concessions to Russia. Within NATO leadership, there is probably the worry that this time Trump is going to be serious about pulling out. Fabrice Pothier, a former director of policy planning for NATO, told Newsweek the doomsday scenario for NATO is that Trump follows through on his threat to withdraw from the alliance.