What Would Reagan Do? Strengthen NATO

Three decades ago, President Ronald Reagan worked to preserve and strengthen the North Atlantic Treaty Organization from concerted external subversion and internal discord. He succeeded in deploying modern theater nuclear weapons, protecting Europe and ultimately helping defeat NATO’s principal enemy: the Soviet Union.

Today, the Free World’s most important alliance is once again under assault. Vladimir Putin’s Russia has attacked Ukraine and threatened nuclear attacks on NATO members. And critics – notably, Donald Trump – are once again challenging not just the alliance’s burden-sharing, but the wisdom of its continued existence.

The truth is that, under circumstances like today’s, if NATO didn’t exist, it would be a sensible American policy to try to establish it. The alliance needs strengthening, not dismantling, to deal jointly with not only external dangers, but those arising from the jihadists within.