Last week’s brief NATO celebratory summit meeting for the alliance’s seventieth anniversary displayed tumult and dysfunction. Three of NATO’s crucial players proceeded to roil the proceedings. And such disruption is not all bad.
Before the meeting, French President Emmanuel Macron—furious at President Trump’s lack of coordination with NATO allies in the U.S. troop pullback in Syria and other instances—lamented that NATO had suffered “brain death,” a clear jab at the alleged lack of U.S. leadership under Trump, and renewed his call for Europeans to augment their own alternative military capabilities. Unsurprisingly, Trump took personal umbrage at this remark aimed clearly at