NATO Closes Ranks to Confront Putin’s Aggression

Welcome to the Brussels Edition, Bloomberg’s daily briefing on what matters most in the heart of the European Union.

Vladimir Putin’s decision to wage war on Ukraine is changing the global order — just not in the way he planned. Two days after the Russian president sent forces into Ukraine, state media celebrated “a new era,” marked by the end of Western domination and the severing of bonds between the U.S. and continental Europe. As the war rages on, that looks at best premature. From London to Berlin and Baltic capitals like Tallinn, the metrics of defending Europe have been torn up. A large scale war is no longer unthinkable and nations are reconsidering what they spend and how they would fight. Ahead of a NATO summit in Brussels tomorrow, its European members are cleaving to it, rather than splitting from the U.S. As a former head of the U.K.’s Joint Forces Command put it: “Ukraine is paying a high price to buy us time” to confront the Kremlin.