NATO is more unified than ever. But what about those tanks?
The impressive unity of the Western alliance against Russian aggression has been marred in recent days by an ugly and unnecessary spat over whether Germany will send tanks to Ukraine. But while that dispute needs to be resolved pronto, it should not detract from the Biden administration’s success in keeping a large group of allies marching largely in lockstep. The United States has assembled such a massive coalition only twice before in recent history: first in 1990-1991 to defeat Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War and then in 2014 to defeat the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Lloyd Austin led the latter fight when he was the four-star head of U.S. Central Command. Now, as defense secretary, he is one of the behind-the-scenes architects of the pro-Ukraine coalition. He invited me to accompany him on a whirlwind trip to Germany last week to see how the diplomatic sausage gets made.
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