Nato needs to act before it becomes obsolete

Washington, DC is a town full of tradition. There’s the State of the Union address at the beginning of the year and the cherry blossom festival in March and April, when tourists around the world descend on the nation’s capital. There’s the ritualistic glad-handing, ego-stroking, and gossip-milling. And, of course, there’s the never-ending infatuation with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—the transatlantic security body that helped keep Europe whole, free, and at peace during the Cold War.

The Soviet menace, however, has been dead and buried for close to 30 years. Ever since that infamous day in 1989, when the world woke up to the news that the Soviet machine was tumbling down, Nato has struggled to justify its existence. Nato, after all, was a military alliance designed for the explicit purpose of keeping the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down. By the time the Berlin Wall fell, all three of those objectives were met.