Trump and Putin share a craving for status. That’s why they both want to destroy Europe | Henry Farrell and Sergey Radchenko

There are people who argue that Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine is not motivated by fears or imperial ambitions, but by other countries’ disrespect. Russia once commanded authority as one of the world’s two superpowers, but it has since forfeited that status. It knows it has lost the respect of other countries (Barack Obama famously dismissed Russia as just a “regional power”), and the Ukraine war is its way of winning it back.

What is perhaps surprising is that Donald Trump’s turn against Europe has similar motivations. Putin knows his aggressive revanchism won’t win Russia any love among countries whose respect he craves. But if he can’t be loved, he hopes at least to be feared. If you are in a social order that regards you as inferior, you have every incentive to turn spoiler.

So, too, Trump wants to disrupt a social order that regards him and his worldview with contempt. The US president and his officials get respect from dictators and kings (although perhaps not from the ones whose respect they most want – Putin and Xi Jinping), but they know that the leaders of many other democratic countries look down their noses at them.

Now it is America that wants to act as spoiler, smashing the existing hierarchy of respect to replace it with a world where Trump will get unqualified obeisance. Europe, with its emphasis on the rule of law and multilateralism, is the strongest remaining example of an entire system of prestige and values that the Trump administration wants to destroy.