Quote of the Day (Celeste Wallander, on ‘The Biggest Threat to NATO Today’)

“NATO can structure disincentives and punishments for backsliders, but only citizens can hold elected leaders accountable. Most important, the United States must rise to meet the challenge…. Americans must face the fact that the biggest threat to NATO today may be the United States itself. Regardless of political party and policy preferences, all Americans have a patriotic interest in protecting the laws, practices and institutions of U.S. liberal democracy. This is not merely a matter of domestic politics; it is also a matter of national security. Threats to democracy at home have already undermined Washington's ability to work with allies in a dangerous, uncertain, and threatening world. As the most powerful member of NATO, the United States must take the lead through a bipartisan defense of liberal institutions and values.”— Celeste Wallander, American international relations advisor and former assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs at the U. S. Defense Department, “NATO’s Enemies Within: How Democratic Decline Could Destroy the Alliance,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2018

Since Ms. Wallander wrote this, NATO has been battered even more than what concerned her originally. The cause was the same, as indeed it has been with the tariff imbroglio: the President in charge at the time who inflicted on this country a diplomatic self-inflicted wound.

(The image of Celeste Wallander that accompanies this post was taken Feb. 22, 2022.)