Concern about the alliance’s durability might as well be written into its mission statement.

Follow this authorDavid Ignatius's opinions

The alliance was founded with what Dean Acheson, the secretary of state who drafted its founding treaty, described in his memoir as “basic problems, which NATO has never been able to solve.” The alliance was “a body … without a head,” unable to compel its members to do anything. And NATO’s collective defense required “increased forces from its members,” though many European nations from the start refused to pay their fair share.

At the signing ceremony for the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949, Acheson noted, the Marine Band played two songs from the musical “Porgy and Bess” that unintentionally highlighted gaps in the alliance’s bold promises. The tunes were “I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’” and “It Ain’t Necessarily So.”

Advertisement

As NATO waged the Cold War, its core conundrums remained. When Kissinger became Nixon’s national security adviser in 1969, he saw three big issues: America’s “flexible response” doctrine of nuclear retaliation against a Russian attack, the alliance’s formula for sharing defense costs and the number of U.S. troops needed in Europe. Those questions persist to this day, even as NATO remains the world’s most successful alliance.

Panic is the flavor of the day in Washington, and in this anxious environment, the NATO summit may seem like a television rerun from the 1960s. But if we take a closer look, we can see reasons the alliance is less fragile than the current political climate on both sides of the Atlantic.

The White House had planned this week’s summit as a celebration of NATO as guarantor of collective security — and of Biden’s role as steward of that relationship. Those arguments may seem wobbly now, but I’d argue that both remain true, regardless of what happens at the ballot box in November. As for Trump’s lead in the polls, voters can surprise us, as the recent victory of the left-wing parties over the hard right in France demonstrated.

Advertisement

For all Biden’s political troubles, his NATO laurel is well deserved. He helped refurbish the alliance after four years of Trump’s disdain. He shared American intelligence secrets to warn Europe that Russia truly intended to invade Ukraine; he mobilized NATO to help valiant Ukrainians defend their country. Some argue in hindsight that he didn’t do enough, but a more aggressive American stance might have busted........

© Washington Post